I’m currently watching the Discovery Channel re the construction of the great pyramids. One claim made in this show is that the Egyptians did not have slaves and that slaves were not used to construct the pyramids. The workers for the pyramids were rather Egyptian peasant labor hired or conscripted during the non-growing season to work on the pyramids.
Not that I’m doubting the awesomeness of the Discovery Channel, but did slaves (in the Roman and Greek tradition ) really not exist in Egypt?
*There is some controversy whether there was slavery at all in ancient Egypt. The differences of opinion stem mostly from how slavery is defined. Theory and practice of Egyptian slavery were, as far as we can ascertain, very different from those of Greece, Rome or the southern states of the USA, where slaves were wholly at the mercy of their owners with little protection from society, and more in line with the kind of slavery practiced in the rest of Africa.
Hem (Hm), generally translated as ‘slave’ and originally meaning body, was seemingly a person with lessened rights dedicated to a certain task such as the service of a god (since the 1st dynasty) or the royal administration. The hemu are mentioned in the context of private persons only since the end of the Old Kingdom.
Since the Middle Kingdom foreign slaves mainly from Asia became increasingly numerous. They were either prisoners of war or traded by slave merchants. Their period of enslavement in Egypt was often limited. Debt slaves or prisoners of war were at times set free after serving for a certain period. *
From here: http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/slavery.htm
This generally accords with what I remember reading on this - A type of modified serfdom may have been more common than chattel slavery. Unfortunately the only book I can seem to find on my shelves is Grimal’s, which is mostly a political history and doesn’t really address the topic directly.
Problem about that question is that ancient societies did not draw as aclear a distinction between slaves and free workers as we post-abolitionists do now. Many ancient nations had non-free workers, but not totally the Roman-style way that slaves considered slaves a commodity without any rights, not a human, that you could buy, sell and even kill if you wanted to since it was your property. This point of view came up much later (my reference book entitled “Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World” says 6th century BC). In a feudal society you might be a non-free worker that somehow “belonged” to someone else, but your master would nonetheless have some responsibilities towards you, and you might have a few rights, especially the right to be fed properly, which, in a society without money in form of coins, might be some sort of wage. You would not have had the right to quit and go for another employer, but since in ancient Egypt where all soil was technically state property, there were not many employers that could have “possessed” thousands of those people anyway. So I guess “slaves” in Egypt were not totally free, but not totally enslaved either.
There were similar forms of non-free workers that were no slaves much later. In some European countries serfdom was abolished as late as the 19th century.
My understanding was that the pyramids weren’t build by slaves but rather by peasants during the periods when there were no work in the fields (during the Nile floods, for instance), but don’t quote me on this, since I don’t have any reference. Actually, since the pyramids are amongst the oldest egyptian monuments, I’m not sure there are many historical sources about their building, if any.
However, ignoring the pyramids, there are evidences that other majors egyptian (and later) momuments were build (at least partly) by free craftmen. Not only that, but there’s even written references to strikes. So, I guess that if the workers could strike, it’s unlikely they would be slaves.
Anyway, the egyptian history extend to such a long period that what was true at a certain time was necessarilly anymore before or later.
This post is only to the best of my knowledge, and is not backed up by any research on the topic specifically being done for this post. I do have a background in Egptian history, though.
Ancient Egyptians did have slaves. Body servants, cooks, laundry workers etc. However, I sincerely doubt the masses of people required to make the pyramids were slaves. The current evidence points to the hypothesis that they were agricutural workers and they worked for the kings during the flood season as part of their taxes, in a way much like the way serfs had to work a few days for their masters per year.
In later times, it appears clear that they were compensated for their work, though I doubt it was so before.
One of the strikes was for more make-up. (Not quite as effete as it sounds; in addition to cosmetic purposes, make-up served as a sunburn deterrent.)
From the research I’ve done on the Hebrews in Egypt, they weren’t slaves so much in the bought/sold since as they were an underclass, more similar to blacks in the Jim Crow south than to blacks in the ante-bellum south. They received their livelihood by working for the state and had little choice in the matter, though they do seem to have intermarried with Egyptians on several socioeconomic levels. The whips you see making them work in DeMille movies and other epics because, quite understandably, you don’t want to whip your slaves that much- while it might make them work faster for a few minutes, the blood and pain is going to make them unable to work altogether for several days.
The worst thing about being this type of slave: in times of drought, famine, and plague, you’re pretty low down the pyramid for food and water and medical care. You can both understand how somebody in this situation would want a home of their own if they felt it was attainable, but at the same point would be leary to leave if times were okay.