#ramses iii
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'TIL a papyrus scroll indicates that, during the building of the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses III, the workers were upset about their treatment and, rather than discussing it with them, management served them a large meal.
'The workers didn't think that was enough so occupied the Valley of the Kings refusing entry to anyone until they were given a raise and "cosmetics" (research shows it was a form of sunscreen).
'So not only does workers organizing a strike and forming a picket line for better wages and workplace safety conditions date back TO THE FRIGGIN' BRONZE AGE, but also management has been trying to placate discontented workers with a pizza party.'
And then that went viral on Twitter and I got hammered with people trying to "Well ackshually" about my three-tweet-long thread on a thing I'd learned just that morning I turned into a joke about corporate pizza parties. So I decided to research and here's the entire story.
TL;DR: I was pretty much right except it'd be closer to say "donuts/cupcakes in the breakroom" rather than "pizza party".
The events took place sometime around 1157 BCE (specifically the 29th year of Ramses III’s reign) in the village of Deir el-Medina, a worker village for the people who worked on the built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
BTW, the site itself is fascinating as it was first excavated in 1922 and ended up being one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of community life in the ancient world and proved the builders of the Pyramids were middle-class skilled artisans and craftspeople, not slaves.
You also have to know that this era of history is around the start of what’s known as the Bronze Age Collapse. Some sort of environmental catastrophe happened that caused widespread crop failures across the ancient world.
Now what precisely happened is strongly debated, but generally several groups from elsewhere in Europe and Africa known as the “Sea People” attacked the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, which caused most of those cultures to collapse.
Also, commerce was a bit different as they were (oversimplified explanation) on the bread standard. Salaries were measured in values of beer and bread as the recipes for those were standardized and made up the basics of the diet.
So while common laborers would be paid in literal beer and bread, more highly-valued workers would be paid in an equivalent of a larger allotment of beer and bread. So they’d get paid “100 loaves a day” worth of oil or metal or coin representing the value.
Now, for our tale. This comes from the contemporary account of the scribe Amennakhte. If anyone wants to read along, a photo of the scroll along with a translation is available to read for free at https://libcom.org/article/records-strike-egypt-under-ramses-iii-c1157bce
On Year 29, Second Month of Winter, Day 10, a group of workers walked past the guards and sat at the Temple of Menkheperre stating it had been 18 days since they’d last been paid, staying the night in the tomb saying “We have matters of Pharaoh”.
The following day, a scribe brought the workers 55 “s'b-cakes”. So yes, a “pizza party”. I can’t find any reference to what this is precisely other than “fine bread” that was worth more than a large loaf of standard bread.
Seriously, I wasted an hour of my life trying to figure out what “s'b-cakes” are exactly so if anyone knows please tell me.
Anyway, it didn’t work and there was “quarrelling” at the temple of Ramses II. The translations says “chief of police” which doesn’t seem quite right but I’ll go with it, but anyway he said he’d fetch the mayor of Thebes.
The mayor claimed they didn’t have enough to pay. The workers responded by saying “The prospect of hunger and thirst has driven us to this. There is no clothing, there is no ointment*, there is no fish, there are no vegetables.”
They then said to go tell it to the Pharoah directly. On Day 12 (the day following the “quarrelling”), they were given their ration they were due during the previous month (basically, they got their back pay). It was 21 days late.
Side note: I got some pushback by an “Egyptologist” for calling the “ointment” a type of sunscreen and…yes, it was. Some translations mark this as “cosmetics” but it was a medicinal balm used to prevent and treat sunburn. What the hell else would you call it?
So Day 13 (the fourth day of the strikes) and Mentmose, the “chief of police”, apparently took a side. He told the workers to lock down the work site and continue their protests, and that he’d lead them to the temple to continue the sit in.
His words (recorded by Amennakhte): “I’ll tell you my opinion. Go up, gather your tools, close your doors, fetch your families, and I’ll lead you to the temple of Seti I and let you settle down there.”
At this point, the tax master Ptahemheb came out to talk to them making a list of all the things they demanded. On Day 15 (sixth day of the strike), they tried another “pizza party” with half a sack of barley and a jar of beer for each worker.
Amennakhte doesn’t say what their response was exactly, but does say that the workers brought torches so they could continue the protest in the dark. So I take it the response wasn’t good.
Day 17 (eighth day of the strike), the head of the temple came out and asked what demands to bring to the Pharoah for them. And they gave a detailed list of what precise wages they wanted for each of the workers.
On that day, they were given what they asked for in rations for the second month of winter. They may have also been paid early as they should have been paid on the 21st or 28th day depending on the source.
So we’re now in the third month of winter (no exact date written) and they’re still striking. Worker Mose said basically “As Amun as my witness if you drag me away I will come back and start robbing the tombs.” I couldn’t fit the whole thing in one tweet.
Reshpetref, the proctor, said “We will not come back, you can tell your superiors that. For sure, it is not because of hunger that we strike, but we have a serious charge to make. Something bad has been done in this place of the Pharoah”.
We’re on the fourth month of winter now, Day 28 (so over three months of striking now) before the Vizier shows up. This is the government official that handles day-to-day business and is second only to the Pharoah.
He says he just got promoted so isn’t authorized to give them their wages (at least partially true, he’d just been promoted five days prior) and even if he could, there was nothing in the granaries to pay them with.
The granaries may have been empty because of the other issues going on with the Bronze Age Collapse or it may have just been the rampant corruption speculated of the government of the era, or he may have been lying.
On the first month of summer Day 2, the crew got two sacks of grain as their ration (they’d demanded 5 ½ sacks each). The foreman Khonsu told them accept it, then go down to the market and tell the Vizier’s children about it.
Amennakhte (who again, is writing this scroll) stopped them and said NOT to go to the market since they’d been paid and if they did, he’d have to have them arrested. He doesn’t mention they were only paid a third of what they were owed.
First month of summer, Day 13, passes the guard post saying “We are hungry” and continued their sit in. They shouted at the mayor of Thebes as he passed, who then got them 50 sacks of grain to tide them over until Pharoah paid them.
That’s the end of this particular scroll, but there’s evidence that strikes continued throughout the reign of Ramses III as there are records of more workers being hired to transport food and supplies to the workers.
The scroll also leaves out some of what happened in between dates. For example, it wasn’t one single long strike, but a series of them. After they were paid their wages the first time, the workers went back to work.
However, they were told that was their pay for the third month of winter and not the second so they wouldn’t be getting paid again, sparking the second strike that lasted into summer.
There’s also a big deal in Egyptian culture at the time called “Ma’at” or basically “The Order of Things”. Nobody had any idea what to do with the striking workers because workers weren’t supposed to strike. They were supposed to work.
Sure, they were treated well and the village of Deir el-Medina lived at what could be called middle-class standards for the time period, but they weren’t supposed to rebel against their betters in this way. It was unthinkable.
There was also a big festival coming up to celebrate the 30th year of the reign of Ramses III and a lot of the government officials were focused on that, more concerned with maintaining order than actually managing the country.
I should also note I paint Amennakhte as on the side of the government rather than the workers when the opposite was likely the case. The strike wasn’t recorded in the official government records as Egypt tended to cover up their losses.
That said, we do have some records like those of Amennakhte showing that, once the workers realized they had the power to organize, they used it all the way through the New Kingdom.
The last entry on the scroll doesn’t directly involve the strike, but is related. On the first month of summer, Day 16, one of the workmen provided evidence that government officials were stealing from the tombs.
One of them, Weserhat, was one of the ministers who shorted the workers payment previously. The other, Pentaweret, may be the son of Ramses III at the center of the “Harem Conspiracy”, an assassination plot that took place between 1 to 3 years later.
In summary, the workers were unpaid due to corruption and management enriching themselves, they went on strike, management threw them a pizza party, that didn’t work, and they eventually got their demands.
Though I guess if you want to be completely accurate, it was more “donuts/cupcakes in the breakroom”…
#egypt#ramses iii#ramesses iii#labor rights#strike#pizza party#donuts in the breakroom#union#union strong#Also before anyone says this is Ramses III not the Pharaoh of Exodus#That was Ramses II almost a century earlier and a completely different dynasty#Not going to open the can of worms that is archeological evidence (or lack thereof) supporting biblical accounts of history#But either way the events are unrelated as they were 70-100 years after Exodus would have been#ancient egypt#ancient history
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Random Fact #6,516
The oldest worker strike we know of was at the building site of the pyramid for Ramses III.
What were they striking about? Poor wages.
The workers didn't just refuse to construct Rameses III’s future tomb either, they actually occupied the Valley of the Kings and were preventing anyone from entering to perform rituals or funerals.
Another strike from around the same time was about the lack of provision of sunscreen (so, basically, occupational safety).
#picket line#strike#did you know#random facts#little known fact#random fact#random factoid#random factoids#history facts#worker's rights#egypt#egyptian history#ramses iii#health and safety#valley of the kings#yes really
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A huge, decorated wall relief shows the lengths to which ancient Egyptians went in order to present their beliefs and history - carved into stone. What tales and legends are depicted on the inside of this majestic site?
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The Spy Who Loved Me
Lewis Gilbert. 1977
Temple 2
Abu Simbel, Aswan Governorate, Egypt
Al Bairat, Al Qarna, Luxor Governorate, Egypt
See in map
See in imdb
#lewis gilbert#the spy who loved me#roger moore#abu simbel#al qarna#al bairat#ramses iii#james bond#007#aswan#egypt#ramses ii#movie#cinema#film#location#google maps#street view#1977
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Fun fact: The first worker's strike was in ancient Egypt, when the workers (not slaves, the notion that the Ancient Egyptians used them to build their great monuments is a common misconception) building the Necropolis weren't getting enough rations. So, they walked out until they were, marching up to the palace of Ramses III himself. This was the first of a series of strikes through Ramses III's reign.
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Why so many gods?
Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Publisher Founding: March 1, 2014
Web Domain: http://www.in-sightpublishing.com
Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Journal: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Journal Founding: August 2, 2012
Frequency: Three (3) Times Per Year
Review Status: Non-Peer-Reviewed
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Fees: None…
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#Aztecs#Christianity#Gerald Larue#gods#Hinduism#II Kings#Incas#invisible spirits#Library Journal#Mayans#Michel de Montaigne#Norse gods#Peter De Vries#Phoenicia#polytheism#priest class#Ramses III#Sumer#supernatural#Voltaire
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Valley of the Kings
One of the highlights of my time in Egypt was visiting the Valley of the Kings. It is home to 63 tombs dug into the floor of the limestone valley between three and three and a half thousand years ago. This is a barren desert environment below the prominent peak of al-Qurn, a pyramid shaped hill linking back to the Pyramids of Giza, built a thousand years earlier.
This incredible model in the…
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#Egypt#Luxor#Merenptah#photography#Ramses III#Ramses IV#Tomb of Merenptah#Tomb of Ramses III#Tomb of Ramses IV#travel
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Me,a starstruck 15 year old reading the Odyssey for the first time : *sighs* wish I was born in 12th century BCE so I could see Troy and-
The fucking Sea people: BRING US THE GODDAMN WARSHIPS
#pLEASE#the sea people theory haunts me in my dreams#keeps me up at night#their origins are highly disputed and we can never put exactly where they emerged from but they wrecked HAVOC#towards the end of the bronze age#egypt under ramses iii was only able to defend itself theres an entire depiction of the battle that was found#they basically destoryed so many major cities including troy#we know this becuase theres a layer of charcoal in thr ruins of troy#when you think about it actually#its very easy to see how homer wrote the illiad and odyssey#because he grew up during the dark ages of 400 years where he was surrounded by these ruins#and he was like “fuck it might as well write a fanfic”#okay#i will shut up#homer#the illiad#the odyssey#bronze age civilisation#12th century bc#sea people theory#and vampy ranting about history
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Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The Colossi of Memnon - once reputed to sing at dawn (but not for many centuries!) The Singing Ringing Tree continues to perform for visitors.
#ozymandias#percy bysshe shelley#poetry#egypt#ramses II#memnon#amenhotep iii#hauteur#ruins#pride#boastfulness#hubris
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Ramses Overdark
Artist: Richard Kane Ferguson
TCG Player Link
Scryfall Link
EDHREC Link
#mtg#magic the gathering#tcg#richard kane ferguson#ramses overdark#masters edition iii#legendary#creature#human#assassin
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Ramesses II's death is basically like Elizabeth II's death if Charles had over a dozen older siblings who died before him and over a hundred younger siblings who were also jockeying for the throne
#current events#politics#history#egyptology#ancient egypt#egypt#ramesses ii#ramses ii#the queen#elizabeth ii#charles iii#shower thought#shower thoughts
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Unveiling Egypt's Treasures: Ramses III Taba Dahab Sharm Sheikh Tour
Welcome to Amozon Tours Egypt, your gateway to an extraordinary voyage through Egypt's historical treasures. Join us on the Ramses III Taba Dahab Sharm Sheikh Tour as we delve into the rich heritage of this ancient land, exploring the captivating destinations of Taba and Dahab. Immerse yourself in the majestic reign of Ramses III and uncover the enduring historical significance of these enchanting locations.
Ramses III and His Legacy:
During the New Kingdom period from 1186 to 1155 BCE, Ramses III, an influential pharaoh of Egypt, ruled with prosperity, grandeur, and remarkable architectural achievements. As we embark on this tour, we will unveil the historical significance of his reign, comprehending the impact of his rule on the cultural and political landscape of the region.
Taba: A Northern Gem:
Our journey commences in Taba, the northernmost resort town of Egypt, nestled on the Gulf of Aqaba. Taba holds a distinct place in history as a vital trade route connecting Egypt and the Levant. Explore the remnants of ancient fortresses and witness the enduring traces of Ramses III's empire. Marvel at the intricately carved reliefs, hieroglyphs, and architectural wonders that have withstood the test of time.
Dahab: Bohemian Haven by the Red Sea:
Continuing our expedition, we arrive at Dahab, a picturesque coastal town situated on the southeastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula. Known for its laid-back atmosphere, pristine beaches, and vibrant coral reefs, Dahab offers a contrasting experience to Taba. Here, you can relax, bask in the sun, and partake in water activities such as snorkeling and diving. Explore the underwater marvels of the Red Sea, discovering its vibrant marine life and stunning coral formations.
Sharm El Sheikh: The Diver's Paradise:
Our tour culminates in Sharm El Sheikh, a globally renowned destination for diving enthusiasts. Nestled between the Sinai Desert and the Red Sea, Sharm El Sheikh boasts crystal-clear waters and a diverse array of marine species. Immerse yourself in the vibrant underwater world as you snorkel or scuba dive, encountering lively coral gardens, exotic fish, and even the occasional sea turtle or dolphin. Sharm El Sheikh also offers a range of luxurious resorts, restaurants, and vibrant nightlife, ensuring an unforgettable experience for every traveler.
Conclusion:
Amozon Tours Egypt presents the Ramses III Taba Dahab Sharm Sheikh Tour, a journey that promises to leave an indelible mark in your memory as you unravel the historical significance of Taba and Dahab. Immerse yourself in the reign of Ramses III, exploring ancient ruins and architectural marvels that reflect Egypt's glorious past. Experience the coastal charm of Taba, the bohemian ambiance of Dahab, and the underwater paradise of Sharm El Sheikh. Join us on this extraordinary adventure and create lifelong memories.
#luxordaytrip#egypttours#sharmelsheikhtodahab#sharmelsheikhtours#Ramses III Taba Dahab Sharm Sheikh Tour
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Statue of Sekhmet in the Temple of Ramses III, c. 3050 BCE, photograph by Simon Connor, via the American Research Center in Egypt
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Egyptologists: The pyramids weren't built through slave labour but rather by workmen who received wages
Tumblr randos: Oh my god can you stop being slavery apologists for like one second you filthy fucking imperials??
Egyptologists: The strikes under Ramses III were caused by a famine rather than a deliberate and malicious mistreatment of the workforce. That's projecting a modern bias and uncool for a number of reasons.
Tumblr randos: Jesus christ you capitalist shills, stop sucking pharaoh dick like royalists
Egyptologists: You all need to stop claiming ancient artefacts of non-white people are cursed and need to be put back, that's fucking racist
Tumblr randos: Well yeah you're colonialist racists the lot of you!!
Egyptologists: ...you really have no idea what words mean do you
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getting severe "has never survived on a min wage job or had wages withheld" vibes from you unironically going to bat to defend ramses the third
Getting very 'I don't understand the socio-economic context of an ancient text so my modern interpretation of an ancient culture trumps everything else' vibes from you
also Ramesses III isn't even directly involved in that whole dispute. but you'd know that if you'd read it properly
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In the "House of Eternity" belonging to Royal Prince Khaemwaset, the son of King Ramses III, located in QV44, west of 'Uaset'-Thebes, a depiction showcases the God Shu, offspring of Ra, with His right hand extended in a gesture of blessing, adorned with the symbolic feather.
Learn more / Daha fazlası
https://www.archaeologs.com/w/shu/
#archaeologs#archaeology#archaeological#dictionary#history#egypt#egyptian#god#myhtology#egyptian religion#shu#the god shu#thebes#ra#arkeoloji#tarih#sanat#mitoloji#mısır mitolojisi
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