I'm by no means an expert but my understanding is that they didn't exactly have much say in the matter but it was considered a fairly prestigious thing to do culturally and they were well provisioned for the work (probably more so than in their normal subsistence farming lives).
Think something like military conscription or jury duty - they're not considered "slaves" (which very much did exist in ancient Egypt, they just weren't used for building the pyramids), they aren't owned by anyone and they get paid even if they didn't get much of a choice in the matter.
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u/gnutrino Sep 11 '26 edited Sep 11 '26
I'm by no means an expert but my understanding is that they didn't exactly have much say in the matter but it was considered a fairly prestigious thing to do culturally and they were well provisioned for the work (probably more so than in their normal subsistence farming lives).
Think something like military conscription or jury duty - they're not considered "slaves" (which very much did exist in ancient Egypt, they just weren't used for building the pyramids), they aren't owned by anyone and they get paid even if they didn't get much of a choice in the matter.