Not to detract from the original point of your post, Tim, but contemporary Egyptologists have moved away from the old idea of “slaves building the pyramids” to something more along the lines of young men owing labor/duty (bak) to their lords working in shifts around the agricultural cycle built the pyramids. These labor units evidently named themselves things like “Drunkards of Menkare,” according to graffiti found around the plateau, and consumed a great deal of bread, beer, and beef while performing their bak. That doesn’t detract from their hard, dangerous work, but buttresses your point that understanding the true history of things like monuments should enlighten us about the social and political circumstances of how those things came to be erected.
Having just finished reading How the Word Is Passed, I could not agree with you more.
Not to detract from the original point of your post, Tim, but contemporary Egyptologists have moved away from the old idea of “slaves building the pyramids” to something more along the lines of young men owing labor/duty (bak) to their lords working in shifts around the agricultural cycle built the pyramids. These labor units evidently named themselves things like “Drunkards of Menkare,” according to graffiti found around the plateau, and consumed a great deal of bread, beer, and beef while performing their bak. That doesn’t detract from their hard, dangerous work, but buttresses your point that understanding the true history of things like monuments should enlighten us about the social and political circumstances of how those things came to be erected.