Henry David Thoreau was a transcendentalist--basically a philosopher of the 19th century with strong ties to nature and the environment (and, of course, one of my personal heroes). Still, I remember being stunned into nervous giggles when I read this quote from his 1854 Walden:
"As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs." Henry David Thoreau 1854
However, the book called The Great Pyramid, by John Romer and due to be published by Cambridge University Press this April, reports that this kind of attitude about the Pyramids at Giza was a common one for 19th century westerners, who envisioned hordes of slaves being beaten into working on the pyramids for many decades if not centuries. Recent archaeological studies have shown that Thoreau and his contemporaries were wrong: construction on the Great Pyramid took only 11 years, and conditions were nowhere near as harsh as Thoreau and his contemporaries imagined.
"As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs." Henry David Thoreau 1854
However, the book called The Great Pyramid, by John Romer and due to be published by Cambridge University Press this April, reports that this kind of attitude about the Pyramids at Giza was a common one for 19th century westerners, who envisioned hordes of slaves being beaten into working on the pyramids for many decades if not centuries. Recent archaeological studies have shown that Thoreau and his contemporaries were wrong: construction on the Great Pyramid took only 11 years, and conditions were nowhere near as harsh as Thoreau and his contemporaries imagined.
- More Quotations
- Giza Pyramid Resources
- Giza Pyramid Photo Essay
- The Great Pyramid, advance announcement from Cambridge University Press.
Comments