cladking Wrote:
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> The Palace of Versailles?
>
> It looks very impressive on Wikipedia. They
> suggest that it probably required 6 to 25% of
> French income to build but this is no doubt
> referencing government income. The Great Pyramid
> being built with primitive technology using
> commonly accepted means might cost close to 25% of
> GNP!!! Large numbers of men would have been
> called upon to actually contribute effort to it.

Actually, more recent estimates considerd that at most perhaps 15,000 people (men, as well as children and women, who provided the food for the male workers) worked in the Great Pyramid construction (and this was not year-round as I recall). You should look into Lehner's book on the Complete Pyramids for more on this. As such, I doubt that 25% of the GNP was directed to its completion.

> Of course much of the work would have been
> essentially "wasted" since the workers had no
> pressing business otherwise during the busy season
> for building.

Essentially, work on the pyramids has been considered in the past as examples of corvée labour [an obligation imposed on inhabitants of a district to perform services, for little or no remuneration by a feudal lord].

Yet, Lehner's archaeological work shows that the workers were well-cared for, paid in bread, beer, vegetables, and meats, which would have been welcomed since much of their work was performed during the Inundation periods, when food was not available and most of the residents of Egypt would have relied upon stored food in the government granaries.

So, workers were compensated and it appears, from Lehner's work, very well compensated - firstly in in their food selection (which was far more that the traditionally thought pay of "bread and onions"). They were also provided a city of sorts in which to live during their work sessions (also found by Lehner's excavations), and in which their familes joined them.

Perhaps a bit like the Civilian Conservation Corps of the Great Depression, where people (primarily single males) were moved to sections of the country for government-related construction projects, and the Works Project Administration of the New Deal era of US history which provided needed local and national construction projects, the work provided by the Great Pyramids construction may have provided essential work which equaled food, clothing and housing for those normally agrarian populace displaced by annual flooding.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom