Is it true that Egyptians had workers and not slaves?

Question

We've long been taught that the Pyramids were built by slaves.

Is it true ? And did the Pharaohs really use the Jews as slaves?

Answer 1

They hired many skilled artisans and labourers for all their large construction. In addition, they also had a large contingent of slaves. And yes, Jews, along with many other races, were used as slaves.

Answer 2

The answer is no. The Pharaohs did not use slaves to build the pyramids. At that time Egypt didn't have Hebrew slaves and didn't conquer Nubia or the Levant yet. They used off season farmers who had harvested their crop already. The farmers were payed with food and provided with essentials to help the pharaoh. They weren't forced. The ancient Egyptians regarded the Pharaoh as a God and saw it as their duty to serve him

Answer 3

It depends on what period in Egyptian history you're talking about. When the pyramids were built Abraham wasn't even alive yet.

Answer 4

Yes, they had Jewish slaves.

Answer 5

Besides their large construction projects, "Most slaves in Egypt probably worked as house servants, or as skilled dancers, musicians, accountants, scribes, or that sort of thing, as Joseph did in the Bible"  So even before they conquested all the other lands they "came originally from Egypt - often children sold into slavery by poor families." When those "offseason farmers" went to build the pyramids, they surely signed up their domestic/farmhand slaves as well.  So even if they were not all slaves to the Pharaoh, many even most of these workers were still slaves.  Infact I would not be surprised if the more well off farmers signed their slaves up for service instead of themselves rather than as well as themselves.

Answer 6

Its true.  Check out the article in the May/June issue of Archeology magazine.

Answer 7

Roderick F is right.  Most of the pyramids were built long before the Jews made their appearance historically and many if not most scholars believe they were not built using slave labor at all (or perhaps a nominal number of slaves).

Excavated skeletons show that the workers were Egyptians who lived in villages developed and overseen by the pharaoh's supervisors.  The builders' villages boasted bakers, butchers, brewers, granaries, houses, cemeteries, and probably even some sorts of health-care facilities—there is evidence of laborers surviving crushed or amputated limbs. Bakeries excavated near the Great Pyramids could have produced thousands of loaves of bread every week.

Some of the builders were permanent employees of the pharaoh. Others were conscripted for a limited time from local villages. Some may have been women: Although no depictions of women builders have been found, some female skeletons show wear that suggests they labored with heavy stone for long periods of time.

Graffiti indicates that at least some of these workers took pride in their work, calling their teams "Friends of Khufu," "Drunkards of Menkaure," and so on—names indicating allegiances to pharaohs.

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 workers built the Pyramids at Giza over 80 years.

Answer 8

Ancient Egyptians had the first organized labor strike.

Answer 9

The ancient Egyptians certainly had slavery. Some would have been born or sold into slavery, and some would have been prisoners captured in campaigns. Since Israel was in an area that was periodically lost and regained by Egypt over the centuries some of these slaves probably were Jews, but the wholesale enslavement of the Jewish race in Egypt is probably not historically accurate. They would have been a small group mixed in with all other kinds of Palestinians, Syrians, Libyans etc.

However, the bulk of the labor force was peasants, not slaves. There were probably some slaves working on the pyramids and other monuments but most of the laborers would have been peasant draftees. The Ten Commandmants depiction of the pyramids being build by huge armies of slaves is simply wrong to the best of our knowledge.

Answer 10

Well in the ancient egyptian point of view they would call the jews workers but it's really more like slavery since they were

not given any privilege and it was forced labor but well

there's a little difference between a worker and a slave