The Power in the Pyramids
by How did the Egyptians build the pyramids of Giza?
The pyramids are certainly awe-inspiring.
Yet it is always the construction that is impressive, while the pyramids themselves are seen as apparently useless.
How did the workers build such amazing monuments? We have several practical ways figured out how they could have done it mechanically. Moving a fifteen-ton block of stone sideways would take a lot of manpower. But that is nothing compared to the effort required to raise it up and stack it with several other fifteen-ton blocks like a demented game of Lego’s. Getting an American union to do the same project, even with the help of bulldozers, would only be possible through a couple strikes and several pay raises.
How they mechanically created a geometric mountain with nearly prehistoric workers is worth many essays, but that is not what really intrigues me about the pyramids. What really gets my goat is how did they manage to get the workers interested in the project at all? How did the Egyptian government get that much enthusiasm assembled on a single project?
Was the construction environment similar to the comparatively well-documented Great Wall of China? Did whips drive the workers? Did they occasionally die mid-step, just to have their bodies cast to the side of the road? Did they go bed at night, bruised and bloodied, resenting life and hating the Emperor?
Or did they feel more like the builders of the Empire State Building? Did they go home to their families every night to a meal of Americanized spaghetti? Or to the bar to celebrate a hard days work over a glass of beer? Did they fall asleep, glad to be part of such an amazing project, and full of American (or Egyptian) pride?
The Pharaoh or High Priest that sanctioned the construction of the pyramids was most likely insane. Unless there was some sort of unknown national workforce crisis, building the pyramids can be seen today only as an enormous waste of time.
In the end, the pyramids are not a monument to an obviously insane ancient leader; they are a monument to the inherent power of mankind.
Liked it
