None of these people was free; not a single Egyptian was, in our sense of the word, free. No individual could call in question a hierarchy of authority which culminated in a living god. But it must not be forgotten that the reverse of freedom, isolation of the individual with or without “inalienable rights,” was likewise lacking in Egypt. And servitude loses much of its sting if authority rests with those to whom faith has attributed the power of safeguarding the existence of society. Moreover, if it was true that all were at the disposal of the divine ruler and his officials, it was also true that even the lowliest might appeal to him[155] and claim what was “right”—_maat_ (justice, right, and truth)—by which the ruler and the other gods were said to live and which informed, or was supposed to inform, his functionaries. There were no castes, and men of simple origin might rise to the highest posts. The life-story of one Uni under three successive kings of the Sixth Dynasty shows that even lower officials, without influential relations, could rise to the highest offices once their ability and integrity had been recognized. The talented and industrious were not frustrated by a rigid class distinction or by a colour bar. A Nubian, frankly calling himself Panehsi, “the Nubian,” or “negro,” might be found in the highest places. The educated men were assigned by Pharaoh to whatever offices he thought fit. The common people were mostly tied to the land which they tilled for their own living and for the maintenance of the state. We do not know whether or not they were serfs. We do know that they had to turn in a considerable proportion of their produce as taxes and that they were liable to _corvée_. A proportion of the young men of all villages and estates was levied for the army, which was really a militia, but functioned much more frequently as a labour corps, available for all kinds of public works. It was this “army” which was sent on quarrying and mining expeditions, which dug the canals and built the temples and the royal tombs. If additional labour was needed to undertake special tasks or to expedite those in hand, the population at large could be drafted. For instance, the number of men required for the building of pyramids ran into many thousands, and it is likely that the stone-cutters and their crews of unskilled helpers worked continuously in the quarries, the masons and their navvies on the site, but that during the inundation special levies were drafted to transport the stone from Tura, on the east bank, to Gizeh or Saqqara on the west bank of the Nile. For this purpose it was convenient that in summer, when the arable land was flooded, all agricultural labour came to a standstill, and the water covering the fields facilitated transport to the very foot of the desert plateau.[156]