WEBVTT - Part Two: The First Labor Strike: How the Tomb Builders of Deir El-Medina Started It All 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:08.160 Cool Zone Media. Hello, I'm welcome to kobiboohed Cool Stuff, 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:13.119 your weekly reminder that workers collectively bargaining is as old 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.439 as work. We have always had each other's back, We 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:18.960 always will. There's never been any exceptions. There's no such 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.880 thing as a scab. Why would anyone make up such 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.880 a terrible word. I am your host, Margaret Kiljoy. And 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.880 this is part two of a two parter. But the 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:34.239 Dierra al Medina strike the first strike in recorded history, 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.720 were the first recorded strike in history, something like that. 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:45.479 In part one we talked about labor in Egypt, and 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.080 we talked about how these big public works projects like 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.840 the tombs, weren't built by enslaved labor, but instead by 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.480 workers or about as free as people can be at 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:00.760 the time, which is medium. And in part two we're 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.640 gonna talk more about them. So the village of Diuerrel Medina, 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.440 these skilled workers, they were paid better and treated better 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.720 than most of their contemporaries. Like this was like this 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:17.440 is the this is the fucking you've made it job. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.959 You know, you're still like a worker. You're working on 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.920 pharaoh tombs. You know, they came from all over. There 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.520 were at least thirty different foreign names recorded among these workers, 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.520 and we actually know more about them than most ancient 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:36.319 working class people because everyone was writing shit down, mostly 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.160 legal stuff like money and marriage and divorce and lawsuits. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.240 Well it wasn't got lawsuits. It's called legal redress, but 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.200 in the thing that I read, but I think that 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.960 means lawsuits, because like overall, we have this problem in 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.600 history where we tend to only know what the rich 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:52.920 people and the rulers did because that's the only people 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.120 that people bothered to write anything down about. And so 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.640 that's why this is such an interesting exception and why 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.480 to me it implies that the kinds of things that 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.400 they did, like collective bargaining, are indicative of that being. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:09.120 If not common, then certainly, like if it was written 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.680 down in one of the only times we have ancient 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.760 shit about working class people written down, I suspect it 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.640 also happened other times too, you know. Anyway, this town 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:23.240 was founded during the eighteenth dynasty under Amenhotep the first, 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.280 so sometime in the fifteen twenty seven to fifteen oh 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.000 six BCE range, because that's when that guy was a pharaoh. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.280 Women here had legal rights. They were high up in 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:34.200 the temples, and they were probably doing a decent bit 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.919 of the writing. They weren't the people who are called 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:41.720 the workers in this particular context. The workers were skilled craftsmen, 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.400 and they made furniture and funery stuff for other people, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.440 not just for the Pharaoh. Funery equipment meant grave goods, 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:52.440 jewelry and pottery and art objects of all kinds. And 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:54.239 I'm going to take you on a tangent about that. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:59.120 I am currently kind of fascinated by the human instinct 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:01.480 to make a really fancy shit and then just like 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.400 get rid of it, just bury it, just throw it 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.240 in the river. Like I know. The religious significance is different. 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.320 But during our episodes about all the Gulls and the Celts, 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.480 we talked about how they would make hundreds of axeads 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.959 just to bury them in holes, or how they threw 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.280 so much gold into lakes that the Roman imperialists when 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.080 they came and invaded, they would auction off the Celtic 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.960 lakes to entrepreneurs who would dredge them up for treasure. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.839 To the Celts, this throwing away of things that were 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.080 made that were you know, had value was sacrifice to 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.400 the Thonic gods. The gods of the earth, but we 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.080 still have wishing wells today. I visited World War two 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.280 submarine recently, and it serves frankly as sort of a 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.640 shrine to the past. I know. I went there to 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.600 honor my ancestor, my grandfather who fought one of those things. 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.160 And there's a spot where people throw coins down through 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:58.200 the grate to the inaccessible sub floor below. It's like 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.680 a wishing well. There's still things that we have, and 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.120 there's an argument to be made that the vast wealth 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.800 of the medieval church was basically a sacrifice of the 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:13.119 fine goods to remove them from private hands. Unfortunately, since 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:15.600 priests are still people and the wealth kind of got 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:17.760 to their heads in a lot of cases, a lot 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.039 of the church reform at various points was like, hey, 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.480 we got rich again. That was kind of our whole 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.240 point was not do that. Probably throwing shit into a 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.159 lake worked out better socially, but who knows. Disposing of 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.279 things that have value has been a religious act in 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.920 so many places I've read about. I'd always assumed grave 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.159 goods were generally the stuff rich people had during life, 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.120 but here's at least one data point where the funery 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.919 equipment consisted of objects made for them for the sole 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.800 purpose of burial. I've said it a thousand times already, 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.679 but I'm kind of obsessed with how to sacrifice means 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.080 to make something sacred. Even the idea of burying the 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.279 dead into tombs instead of more traditional burial styles like 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.200 sky burial aka people out for the birds or burning 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.360 them at a pyre seems to map to class stratification. 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.400 Burial often comes with class stratification. Once there's rich people, 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.719 they get buried, they get you know, put into the earth, 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.520 and instead of just sort of disposed of like in 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.800 the Old Kingdom, only the pharaohs needed a special afterlife burial, 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.719 But these New Kingdom folks are making funery equipment on 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.880 the side for anyone with the money for them, Like, 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.280 for example, the foreman of the village, a man named Ka. 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:32.839 He's got his own tomb and he was buried with 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:37.160 a ton of grave goods. Anyway, the workers would often 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.080 head over to Thebes to sell things. Thebes is the 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.279 capital of the country at that point, and compared to 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:44.320 like it is sometimes Memphis, which is further up north 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.680 than Thebes, is further south. And I know what you're thinking. 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:53.720 You're thinking but Margaret, doesn't Thebes a city in Greece? Well, 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.919 I thought that too. There are two Thebes. And the 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.640 reason that there are two Thebes is that, Okay, the 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.400 Thebes in Greece is really old, like as old as Egypt, 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.720 like three thousand BCE. Ancient Greeks, if they wanted to 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.080 call something really old, they would be like, it's as 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:14.560 old as Thebes. The Egyptians didn't have a city named Thebes. 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.760 They had a city named wasit the big temple? They 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.640 called ta Opet. So years later when the Greeks showed up, 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.440 well after our story from today, they were like, ta Opet. 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.800 That sounds like Theibah, which sounds like Thebes. So there 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.320 you go, Bob's your uncle. Thebes is a city in Egypt. 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:40.520 Never change, Europeans, actually, please do change anyway, the workers 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.560 hung out in the capitol. That's my point here. I'm 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.640 always like vaguely annoyed that we use the exonyms for 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.160 these various places that we don't call it. Was it 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.239 that we call it Thebes. But on the other hand, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:58.800 I know that like anyone who's like, oh, did you 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.680 go to Naples? No, I went to Napoli, like those 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.200 people are really annoying, and so maybe it would be 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.320 really annoying to be like, I don't know of a 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.000 Egyptian city named Thebes. I only know whasit. You know, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:12.320 I don't know where I land on this. This is 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.520 like the really important questions of our time. But their 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.360 whole town, which was not called Dierre al Medina at 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:21.360 the time, but that's what we call it now to 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:25.400 avoid calling it Napoli. The whole town was dry as fuck, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.360 which is why it's still around kind of, and the 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.880 community well was filled by people carrying water from the 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.360 nearby nile. For all the working people in this town, 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.760 there's like the like skilled craftsmen. There's a lot of 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.760 people who are like lesser doing quote unquote on skilled 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.520 labor there as well. It's a small town, a little 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.000 over one hundred houses, most of them inside the wall, 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.280 some of them outside the wall. And they're not just 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.120 simple huts. There are like four room brick houses. They 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.400 have cellars, they have altars. Presumably the men worked as 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.320 laborers and the women worked at home, mostly baking, I think, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.520 and the men were sorted into two work gangs, the 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.720 left side the right side, which was just which side 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.040 of any given tomb they worked on, and they were 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.600 organized in a more or less military fashion. People had 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:13.360 specialized skilled skills carpenters and sculptors and masons and shit. 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.040 Plus there's all the assistants who brought water, cut the wood, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.760 wash the clothes, all that kind of shit. It was 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.800 kind of assembly line work. They would divide up the 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.480 wall basically using a chalk line like we do today, 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.040 only it was a string dipped in ink instead of chalk, 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.520 and then each person or each group of people take 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.920 a section and just get it done, painting drafts and 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.880 various colors before starting in on the carving and then 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.840 painting it their final colors. The work week was ten 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.800 days long, with three weeks in a month. I've read 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.080 that the weekend was three days long, and I've read 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:47.360 that it was two days long. I've read that it 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:48.679 was the last two days of each week in the 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:50.480 first day of the next week, and I've also read 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.080 it's just two days, so seven or eight days on, 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.360 two or three days off, nine days off a month 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:02.000 to our eight. And the work wasn't really mandatory. Workers 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.080 took off all the time. People would call in sick, 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.720 or they'd call in stung by a scorpion, or called 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:09.920 in tired of working for a while, like you know, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.040 sore right. They also called in building shit for my 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.200 family this week instead sorry, and they called in building 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.320 a different thing for my corrupt boss instead of what 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.840 I'm supposed to be doing. Many workers only worked on 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.160 tombs one day a week. When they were working. The 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.680 laborers slept in huts closer to the work site during 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.000 the week because it was a long walk back home 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:36.000 about two kilometers but like really steep and sketchy. I 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.199 was actually reading. They eventually figured out that everyone got 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.800 osteoarthritis from all of the walk They like compared the 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.480 men and the women of the town and realized that 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:48.319 all the men had osteoarthritis from walking up and down 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.040 this sketchy steep thing all of the time. And part 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:53.520 of why we know all of this, when we know 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.720 the osteoarthritis think is of skeletal analysis. But the thing 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:58.720 that we know about like everything else about like called 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.400 in scorpion stone, right, is that they kept scribes around 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.800 who took notes about all the work being done, and 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.720 shit wasn't getting written down for posterity. Early writing was 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.679 entirely concerned with money with value. These were time cards. Basically, 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.680 the scribes tracked who came to work and who didn't. 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.920 The scribes tracked who'd been paid how much, and who 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:25.240 took what out of the storehouses. There was literature too, 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:29.079 though multiple copies of specific satires were found on the 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.160 site in people's homes, so people just had like, ah, 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.320 here's the funny story has been going around. Everyone's reading it. 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.080 I got one at home. And there were adventure stories 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.400 about the gods. There was the story of Sanujah, the 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.120 adventures of a man who fled Egypt to Palestine. Fascinating 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.199 to me is the fact that the story of Sanuja 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.280 probably started off as a coffin text. And these coffin texts, 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.320 I promise you I'd tell you what they are. These 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.920 are the spells that were inscribed in the coffins of 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.040 the dead to help them reach the afterlife. And I 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.480 really like the idea that one of the oldest adventure 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.160 stories in history was a spell inscribed into a tomb. 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:07.760 But then the writers went above and beyond and were like, 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.280 all right, but now let's throw a plot into this 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.760 bad boy be like you all buried me and put 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.360 the text of my amazing novel Escape from in Cell 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:22.319 Island into It. Don't do that, but it would be funny. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.640 More recently, in nineteen twenty eight CE, you know, like 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.480 one hundred years ago, some grave robbers again the kind 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.440 of degrees, found a whole library in the tomb of 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:35.000 one scribe, and he had a papyrus scroll now called 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:39.480 the Egyptian Dream Book, which talks about dream divination. Around 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.200 one hundred of the interpretations have survived the millennia. I've 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.960 also read two hundred and twenty two. But it's important 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.680 to understand these interpretations were not like direct one to one. 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.280 Not every person had the temperament to make these particular 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.560 interpretations accurate. There was also skill involved in interpreting dreams, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:02.120 understanding what they would mean for each person. These interpretations 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.280 for what was considered a Sethian temperamented person who is 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.800 chaotic and drunken and fit to prones of rage. Someone 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:14.280 is stormy with dangerous power. So if that's you, here's 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.400 some dream interpretations for you. If a man sees himself 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.520 immersing in the river in a dream, it is good. 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.160 It means purification from badness. If a man sees himself 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.559 dead in a dream, it is good. It means a 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.440 long life is ahead of him. If a man sees 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.760 himself writing on a papyrus role in a dream, it 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.679 is bad. It means his crimes will be reckoned by 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.040 his God. And let's see. If you see yourself eating 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.800 a crocodile, you're going to become an official. If you're 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.720 burying an old man in your dream, you will flourish. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.240 If you've got white sandals in your dream, though when 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.280 you're walking around, you are doomed to wander the earth. 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.440 If you dream about fucking a lady, that's bad because 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.800 it's an indication of mourning. If you dream about getting hard, 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.600 it means your enemies are going to be victorious. If 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:06.640 you dream about drinking warm beer, suffering is coming. And 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.920 if you dream that you're looking out a window, that's good. 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:14.440 It means that God will hear your cries. But do 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.640 you know who else will hear your cries and will 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.760 interpret your dreams for you. The products and services that 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.520 support this show just when it says any additional notes, 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.200 as you're filling out that form to acquire that product 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.360 or service, just write in the whole of your dream, 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.320 and they will know this is a lie. They're not 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.200 actually going to interpret your dream for you. I mean 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:47.760 they might eat and we're back. So in this tiny 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.440 little town, they had their own court system. Like a 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.640 lot of places, the early judges were basically people who 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.839 are either respected or high up in the hierarchy. So 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.360 the foreman, the scribe, the deputy. There's like guards and shit, 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.640 and anyone who people specifically trusted or had been around 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.720 a while. This court, the ken Bet did civil stuff 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.760 and misdemeanors. I'm just calling it misdemeanors, like lesser crimes. 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.760 Anything that's a capital crime, felonies, they're off to thebes 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.560 stealing stuff, especially if you denied stealing stuff before the 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.760 gods but were proven to be lying, that'll get you executed. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.760 But since they wrote everything down, we know that most 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:29.960 of the cases were like so and so didn't pay 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.480 so and so for the thing they bought. They sued 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.280 each other a lot. There were guardians, there's other jobs. 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.680 There's guardians who guarded the tomb and also handed out 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:40.920 tools to workers and made sure no one was chiseling 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.040 away and either copper chisels to pocket the copper. There 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.200 were doorkeepers who closed up at night and paid the 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.520 workers their grain and served as witnesses and disputes. There 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:51.880 were police, and the police were there to protect the 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.120 tomb against like invasion and like you know, banditry and stuff, 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.560 and they also investigated tomb robbery and so like they 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.040 were there to both protect the people and police the people. 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:06.080 The workers were constantly under suspicion because they were constantly 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.920 stealing stuff because the urge to steal from work is 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.160 probably hardwired into our brains. They would steal fat and 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:14.640 oil from work candles to use in their home candles, 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.600 for example. And all these workers I keep calling this 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.640 wage labor. It's not like you would imagine wage labor 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.520 is designed to make sure that you don't get ahead. 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.240 Like wage labor is designed to give you enough so 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:32.800 that you kind of just don't die so that you 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.840 can keep working. Like that's what it's been since pretty 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.960 much the beginning. And these days they have to kind 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.280 of build in a like, nah, you're totally going to 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:44.720 get ahead. You do this for forty years and you 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:46.800 get to have an RV or if you do it right, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.800 you're going to be a gazillionaire. You know. Somehow well, 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.600 they used to be more honest about it. Wage labor 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.160 the free labor, and it just paid you in rations. 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.480 They let you live there, and they paid you in rations. 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.320 That's what wages is. That's what it comes from. The 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:08.240 workers were paid in grain mostly, plus other necessities like 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.240 wood as fuel and clay for pottery and vegetables and 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.320 fish for like eating and holiday bonuses were paid out 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:20.400 sometimes the salt and sesame oil and meat. And there's 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.040 no currency at this point anyway. Read the book Debt 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.400 by David Graeber for a history of currency and to 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.160 learn neat things like how debt is an older idea 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.880 than money, and money is an older idea than burder. 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.840 For most of history, people have basically just worked for 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:38.560 room and board, best as I can tell. Again, that's 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:44.280 what wage labor is still designed to basically be. We 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.400 just like to abstract it and think we're free. But 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:50.960 as old as time, well as old as wage labor, 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:55.840 at least there was corruption. One scribe named Kenner Keberschev 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.960 was accused of accepting bribes two different times. Works accused 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.040 him of using the workgang to do work for him 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.520 during work hours. Then one worker wrote, quote, what does 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.720 his bad way mean? In which you behave to me. 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.720 If there is some beer, you do not look for me. 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.679 But if there is some work, you do look for me. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.280 And that is a universal thought. If there is some beer, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.480 you don't look for me, but if there is work, 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:28.359 you do look for me. And also where there are wages, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.359 there's wage theft. Wage theft is when a boss doesn't 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.520 pay you what you are owed, and it is far 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:36.480 and away the most common sort of theft in the 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.640 United States of America. In twenty nineteen, just as an example, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.760 all combined robberies amounted to four hundred and eighty two 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:49.439 million dollars. Wage theft was fifty billion dollars. That's one 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:52.639 hundred times higher. There's all kinds of graphs you can 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.280 see of like every single kind of how people steal 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.439 from each other, and it's just this tiny little chunk 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.359 is the stuff that we call a crime. Wage theft 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:06.720 is fucking everything. The rich are stealing from you right now. 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:08.680 They're stealing from you just by not giving you the 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.879 value of what you create, but they are extra stealing 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:13.920 from you on top of that. They tell you guys 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:15.439 to show up thirty minutes early to work, and they 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.280 don't pay you for it. They are fucking stealing your time. 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:21.960 They like to pretend like we're equals, that it's all 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.800 a free choice. Yet they talked down to us anyway. 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.080 That's been a labor agitation with Margaret. Back to the story, 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.600 and it was here in this city of workers. The 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.840 oldest known worker strike took place way before coins existed. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.080 Coins didn't show up until about five hundred years later. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.680 Before the advent of the labor strike was the advent 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.200 of wage theft. During the reign of Ramses the Third 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.680 eleven eighty four to eleven fifty three PCE, administrators were 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.720 corrupt as fucking thebes at nearby capital, the grain reserves 0:18:55.720 --> 0:19:01.520 were dangerously low. Workers were barely being paid. Described Neferhotep wrote, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.720 quote one and a half car of grain. It's like 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.320 one hundred and sixty eight pounds have been taken from us. 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.480 We are dying. We cannot live. That was twenty five 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:16.199 years into Ramsey's the Third's reign. They put up with 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.159 it for several more years after that was written. In 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.359 the twenty ninth year and the twenty first day of 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:24.639 the second month, another scribe filed a formal complaint to 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:29.520 the temple months went by no relief. So in the 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.640 sixth month of the year, after their rations were delayed 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:37.600 eighteen days, all the men stopped working both gangs. This 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:42.199 was November fourteenth, eleven fifty two BC. They stopped working 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:44.520 and they all go to the mortuary temple of one 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.119 of the pharaohs. Dead Pharaoh's got a mortuary temple and 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.840 a separate tomb at this point, and they staged a 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:51.680 sit in. They just like showed up and we're like, 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.440 we're not fucking going give us our food. I hope 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.680 they sang like a tree beside the water, we shall 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.119 not be moved, but it can't prove that they did. 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.280 And so they were like, all right, well here's some pastries. 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.040 You have a fucking pizza party. But none of their 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.400 rations and that didn't work. I mean they ate the pastries, 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:11.960 like when your boss throws you a pizza party and 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.399 you should still eat the pizza. It's just not instead 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.080 of paying you overtime. So the next day they went 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:19.840 to another temple. The third day they went to a 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.040 third temple, or maybe on the second day they went 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.560 to the central grain storehouse in the city. I have 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:30.399 somehow read both even though there's only like one source, 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.200 there's one primary source for this, and I read it 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.400 and it was really hard for me to understand, both 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:37.879 because of the translation and just everything happening within it. 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.639 So I was like, honestly kind of reliant on secondary 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.399 sources in order to try and make sense of it. 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.680 And secondary sources didn't agree with each other. But maybe 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:48.720 they went to the central grain storehouse in the city 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.520 and that primary source. It fits onto a single sheet 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.480 of a pirrus, and it's missing pieces here or there, 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.240 it's more or less intact. So journal that's like, the 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.080 workers went and they sat down in the temple and 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.840 they spent the night there, and the workers say they're starving. 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.199 And the workers have been paid the following amount of 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.680 what they erowed the chief of police. Once they get 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:09.280 to wherever they go, this will shock you. The chief 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.080 of police was not on their side. He was like, 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.920 go home, get back to work, don't worry, we'll handle it. 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.119 And they did get that month's rations, so they went home, 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:21.280 but then they found out they wouldn't get the next 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:25.080 month's rations, so they went back on strike. They blocked 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:27.280 the road into the Valley of the Kings, so people 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.080 couldn't go offer food and drink to the dead. And 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.040 the guards were like, we'll move you by a force, 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:34.680 and the strikers were like, if you do, we'll fuck 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:39.879 up the tombs. So now we get sit ins, road blockades, 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:45.960 collective bargaining the thread of sabotage. It's fucking cool. I'm 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:50.160 really excited about this story. There was this whole social 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.760 peace thing. It was an important Egyptian value at the 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:57.239 time Mott the pharaoh was supposed to respect it and 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.440 the workers were supposed to respect it. Don't rock the boat. 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.719 But after years of striking, this whole thing lested I 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.119 think around three years, to quote a write up by 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.360 Worldstory dot Work quote, at last, some sort of resolution 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.439 seems to have been reached, whereby officials were able to 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.480 make payments to the workers on time. But the dynamic 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:21.360