[Tennessee_Bob]

My question earlier was what do the extensive ancient Egyptian records say about the building of the pyramids. Not the current theory about how they were built, but what the ancient records say. That question was asked because a statement was made regarding how the Egyptians recorded everything, but didn't record the Exodus.

[Seti 1]

Manetho, writing 3000 years after the fact but still 300 years BC, said it took 100,000 slaves 30 years to build Khufu's pyramid. Scholars today think they were not built by slaves but were a sort of public works project during the flodded time when farmers could not work the land.

The pyramids were products of the Old Kingdom (4th millenium BC) when writing was just being invented. The Exodus is placed in the New Kingdom in the 13th Century BC. By this time scribes were running the system. Every temple, palace, estate, military post, town, etc., had a group of scribes writing everything down. A basic tool was the "daybook" which was used as a sort of calendar. Each day the most memorable occurrence of that day was listed. They often made notes on pieces of broken pottery or flat rocks and then made a fair copy onto papyrus. A remarkable amount of this material has survived in the dry climate of Egypt.

[medved]

The whole question of chronologies regarding ancient Egypt and the lands surrounding it are in a state of flux at present. There is good reason to believe that the pyramids are no more than 3000 years old, if that. I would recommend two books by Emmet Sweeney, The Pyramid Age, and Genesis of Israel and Egypt for anybody interested.

The exodus of the Israelites from Egypt occurred under catastrophic circumstances and not much will be found from the time. The Ipuwer papyrus is thought to describe the exodus, but there isn't much else.

[medved]

One other thought: having a whole tribe of slaves escape would be an extreme embarassment to Egyptians. You wouldn't expect them to write a whole lot about it.