Post 13 was meant as a reply to 11.
Apologies.
FWIW, there is archaelogical evidence that the pyramids were built using mostly labor during the agricultural off season.
Those damn peasants are just sitting around anyway, might as well put em to work at something useful. “Useful” dependent on definition, of course.
It worked. Those huge pyramids have held the soil in place for thousands of years!
Given that “the devil finds work for idle hands”, this was probably a sensible (though non-libertarian) way of keeping the “yutes” out of trouble.