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.

Versailles is actually a chateau, not a palais. It is a country house. It is a huge country house, but it is one nonetheless. And while we have some of the records as to its cost, we don't have a GDP to compare it with. Again, it's the problem of calculating the GDP/GNP of an essentially agrarian society. A secondary factor with Versailles was the huge amount of money it generated as people came to see the latest fashions & styles.

>
> The Hoover dam and most modern works are capital
> projects designed for functional purposes and to
> return a profit to bond holders and other
> stakeholders. Indeed, many of the ancient massive
> projects were apparently intended to serve
> important functions and pay dividends to the
> builders. Often these were for military purposes.

Military construction has long been understood to be the primary function of a government. 'Provide for the common defence' is a typical belief. So the use of funds to build fortresses and walls would be understood by all as a benefit.

What we don't know is how much the funerary complexes generated for the temples/kings' coffers. Did they pay for themselves in donations? Did people take what they learned from the actual building & apply it somewhere else?

Those are far more important in the long run than just the actual cost of the building.