While I am not sure if it was or wasn’t slaves who built this, it is logically fallacious to say that slaves are only led by those with no leadership skills, or that being led by those with leadership skills means that a slave is no longer that - a slave. This guy from India used what is known as a hidden false dichotomy/false choice in building his argument.
The Egyptian, Zahi Hawass, makes an even more ridiculous argument. He says that because the worker accommodations near the pyramid sites look like ordinary villages where ordinary people would live the workers could not have been slaves. When I first heard that argument I had to laugh at the choice of words. The root of the Saxon word “village” is villain, which means slave.
It wasn’t leadership skills or slavery—it was Religion that built the Pyramids. Those who worked on the monuments got better food, all the beer they could drink, pizza like food, the best medical care in the world (at that time). Workers didn’t have to pay taxes. Last but not least—they got Eternal Life! That’s a big deal! The Pharaoh promised he would remember them in the life to come—Everyone who worked on the monuments would party with the Gods in the Life-To-Come in the land of the west. Not a bad deal. I believe that by accident, the Ancient Egyptians created a national identity. Villagers from all over labored together for 3 months a year, talked and got to know each other—they were no longer just inhabitants of a village or State (nome) but Egyptians. Their unity helped their nation become one of the richest in the Ancient World.
Well said. Also, the fact that there was a gov’t village near the construction site where lots of beer and bread was made doesn’t make the labor not slavery — slaves had to be fed, and the food was made by still other slaves. Imagine how great it must have felt to get a job making bread all day instead of hauling crap up ramps.