Reuter late with news: - pyramids not built by slaves!

[Melvadius]

Unless anyone has been living as a hermit for the last few years or not seen any of the more recent TV programmes about Egypt and the building of the pyramids I don't think that this Reuters news item will come as any great suprise:

 

CAIRO (Reuters) - New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday.

 

Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts.

 

"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves," Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement.

 

"If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."

 

He said the collection of workers' tombs, some of which were found in the 1990s, were among the most significant finds in the 20th and 21st centuries. They belonged to workers who built the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre.

 

Hawass had earlier found graffiti on the walls from workers calling themselves "friends of Khufu" -- another sign that they were not slaves.

 

The tombs, on the Giza plateau on the western edge of Cairo, are 4,510 years old and lie at the entrance of a one-km (half mile)-long necropolis.

 

Hawass said evidence had been found showing that farmers in the Delta and Upper Egypt had sent 21 buffalo and 23 sheep to the plateau every day to feed the builders, believed to number around 10,000 -- or about a tenth of Greek historian Herodotus's estimate of 100,000.

 

These farmers were exempted from paying taxes to the government of ancient Egypt -- evidence that he said underscored the fact they were participating in a national project.

 

The first discovery of workers' tombs in 1990 came about accidentally when a horse stumbled on a brick structure 10 meters (yards) away from the burial area.

 

(Writing by Marwa Awad; Editing by Alison Williams and Michael Roddy)

[Ursus]

Here is a video of the same subject: http://www.comcast.net/video/egypt-slaves-...ast/1382570085/

[docoflove1974]

I guess the better question is: why is this 'news' now? Did Zahi Hawass need a bit more attention, or did a Reuters big-wig just read a book?

[davus]

Be fair, the piece says the finds "support the view" - ie that it's an existing view. And archaeology reporting must be a pretty thankless task in a global news outlet, so anything vaguely sensible that makes it through has to be a plus, however much sexing-up or restatement of the blindingly obvious may have been involved in getting it to press.

[Melvadius]

Be fair, the piece says the finds "support the view" - ie that it's an existing view. And archaeology reporting must be a pretty thankless task in a global news outlet, so anything vaguely sensible that makes it through has to be a plus, however much sexing-up or restatement of the blindingly obvious may have been involved in getting it to press.

 

Agreed that to be fair the articles under the headline used by both Reuters and the BBC in retrospect are probably not as bad as a quick skim initially led me to believe.

Egypt tombs suggest pyramids not built by slaves'

 

Although the sign off used by the BBC probably mitigates against that initial impression slightty better than the basic Reuters script as it emphasises why the article could be deemed 'newsworthy'.

 

The authorities have long fought what they call the "myth" of slaves building the pyramids, saying it undermines the skill involved in their construction, and the sophistication of ancient Egypt's civilisation.