Yup. Importantly, they were not “slaves” - in that they were not considered, and apparently did not consider themselves, as unfree or degraded. However, they were not “employees” in that they lacked choice - it wasn’t the plentiful beer that attracted them to the job, but rather a conscription officer. 
Perhaps a modern analogy woulld be conscripted soldiers - they have no choice but do not consider themselves “slaves” or degraded by their service.
I disagree with the conscription angle as it implies a certain unwillingness or forced labor, which I don’t think was the case. Maybe I’m misremembering (or maybe this is a piece of History Channel fluff I picked up :p), but from what I recall actually people vied with each other to work on these projects. They were kind of cushy jobs (compared to the labor they would have had to do every day anyway), and the food and drink were definitely part of the perks. There was also the aspect that they were doing this for their god/king, and in the expectation that if he was resurrected and joined his brother and sister gods he’d be able to intercede for them as well (and, of course, the idea of a resurrection machine for everyone really started in building these great works for the elite first…there were workers graveyards and tombs for the more elite workers as well).
That’s a gloss that basically comes from that “enthusiastic” Zahi Hawass fellow. Decide for yourself how seriously to take it.
That’s what the aliens WANT us to think!
(It probably was Hawass, as he’s often on the History Channel talking this stuff. I seem to recall I got the ‘cushy job’ part from an Egyptian woman…quite pretty…who is also an archeologist talking about the worker camps)
Another thing to consider with regards to the supply of workers is that at the time Egyptian farmers had more down time than you’d think. Agriculture was determined by the state of the Nile; it flooded at predictable times, and the flooding irrigated massive amounts of farmland that could then be used to yield incredible amounts of food; Egyptian crops didn’t need a lot of help and provided a lot of downtime to do other things, be it other types of agriculture or… well, building things. A farmer could produce more than enough wheat by April and then earn extra dough building someone’s pyramid.
The abundance the Nile provided is one of the reasons Egypt was ABLE to be one of the earliest great civilizations and build giant pyramids at a time most people in the world were building houses out of poop and starving to death.
Corvée labour gained a really bad rep in Europe for unfairness and oppression, mainly because it was typically used in direct competition with a peasant farmer’s own labour needs - essentially, the lord of the manor would force his peasants to pay their labour tax by working in HIS fields at the exact same time that the peasants needed to work THEIR fields to grow food for themselves.
As you note, in Egypt the cycle of the argicultural year followed the flooding of the Nile, meaning that paying one’s compulsory labour tax in the “off season” wasn’t in direct competition with the peasant’s own essential needs.
Though the notion that they therefore were delighted to do it because of the free beer and the honour of it all strikes me as something to take with a grain of salt ("well, I COULD just do stuff around the house … or I COULD travel hundreds of miles away to haul stones for a couple of months … " ).
It’s easy to imagine there were some of both types of laborers. Established family men who would have preferred staying at home and fixing up the house, adventurous young men who welcomed a chance to interact with people from all across the kingdom, jaded husbands who appreciated an excuse to get away from thier wives, lazy sots who would prefer ANYthing over hauling giant rocks…
But physical labor, working as a team, with decent hours, decent food, decent quarters, social respect – probably there were lots of people who were okay with that.
Yeah, given that adult male Egyptians lived distressing short and awful lives anyway - making it to 40 was considered cause to celebrate - any leisure time at all you would think would have been hoarded like gold. Ancient Egypt was one of those societies where it wasn’t just staggering infant mortality that kept down average lifespans. The Egyptian peasantry worked until they dropped ( laborer skeletons from that period are beaten all to hell ) and unfortunately for them while the Nile’s tremendous bounty supported a large population ( all the better for labor-intensive work projects ), ironically a monotonous grain diet with minimal meat or greens made for chronic malnutrition.
Unless one can make the argument that unceasing back-breaking work hauling stone blocks on pulleys for free beer was a nice break from unceasing back-breaking agricultural work ( and maybe someone can ), the notion of happy conscripts/volunteers is probably an oxymoron.
If they got some vegetables and scraps of meat with that beer, it might well have been.
Agricultural work sucks. Lots of bending over and other backbreaking, uncomfortable labor. Hauling stones may well have seemed like an okay option. Except that I’m pretty sure the stone-hauling happened when the crops didn’t need attention, so no, it wasn’t a break, it was something they did instead of taking a break, I expect. Still, if they had good food, it might have been a welcome diversion for many. Especially given the inadequate diet of the population.
I can see the ads now:
There are no stupid questions.
Inquisitive idiots, however, abound.
They figured it.
They simply used counter weights and ramps that are internally built into the pyramid.
Now a better question is how did they get built all around the world between non communicating groups of peoples?
Why is that a better question? Pyramidal shapes are the easiest and most stable way to build large structures without modern construction techniques. Ask any toddler.
Everyone is correct. The pyramids were built by using ramps, log rollers and manual labor. But the labor was actually ALIENS!!!111
For what I’ve read, pyramids, or their ancestor, the mastabas, are the simplest shape possible for building a large, durable structure. Basically you can use the layer you are standing on as scaffolding for the one you are working on. A rectangle the size of a pyramid, without modern engineering and building material would have been insanely hard to pull off.
You could even say that if the pyramids were box-shaped, then that would be clear evidence for alien involvement.
Thing is, if you’re a farmer, surely you can think of easier ways to get vegetables and meat than by involving a middle-man. Where did the meat/veg that the Pharaoh used to pay workers come from in the first place?
OK, so let’s say that you’re part of a group that’s due for conscription. If you wait for Lady Luck, you may get a cushy job or a bad one, an interesting job or one where your biggest problems are boredom and not being allowed to scratch your nose. If you volunteer and are accepted, the job is longer but you pick it. Would you volunteer?
I just described the situation re. volunteer vs. conscript soldiers in Spain during the 100+ years our low-level ranks were conscripted.
Already been done:
And done one better: Carhenge - Wikipedia
Not really. The difference is the historical period, not the race of the builders. The Parthenon was built about 2,000 years after the Great Pyramid, and the Colosseum about 500 years later still. By that time, the Romans and Greeks knew about things like pulleys and wheels that the Egyptians didn’t have.
It is a perfectly genuine mystery how the Egyptians did it. It’s well known how the Romans and Greeks did it.