How Beer and Bread Built the Pyramids

The Pyramids were not built by slaves like many people were led to believe for thousands of years, but by workers who traded labor for beer, bread, housing, and medical care. This one of the earliest and greatest examples of how to build a productive workforce with positive reinforcement on a massive scale.

Building Pyramids in Ancient Egypt was a dangerous and sometimes deadly task which led historians to theorized that whoever built them must have been forced into it at the crack of a whip, but that all changed a few years ago when the tombs and living quarters of the workers were discovered. This revealed that the Pyramids were built by a workforce that was provided with housing and medical care while being paid with rations of 10 loafs of bread and one measure of beer per day. They were so well taken care of that economies of surplus rations developed and volunteers made up the majority of the workforce. There are still theories that some of the workers may have been required to work there as part of a random selection process similar to military conscription in which people get drafted, but even in such cases those people paid workers and not slaves.

In closing the Pyramids were built by people who worked productively knowing that they would go home at night to a filling meal and a relaxing brew before bedtime. Treating workers well is the ticket to accomplishing great things because it can make all the difference between disgruntled slackers doing the minimum and a content staff working hard to earn a living.