Did slaves build the Pyramids?

[ashley.hunt60]

Apparently new evidence is coming out that no, no they did not. Paid laborers did, or so they are saying. This seems to poke a only minor whole in the bible(Guess that whole Moses and ten commandments thing didn't happen). Anyway, does this hold water? I wonder what Christians/Jews are saying.

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/py...egypt.html

[Juppers]

They're probably thinking up arguments to dismiss the evidence as 'irrelevant'. After all, the bible does not make any specific mention that Moses' Jews worked on the pyramids, or at least not from what I recall.

[ashley.hunt60]

Perhaps they had slaves to build the tombs of the laborers.

[Unbeliever]

(28-03-2010 10:40 AM)ashley.hunt60 Wrote:  Apparently new evidence is coming out that no, no they did not. Paid laborers did, or so they are saying. This seems to poke a only minor whole in the bible(Guess that whole Moses and ten commandments thing didn't happen). Anyway, does this hold water? I wonder what Christians/Jews are saying.

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/py...egypt.html

Actually, the evidence says that both slaves and skilled workers built the pyramids. The slaves were used to transport and align the blocks - basically, they did all the heavy lifting, while the skilled workers put on the fine touches and worked out the engineering problems.
Though this information is a little old. Where did you hear this? If they really did just use skilled workers, then that's really interesting.

EDIT: Ah, never mind. I missed the link at the end of your post. This is definitely very interesting, though I would say that they are jumping to conclusions a little bit. That some of the pyramid workers were respected does not mean that slaves were not involved as well.

[supermanlives1973]

(28-03-2010 10:40 AM)ashley.hunt60 Wrote:  Apparently new evidence is coming out that no, no they did not. Paid laborers did, or so they are saying. This seems to poke a only minor whole in the bible(Guess that whole Moses and ten commandments thing didn't happen). Anyway, does this hold water? I wonder what Christians/Jews are saying.

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/py...egypt.html

I remember seeing a documentary on Discovery around this topic. The idea was that the Pharoah at the time (I think it was either Aminhotep or Ramses) wanted to outdo the previous Pharoah. They appealed to the Egyptian people through patriotism (of sorts) to the current Pharoah, and did not use much slave labour (aside from the slaves used to feed the laborers).

Or, it may have been Khufu:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/25...-giza.html

[shiranl]

WOW, your timing is perfect- today we celebrate the Seder Night, when we read the Hagada and celebrate the freedom from Egypt.

Actually, this is old news. for a long time we know that the slaves didn't built the Pyramids, but we do know that there were slaves in Ancient Egypt (and that I'm saying because of archaeological findings, not religious belief). other then that, there are archaeological findings which clear the fact that there was a staying of semitic people (aka Israelis) in Ancient Egypt.

But all this isn't important so much. I don't believe in God, I don't believe in stories which doesn't have scientific facts (like the crossing of the Red Sea, or Mount Sinai which isn't found 'till today). But I do believe those stories, those myths, are important and need to stay in the Jewish life. this is a culture, a Jewish one. and rather it's true or not isn't the issue. the holidays, the religious one, contains more than religious belief. it contains music, food, customs, language. everything which define a culture is in the Jewish holidays. and culture can't be bad.
And that exactly why I will celebrate tonight the Seder Night.