Ancient Egyptians secret of economics

The ancient Egyptians believed in a number of demi-gods, the most important being Ra the sun god. As tradition follows Ra gave birth to four children; Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nebthet. In the traditional story Osiris and Isis were the successors to Ra’s kingdom on earth, and they were beloved leaders. They taught the people how to farm crops and construct water channels to provide fresh water to dry lands. Together they would unite the people of nations and bring peace and prosperity to all. On the other hand Seth was jealous of Osiris and wanted to take over the kingdom. As the story goes Seth tricks his brother Osiris into joining him in a celebration and kills him. However through a process of what is described as artificial insemination Isis gives birth to Osiris’s son Horus, who would grow up to avenge his father. Within the story all characters are representations; Ra is a representation of the Sun, where as the four children each represents a season. Osiris is the summer and Isis is the spring… they give birth to life. In the story this is shown symbolically as being able to farm shows prosperity and the reference to bringing unity to the people of nations as well as peace is about trade. The constructs of water channels shows a structured economical system. Nebthet and Seth are autumn and winter and the destruction Seth brings is unavoidable as farm crops are killed by cold weather and nations become desperate, peace becomes unsure. The later version of this story revolves around Horus the new sun god, Osiris and Isis son and Seth in a representation battle of good and evil, light and darkness and overall the day and night. The philosophy was not hard to interpret as the story explains that every day Horus would battle Seth and banish him, and yet every evening Seth would reemerge and send Horus into the underworld, where he would stay until the next morning when he would resurrect. The philosophy of good against evil through day and night was in reference to the lives of the people of that time. In those days the night was a scary time as humans were vulnerable to predators whereas during the day the sun-light provided a visual of any intruders to a tribe. The pharaohs used these beliefs to ensure structure over their people and establish a sufficient economy of loyal subjects. Many people imagine the builders of the pyramids to be slaves that were forced to work, however through discovered documents found by archeologist shows that pyramid workers were employed by a system of work for “freedom”. Although many workers had been captured slaves of other tribes, important jobs that required skill and knowledge were given to men that were paid quite well. Monument structures were built for many reasons as rulers took advantage of situations; they would provide employment to their people by creating huge structures stabilizing an economy, the people would agree to work on these projects because the rulers would convince the people it was in the interest of pleasing the gods, and the structures were built to further the rulers understanding of cosmic alignments, and to work as calendars to allow a ruler to know the solstices and equinoxes which were important to farming and ensuring the citizens of the nation were not lost to a supply of food.