Note 45 — Part II

A History of Egypt, p. 40: "It is said that a hundred thousand men were levied for three months at a time (i.e. during the three months of the inundation, when ordinary labour would be at a standstill); and on this scale the pyramid building occupied twenty years." [He is speaking of the Great Pyramid built by Kheops, Khephrën's predecessor; but this does not affect my contention.] "On reckoning number and weight of the stones, this labour would fully suffice for the work. The skilled masons had large barracks, now behind the second pyramid, which might hold even four thousand men; but perhaps a thousand would quite suffice to do all the fine work in the time. Hence there was no impossibility in the task, and no detriment to the country in employing a small proportion of the population at a season when they were all idle by the compulsion of natural causes. The training and skill which they would acquire by such work would be a great benefit to the national character."

And the same writer says in The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, p. 211: "Thus we see that the traditional accounts that we have of the means employed in building the great Pyramid, require conditions of labour supply which are quite practicable in such a land, which would not be ruinous to the prosperity of the country, or oppressive to the people, and which would amply and easily suffice for the execution of their work."