On 9/11/06, Deborah Harrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
..................
No. Anytime a culture squanders its resources, it
runs the risk of destroying itself; it may be made
worse by the natural environment (like Greenland) or
climatic change (frex the little ice age).
An aside: has anyone proposed that part of what led to
the downfall of Egypt was its resource depletion by
building monuments to/for the dead? Although they
certainly survived many centuries - and of course had
a very large area to exploit, with neighbors to
plunder and so forth.
Debbi
who got to recheck the book out, 'cause it wasn't on
hold! :)
I'm not sure the pyramids and other funerary things can really explain
much of the ancient Egyptians. I mean, the big pyramids were Old
Kingdom predominantly, and the interregnums, Middle and New Kindgoms
were more inclined to rock tombs, and it was during those periods that
Egypt reached its zenith and approached its nadir, no?
Also, would the pyramids have had all that much of an economic effect?
The farmers were not all that busy in the periods they were
conscripted, and I don't think there would be much of an opportunity
cost - if the farmers weren't working on various infrastructural
improvement projects and vanity projects like pyramids and temples,
what enduring gains could they have made? Not much; it's nowhere
comparable to today where any nation that forced a sizable proportion
of its populace to do manual labor on vanity projects would be eaten
alive by the opportunity costs.
~maru
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