WI Pharoah Sneferu dies earlier?

Keenir

Banned
In OTL, the Pharoah Sneferu built three pyramids...only the last one - the Red Pyramid - was what we would call a true pyramid.

But what if Sneferu had died upon the completion of the Bent Pyramid - the second he had built - and before the Red Pyramid could be begun?

would this change anything?
 
We'd have one less pyramid?

Aside from being truly impressive to look at, awe-inspiring to really understand, and as very interesting grave sites, did the pyramids have that much importance? Was the Red Pyramid ever used for any nation-shaking political move, or as cover in some military ambush? Is it filled with some precious relics that only this Pharaoh would have created? I don't have much beyond the basic idea of Egyptian history, but this seems to me to be one of those WIs that don't have much effect on the world.

Now, I'll also grant you it was the tallest man-made structure of its day, but I don't think that it would make that much of a difference, overall.
 
In OTL, the Pharoah Sneferu built three pyramids...only the last one - the Red Pyramid - was what we would call a true pyramid.

But what if Sneferu had died upon the completion of the Bent Pyramid - the second he had built - and before the Red Pyramid could be begun?

would this change anything?
Just speculating out of ignorance, but:
I'm not sure where the idea of building pyramids orginated, but maybe if this Red Pyramid hadn't been built, later Pharoahs wouldn't have felt obliged to build large pyramids themselves. Fewer, smaller, or no pyramids could conceivably lead to fewer slave revolts (were there any connected with pyramid construction?) or fewer slaves.

Were Egyptian slaves primarily from POWs, or were domestic populations a large contributor? If POWs, then they still need to do something, unless they're simply released, so maybe they could go towards building some other projects, like dams, canals, awesome palaces, &c. If slaves were of domestic origin (same is true if POW-slaves are released), maybe the Pharoahs just wouldn't take as many slaves, and with the money saved from feeding and housing slaves and from using much less building materials, not to mention with the could-have-been-slaves doing some more beneficial work, the Kingdom could prosper economically like never before.

I could speculate more, but i'll stop here.
 
Actually, this pyramid (and every other one I've heard of, which isn't much) was built on hired labor, from what I've gathered.

As for inspiring other pharaohs to build similarly large penis compensations, people have been building big buildings since the dawn of construction. If the Red Pyramid wasn't the tallest structure in the world, then another pharaoh would want to build the biggest. Nothing would really change if the Red One was never built.
 
But before the Red Piramid there was Zoser's piramid, wich was the highest buildng on the world. Sneferu did not invent the piramid, he simply covered the levels and made a smooth sided piramid, and that had already happened in the first two he built (most archeologists agree than the "bent" piramid was never intended to be bebt, it was a miscalculation of the angle than forced the builders to change it midway to avoid a collapse)

And no, the pharaons did not use slaves to build the piramids. They used artisans, and for manual labor (moving all those stones) they used drafted (and paid) peasants during the dry season, when they had had nothing to do but wait for the next inundation.
 
Just speculating out of ignorance, but:
I'm not sure where the idea of building pyramids orginated, but maybe if this Red Pyramid hadn't been built, later Pharoahs wouldn't have felt obliged to build large pyramids themselves. Fewer, smaller, or no pyramids could conceivably lead to fewer slave revolts (were there any connected with pyramid construction?) or fewer slaves.

Were Egyptian slaves primarily from POWs, or were domestic populations a large contributor? If POWs, then they still need to do something, unless they're simply released, so maybe they could go towards building some other projects, like dams, canals, awesome palaces, &c. If slaves were of domestic origin (same is true if POW-slaves are released), maybe the Pharoahs just wouldn't take as many slaves, and with the money saved from feeding and housing slaves and from using much less building materials, not to mention with the could-have-been-slaves doing some more beneficial work, the Kingdom could prosper economically like never before.

I could speculate more, but i'll stop here.

IIRC they didn't really rely on slaves for major building projects like this, but relied mostly on corvee peasant labour during the off-season.
 
Top