Historical Sense and the Reversal of Values

Or, Did Ancient Egyptians Let Slaves Build Their Pyramids For Them?

This is the second in a series that I’ve started on the subject of Slavery. Unlike most modern folks, I’m not an adherent to the fable that slavery has been abolished – on the contrary – it’s stronger now than at any prior time in History. As promised, I wanted to deal in this blog with the touchy issue of slavery in Ancient Egypt. But it could be about any other matter related to History or ancient civilizations because my criticism is broader than that leveled against modern Egyptologists and archaeologist (poor folks, they’re just trying to get a job done!).

I feel I should disclose right up front that I’m not in the least interested in changing people’s “belief systems.” You can believe whatever tickles your fancy, and that’s perfectly alright with me. I’m not in the brainwashing business (I leave that to the powers-that-be who already excel in that department). If you believe in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and Little Red Riding Hood – that’s fine too. It’s certainly less harmful to do so than to believe any number of other fairy tales that pass for “unconditional truth” in our modern age.

My only concern is to make sense of what nonsense I read and hear... Unfortunately, that’s not that easy given the copious amounts of gobbledygook that passes for “non-fiction” these days, especially in archaeology and history books. We live in a muddled-up, unthinking age in which History is not based on facts or actual events, not even on memory or oral tradition, but on the made-up fairy tales we’re told in school and which are reinforced through the media.

Our modern culture is opaque, not transparent as most folks believe. It’s not even a question of how much of any film, novel, or whatever the general public has read in the non-fiction section at the local library, is actually historically accurate. With respect to Ancient Egypt, with very few exceptions (and there are only a handful of them!), almost none of the interpretations made by scholars and academics are particularly accurate, reliable, or credible. And the reason it isn’t accurate is because everything has a “modern” focus – everything is seen from a modern perspective (and judged “good” or “bad” merely on that basis). All else is discarded...

No effort is made to actually THINK. Our modern interpretation of past actions, especially very old ones, tends to become a kind of “knee-jerk” reaction. If it’s very old we feel we are obliged to judge the ancient culture more harshly, as if we are capable of judging anything that presents itself before us from the distant past. But our prejudices are typical surface judgments, full of errors and absurd notions that hold no water. No effort is made to “walk a mile” in someone else’s shoes – not even the very subjects of the academic studies undertaken. It’s not so much that the “facts” are “wrong” as much as the interpretation(s) are way off the beam.

I suppose that much of this error can be laid at the doorstep of the Victorian Egyptologists of the 19^th Century, with all of their prejudices and “a priori judgments.” They simply couldn’t come to grips with a Civilization so advanced that wore skirts. Their prejudice was that only people wearing trousers were capable of “greatness” (they were, of course, referring to themselves – that’s how our “historical sense” became so narrow and pithy). As a result, men wearing kilts was not their idea of “intelligence” or “manly” virtue, etc. Any wonder why the Scots want their independence?

Who Built The Pyramids? Aliens or Slaves?

Clearly, according to our modern view – anyone but the Egyptians themselves built them! I don’t find such notions even whimsical (because they’re not). What misplaced craving makes us seek to explain the real with the unreal? Are we so attached to the abstract and to flighty notions that we can’t come to grips with anything real, “earthy,” or manifest?

We have one glaring fact before us – human beings built these incredible stone monuments in the form of a pyramid. From this singular fact Egyptologists have made their interpretations. These are not very revealing since they usually have to coincide neatly with what is acceptable to the academic institution that hires them. If anyone believes it is otherwise, for example, that there’s such a thing as “academic freedom” in the modern world, I have a nice red bridge I want to sell you... yep, it crosses San Francisco Bay...

Therefore, all the interpretations fall effortlessly in line with the “fable agreed upon” by those who went before (or those who pay for the meal ticket). And Egyptologists are wonderful in this sense too, they tend to “circle the wagons” whenever an “alternate” interpretation is possible. It’s to be expected.

After the initial laugh, I’m always left cold with the “alternative” interpretations which reach the same conclusion: Only alien spacemen – why not spacewomen? – built the pyramids.

Unfortunately, some of these “alternative” interpretations, are no less silly than those proffered by alleged “scientists,” academics, scholars, and archaeologists. It seems to come down to this: The pyramids were built either by slaves or aliens (the aliens turned everyone into slaves first – that’s how little imagination enters into “thinking” these days). In other words, the “alternative theory” is just the “establishment theory” regurgitated by folks that should have better things to do with their time.

Neither the “scientists” nor the “alternatives” are much interested in “truth” or “facts,” they’re only interested in “interpretations” that match their world view (i.e., their ‘a priori’ judgments). In the case of academics, they also have to match their bosses’ prejudices as well as their corporate sponsors’ opinions. And, need I add, that the latter are generally of a “racist” nature, in the vain of: “Africans couldn’t have possibly built these things” and opinions of that ilk, which are still very much with us.

Inquiry for “truth” along these lines is a clear “reversal of values” from the Enlightenment Age, when Science took its greatest strides forward. But we all know we don’t live in an age of “enlightenment” any longer, but rather in its opposite (i.e., a “dark age” of ignorance and neglect).

The “fable agreed upon,” the breakthrough of modern Egyptology, is that slaves built the pyramids! This modern interpretation is insisted upon even when the facts aren’t there to back it up. Even when Egyptologists have unearthed entire “middle class” craftsmen’s villages in the Giza plateau with interior plumbing! (The only thing missing is the satellite dish!)

Why is the proposition that slaves built the pyramids wrong? There are many reasons why... Not the least of which is that as modern herd-animals we don’t care to exercise our faculty of thinking! We’re not just physically couch potatoes – we’re mental “couch potatoes.” Thinking is indeed heavy lifting! Who wants to break a sweat these days? It’s not cool... and it stains your undergarments.

As a result we have no “historical sense.” Not even the historical sense that people had in the 17^th Century – at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Consider what the literacy rate was back then – in England and France it was about 30% max! For women, the perennial “second class” citizens, half that! Therefore, “books” and “learning” had little to do with creating in people a historical sense.

Perhaps we were made of sterner stuff then and people knew instinctively that the “golden age” was in “the past” and that back then, things were better. Who can blame them? Europeans of that time, after emerging from the Middle Ages (“Dark Ages”) and then passing into a cultural “dream,” which was the Renaissance, knew well they were the dregs of the Greeks and Romans, since they didn’t live anywhere close to their standard of living. And, the “intellectuals,” the learned of the Church (the Scholastics and their universities) from the Middle Ages on knew and felt it most keenly – they were doing the “learning” from the Greeks and Romans directly (well, more accurately through the learning of the Arabs!).

Therefore, even since the Enlightenment there has been a “reversal of values” – about 180° – with respect to “scientific truth” and its diligent pursuit. We stand on the shoulders of giants and we think we’re better than those giants. We actually believe we’re better than people in the past and we barely have indoor plumbing!

Indoor Plumbing and the Standard of Living

In my mind, indoor plumbing is a good gauge of the “advancement” of a civilization. Forty years ago, we certainly had less indoor plumbing per capita than the Ancient Egyptians had. I checked! I walked from Greece to Thailand (Indochina) and found few toilets on the way – literally a dearth of indoor plumbing. I doubt that even today we have bested that earlier high standard of living of the Late Bronze Age. They certainly produced far fewer poor people than we do! And it’s because they produced far fewer rich people too!

Talk about a “reversal of values” – Egyptologists believe that the Ancient Egyptian society was structured like a “pyramid” with the Pharaoh on top and everyone else down the line – at the base of the “pyramid.” Even if you look at children’s books about Ancient Egypt (I’ve looked at probably around 50 titles) 90% of them have this nice little graphic – a pyramid with Pharaoh on top and then the priests, scribes, and soldiers, and the peasants at the bottom. Is this some kind of criminal conspiracy?

Again, it’s just faulty historical sense. Much of this erroneous thinking can be attributed directly to the Victorians of the 19^th Century – many of the renowned names in Egyptology. Since they lived in such an absurdly “pyramidal” society themselves, with strict, straight-jacket hierarchies, it was only natural to assume that a pyramid was the right “structure” to run a society (easier to keep the rabble under control). It was certainly obvious to Queen Victoria, sitting with her fat bum at the very top, that it was the right thing for her – and that everyone else throughout history would have the same exact social structure (after all, didn’t Britannia rule the waves?). I’m sure the Egyptian pyramids were a great comfort and inspiration to the Victorians.

Of course, this was another up-side-down interpretation of the facts. In Ancient Egypt what we would call today the “peasant class” or “caste” was at the “top” of the pyramid – Pharaoh was “at the bottom”! That’s why the King (or Queen) was called the Life, Health, and Strength of the Two Lands. The Pharaoh was the “servant” and the peasant was the “master.” Or said another way, everything Pharaoh did from his station in life was to make life “easier” for the farmer.

The most important “individual” in Ancient Egyptian society was not the Sun King, but the farmer (or peasant). Why? Ancient Egyptian civilization was NOT structured like Victorian England, or like a modern American corporation, wherein the CEO makes 5,000 times the salary of the skilled worker who designed the dumb shoe (i.e., the “intelligent” worker) and a billion times more money than the most productive worker in the organization (i.e., the child slave in Pakistan making the crappy shoe itself).

Because we’re in love with Slavery (it gives us all these gadgets!) we have to turn the world up-side down to justify it. But that doesn’t mean the Ancient Egyptians had such a social structure! The Black People didn’t have to conform to our false values – they had real values! Why waste precious time and resources just to make a cheap lie true?

What am I trying to say? Simply, that the hubris we feel as modern herd-animals that we are the “greatest” and most “advanced” civilization on earth has its comeuppance when we first encounter the Ancient Egyptians and their long-standing culture and achievements.

Why? Because we know intuitively that we can’t do anything that they accomplished – not even the most inconsequential of things (such as making sure that everyone has decent shelter and food to eat). Since we’re shallow herd-animals we feel they can’t be better than us... That’s our pride talking. Hold on to your britches – they were not only more advanced in every conceivable measure (including indoor plumbing!) but they were so to a sublime degree!

How did they pull it off? That’s gist for another mill. The fact is, we just don’t understand them because we have exactly the opposite values that they had! And because we don’t “get it,” we relegate them to the trash heap of history.

Yeah... I’ve heard all the arguments. They’re the typical bleating noises of modern sheep – the holier than thou crackpots out there. And some of this squealing comes from people who should know better... It goes something like this: Look what a piece of shit – forgive my French – this 6,000 year old clay pot is (an artifact in a museum, let’s say). (The fact that it’s likely that that clay pot was made by a teenager (or younger) should give us fodder for many further discussions.)

Well, that clay pot may not be up to your modern tastes (but then again, do modern herd-animals have taste?). Let’s say that whatever clay pot you can make (oops, you can’t make a clay pot can you?) won’t last two years of daily use... even with reverential care, should be a wakeup call. And guess what? Neither will your laptop or TV set! (And the laptop is yet something else you can’t make!) You’re lucky if your car, dishwasher, or any other “tool” of modernity lasts ten years...

Frankly, I’m unimpressed. I fail to see any proof of our vaunted superiority... On the other hand, everything the Ancient Egyptians made, from the most simple of tools, utensils, clothes – even paper! – have lasted millennia!

One could say that the Black People’s “motto,” back in the day, was something like this: “Deal with the real and the rest works itself out...” or “Make your offerings to the Neteru (gods) and they will make it happen for you.” Unfortunately, these things got reversed and we only got: “God helps those who help themselves.” And not surprisingly, the folks at the “top” of the pyramid today “help themselves” alright!

The Bees Do It

Fortunately, for the Ancient Egyptians, their civilization was structured in a “circle,” or better said, as an “oval.” Ancient Egyptian society was structured exactly like a beehive... What happens in a beehive?

When all the buzzing is done, we see the result of their collective intelligence in a by-product – honey! This honey is possible because of one overriding “drive” (or instinct, if you will), the beehive acts in the present (here and now) for the benefit of the future. That’s the “prime directive.”

For the Ancient Egyptians, it went beyond the proposition “do no harm,” which the Greeks adopted from them. It’s the opposite of our modern “prime directive” – i.e., short-term profits!

The arrangement of the hive is such that it feeds the worker bees first! In fact, as they fly back to the hive, the worker bees are already turning pollen into honey! As in any sane arrangement of individuals into a whole, the one who does the work, gets the goodies first – then the larvae in the honeycombs are fed next (because they’re the future). The Ancient Egyptians, who used the Bee as their symbol (even as a royal symbol), knew this also: the queen gets fed LAST! The “master” only eats after the “servants” are fed.

Gee, I don’t see that happening today. Do you? I only sense the reversal of those values – the opposite of what needs to happen for things to work out on the material plane... in “reality.”

You can see now how we fall into error when interpreting “facts.” We can see how we modern herd-animals have everything upside down – especially our vaunted “values.” In antiquity, values were reversed. Even Christ taught us such when he washed his disciple’s feet! Not to mention that truth which all Christians denounce as a vile lie – “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”

Who is really the “master”? That’s a question we never ask because we don’t like to hear the answer to it. To be a “master” means to serve – that’s why “slaves” (or better said “servants”) were the real masters. And this explains why there were no slaves to begin with – it’s a modern invention!

Now that we have the facts straight, we can proceed. Next time, we’ll take a practical example to determine, once and for all, why the pyramids where NOT built by slaves, and why they could never have been built by them.