From my understanding it was due to the Nile flood cycles. It’s not so much that they had farmers supporting the workers building the pyramids, but that the farmers worked on the pyramids when it was flood season and there was no farming work that could be done.
There’s a school of thought that Egyptian monument building was somewhat analogous to the depression-era Works Progress Administration, in that it took advantage of an otherwise-idle workforce outside of the agricultural season, and provided them with an additional source of stable supplemental income
Interesting. That makes sense. Since all the farming there was centered around the Nile, probably all the farmers were affected when the Nile flooded. That means you’d otherwise have 90% of the population out of work, waiting for the flooding to subside. I’m sure many of them would have preferred to just relax while they waited, probably the Pharaoh would demand they continued work on his pyramid instead.
From my understanding it was due to the Nile flood cycles. It’s not so much that they had farmers supporting the workers building the pyramids, but that the farmers worked on the pyramids when it was flood season and there was no farming work that could be done.
There’s a school of thought that Egyptian monument building was somewhat analogous to the depression-era Works Progress Administration, in that it took advantage of an otherwise-idle workforce outside of the agricultural season, and provided them with an additional source of stable supplemental income
Interesting. That makes sense. Since all the farming there was centered around the Nile, probably all the farmers were affected when the Nile flooded. That means you’d otherwise have 90% of the population out of work, waiting for the flooding to subside. I’m sure many of them would have preferred to just relax while they waited, probably the Pharaoh would demand they continued work on his pyramid instead.