Pharoahs were no slave-drivers

Hmm. Thousands of years of people thinking the Ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids got a raw deal and rough treatment in a slave-master working scenario seem to be in doubt. Newly discovered graves by the side of pyramids in Giza show that pyramid builders were valued, high-status workers who worked on three-month rotations and were fed plenty of meat.

Any standing on the shoulders of giants may have to be rethought if entrepreneurs of more recent times have mistreated workers on the basis that 'whatever was good enough for the Egyptians was good enough for us' (e.g. the cotton industry of the Industrial Revolution, involving cotton mills in North-West England, gin distilleries and the slave trade in Liverpool, slave traders in West Africa and cotton-fields in the southern States of the USA).

Does this finding mean other historical working relationships need to be re-examined? The Christians in the Colosseum or slave-powered galleys or Ancient Rome? The sacrificial rites of the Ancient Aztecs? The child labour and sweatshops of the Industrial Revolution? Er, probably not.