> you're focusing strongly on the "brain-drain" element at the expense of "skills retention" and "skills development bits
Well, yeah. Look at my comment, in its entirety:
>>>> Brain drain mitigation? Brain drain just wasn't a possibility 4400 years ago.
If you can't defend that, then... don't? Make the argument that isn't obvious nonsense; you don't get more credible by throwing in a laundry list of "concepts that sound bad".
> There's mathematics, surveying, architectural design, measuring, logistics, labour organisation, planning, transport, engineering, and a whole mess of related skills. If not kept in practice, they are lost (you're focusing strongly on the "brain-drain" element at the expense of "skills retention" and "skills development bits).
There would have been no lost opportunities to exercise these skills in the absence of pyramidal efforts. They built temples, palaces, and cities on a continuous basis. Surveying is a constant need of anyone who collects taxes. (And it's particularly important in Egypt, where everyone's property lines move every year to match the extent of the flooding of the Nile.)
As far as I've read, the Old Kingdom pyramids stopped being built when the colossal economic strain they involved nearly collapsed the state. That doesn't suggest that they were useful in employing otherwise idle technicians. It also doesn't suggest that the system governing them was especially capable at logistics and planning. Planning would have involved noticing "this pyramid will cost X amount to build, which is more than we can afford".
> Large structures means civil engineering, construction, grain storage facilities, and quite probably some degree of metalworking and related crafts
I think this is backwards to a certain extent; I'd run causation from grain storage -> large structures, not the other way around.
I'm not interested in litigating minutia. I've addressed the point. I've admitted, repeatedly, that this is a very weakly-supported hypothesis, though not entirely without merits. Substantive proof is unlikely to emerge from a tendentious HN debate.
You're the one constructing a far more magnificant pyramid of this than I'd ever intended.
Well, yeah. Look at my comment, in its entirety:
>>>> Brain drain mitigation? Brain drain just wasn't a possibility 4400 years ago.
If you can't defend that, then... don't? Make the argument that isn't obvious nonsense; you don't get more credible by throwing in a laundry list of "concepts that sound bad".
> There's mathematics, surveying, architectural design, measuring, logistics, labour organisation, planning, transport, engineering, and a whole mess of related skills. If not kept in practice, they are lost (you're focusing strongly on the "brain-drain" element at the expense of "skills retention" and "skills development bits).
There would have been no lost opportunities to exercise these skills in the absence of pyramidal efforts. They built temples, palaces, and cities on a continuous basis. Surveying is a constant need of anyone who collects taxes. (And it's particularly important in Egypt, where everyone's property lines move every year to match the extent of the flooding of the Nile.)
As far as I've read, the Old Kingdom pyramids stopped being built when the colossal economic strain they involved nearly collapsed the state. That doesn't suggest that they were useful in employing otherwise idle technicians. It also doesn't suggest that the system governing them was especially capable at logistics and planning. Planning would have involved noticing "this pyramid will cost X amount to build, which is more than we can afford".
> Large structures means civil engineering, construction, grain storage facilities, and quite probably some degree of metalworking and related crafts
I think this is backwards to a certain extent; I'd run causation from grain storage -> large structures, not the other way around.