content: Let's not get carried away with the idea that life under the Pharaohs was any better. Yes, ancient Egypt was the wealthiest and most powerful civilization at the time (there were very few), but the sheer bureaucratic control the government had over every individual was unprecedented even by today's standards. As a farmer, you owned no land, no crops, not even the seeds you used to plant. It all belonged to the Pharaoh. Seeds were bought by the central agricultural bureau, and you were required to return an equal amount of seeds after harvest, on top of your grain quota, which was dependent on the size of your assigned plot. Failure to meet these quotas meant varying degrees of punishment, ranging form fines to death. Obviously blasphemy under Islamic rule means harsh punishment, but it meant certain death in ancient Egypt. Flogging? That's kids stuff! And sure, those Pyramids are astonishing feats of engineering, but it speaks to their warped religious priorities. A fraction of that kind of labour could have benefited the society in the form of public works. Instead, they devoted themselves to building the grandest tombs the world has ever seen. In the 1st Century AD, a Roman water commissioner named Frontius is quoted as saying "Will anybody compare the Pyramids, or those useless though renowned works of the Greeks, with these aqueducts?". Even during antiquity, they were scoffed as a waste of resources. TL;DR Ancient Egyptian religion was shitty and oppressive.