Sunday, November 1, 2009

The richest dudes of all time

A visit to the King Tut exhibit led us to wonder how the wealth of American tycoons compare to that of the pharaohs. Fairly well, according to the Forbes list of wealthiest people of all time.

A stunning number of Americans (14) made it to the top 75. In fact, John D. Rockefeller (1) and Andrew Carnegie (2) beat out the mighty pharaohs (Amenhotep III at no. 12). The list doesn't include absolute monarchs who theoretically owned the entire empire. This might explain the absence of emperors of China, which—for centuries—had the largest GDP in the world. Nor does it include Alexander the Great, who conquered everybody (in the parts of the world known to the West) and their dogs.

A monumental pyramid built by legions of slaves?! Pfft, Carnegie can build two skyscrapers with a steel train shuttling him from one towering structure to the other.

Wikipedia has its own list, but the scholarship is even more suspect. Who knows what methodology they (whoever "They" are) used.