The Pyramids: Four Incredible Facts

Built By Slaves?

While working on Pharaoh Khufu’s pyramid in Giza in 2560 BC, one stonemason decided to have some fun. He scratched his team’s name into the alabaster: ‘The Friends of Khufu Gang.’ The next day, it gave his friends a good laugh. When construction was completed, the graffiti was closed up inside the pyramid.

Four thousand years later, it came to light again when a fibre optic cable was sent down between blocks. This scribble made the investigating archaeologists pause… For centuries, it was assumed that slaves built the pyramids, completing back-breaking days of work to appease their masters. But this light-hearted bit of graffiti changed scholars’ minds.

Most of the people who were building the pyramids were being paid in kind. Many were farmers and, instead of paying taxes, were working.

Professor Salima Ikram, Distinguished Professor of Egyptology at Cairo’s American University

Controversial Theories

A theory put forward by conspiracy theorists was that the enormous Egyptian structures were too big and advanced for men without modern-day machinery to make. Some cited ancient aliens having a hand in their construction… This, of course, is incorrect. The technique used to construct the pyramids was astounding, using the River Nile (or Aur, as it would’ve been called before the Greeks invaded).

First, workers laid down an access road and then dug a channel. The river ran close to the site, filling the channel with water during the flood season, allowing blocks of stone, some weighing up to 15 tonnes, to be floated on barges. 

After the blocks arrived, one team dragged the rock on a wooden platform while another team poured water in front of the sledge to reduce friction against the sand. This smooth running lightened the load by as much as half – simple physics, known intuitively by the ancient Egyptians. There are also suggestions that a simple machine using levers and counterweights was used to elevate the blocks. Such a machine, called a shadoof, has existed in Egypt for millennia and is still used to elevate pots full of water from the Nile River.

The country with the most pyramids is… not Egypt!

The country with the most pyramids is actually Sudan. The Nubians started building pyramids around the same time as the Egyptians, but their dedication to the form lasted much longer. In 693 BC, aged 30, a Nubian prince called Taharqa ascended the throne and commenced an ambitious building programme along the Nile. This included a cemetery at a site called Nuri. Inspired by the longevity of the Egyptian monuments, every Nubian noble wanted a pyramid in which to rest for eternity. They fashioned their own architectural style, with tombs that had a smaller base and rose at a sharper angle to a pointed tip. 

The largest and oldest pyramid at Nuri belongs to Taharqa; 20 other kings surround him. Today, these pyramids are waterlogged and remote. But, unlike their plundered Egyptian counterparts, many Nubian tombs remain unexplored even to this day.

The Biggest Pyramid is in Mexico

The tallest pyramid ever built stands at Giza, but the largest is in Mexico. The Great Pyramid of Cholula was built around 200 BC. The complex started with a smaller pyramid but expanded over the centuries until you had to walk more than a mile to circle its perimeter.

Just like the Egyptian pyramids, the construction of Cholula is lost to myth. The Aztecs recorded that it was built by a giant, Xelhua, whose audacity angered the gods. They rained down fire on his pyramid. The fact that the temple once enshrined a meteorite suggests that perhaps there is a kernel of truth in the folk tale of raining fire.

By the 8th century AD, the vast pyramid was buried in sand and dirt, resembling a hill. That’s how it looked to the Spanish invader Hernán Cortés, who arrived in 1519. He saw nothing more than an insignificant mound.

It wasn’t until construction work began in 1910 that the pyramid was rediscovered. By then, it was 2,000 years old, but it was still the largest man-made monument ever constructed anywhere in the world.