56 Fun Facts About Pyramids

Which Egyptian ruler lived closer in time to the first Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid?

Cleopatra died in 30 BC, some 2,500 years after the Great Pyramid was built; by her day Greek writers had already listed it among the Seven Wonders, and it is the only one still standing.

At about 146 metres when new, the Great Pyramid stood taller than which of these landmarks?

The Statue of Liberty stands 93 metres from ground to torch, well short of the pyramid, which has itself lost about 8 metres since its smooth outer casing was stripped away.

For roughly how long was the Great Pyramid the tallest structure that humans had built?

About 3,800 years passed, by the usual reckoning, before Lincoln Cathedral's spire outreached it in 1311, and that spire then blew down in a storm in 1548.

Roughly how many large stone blocks were quarried to build the Great Pyramid?

About 2.3 million blocks went into the Great Pyramid, but most never travelled far: they were cut from a quarry just south of the building site.

The granite lining the Great Pyramid's King's Chamber was quarried at which distant place?

Aswan: its granite also forms five tiers of huge slabs stacked above the chamber, most likely to shield the ceiling from the immense weight of the masonry overhead.

The Great Pyramid's Robbers' Tunnel is said to have been forced for which medieval ruler?

Abbasid caliph: by tradition al-Ma'mun's workmen cut their way in, then dug around the stone plugs that blocked the passage up to the chambers.

Which Greek historian claimed that gangs of 100,000 men built the Great Pyramid?

Herodotus: writing some 2,000 years after the event, he also said the work took twenty years; the builders' town found at Giza points to a far smaller workforce.

Bakeries and heaps of cattle bone at the Giza workers' town overturned the belief that who built the pyramids?

Slaves: the town fed its crews beef in quantity, and workers were buried in tombs beside the pyramids, an honour that points to valued labourers.

Robots have climbed narrow shafts blocked by small stone doors from which room of the Great Pyramid?

Queen's Chamber: a robot found the first door in 1993, and when another drilled through it in 2002 it met only a second stone slab.

What technique found the hidden cavity above the Great Pyramid's Grand Gallery in 2017?

Muon radiography: these cosmic-ray particles pass more easily through empty space than through stone, so detectors revealed a void at least 30 metres long, nicknamed the Big Void.

The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, Egypt's first pyramid, was built for which Third Dynasty king?

Djoser, a Third Dynasty king of about 2650 BC, was buried beneath the Step Pyramid at Saqqara; the monument reopened to visitors in March 2020 after a 14-year restoration.

The Step Pyramid at Saqqara began as which kind of tomb?

Mastaba: builders first enlarged the flat tomb, then raised it in stages until six stepped tiers stood over the burial shaft.

Which royal official, later worshipped as a god, is credited with designing Egypt's first step pyramid?

Imhotep: the credit comes from later tradition, and some 2,000 years after his death Egyptians were praying to him as a god of medicine; his tomb has never been found.

The partially collapsed monument at Meidum is known in Egyptian Arabic by a nickname meaning what?

Locals call the Meidum monument el-heram el-kaddab, 'the false pyramid', because the collapse of its outer layers left a tower-like core rising from a mound of rubble.

Why is the Bent Pyramid thought to change slope partway up?

Signs of instability: builders are thought to have eased the slope from about 54 to 43 degrees to stop the pyramid collapsing as it rose.

Sneferu's Bent Pyramid stands at which royal necropolis south of Cairo?

Dahshur: the Bent Pyramid there has kept most of its smooth limestone casing, and in 2019 its chambers opened to visitors for the first time since 1965.

Egypt's first successful smooth-sided 'true' pyramid, built by Sneferu, is known by which colour name?

The Red Pyramid takes its name from the reddish limestone of its exposed core; it was originally cased in white limestone and is Egypt's third-largest pyramid.

Sneferu, builder of the Bent Pyramid, founded which Egyptian dynasty, the one that went on to build at Giza?

The Fourth Dynasty began with Sneferu, who built at least three pyramids; the lessons of his failures went into the Great Pyramid of his son Khufu.

Why does Khafre's pyramid look taller than the neighbouring Great Pyramid, though it is shorter?

It stands on higher bedrock, and its steeper sides add to the illusion; Khafre's pyramid is in fact smaller than the Great Pyramid in both height and volume.

Which of the three main pyramids at Giza is the smallest?

Menkaure's pyramid was the first target when a 12th-century sultan tried to demolish Giza's pyramids; his workers gave up, leaving only a gash in its north face.

What was found dismantled in a sealed pit beside the Great Pyramid in 1954?

A boat: its cedar timbers lay in 1,224 pieces, which restorers spent years fitting back together; the rebuilt vessel moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2021.

How did Egyptian builders create the body of the Great Sphinx of Giza?

Carved it from the bedrock: the rock around it was quarried for nearby monuments, and much of the lower body is now covered by later repair masonry.

A popular but false story blames whose troops for breaking off the Great Sphinx's nose?

Napoleon's troops arrived in 1798, yet a drawing by Frederic Norden, published in 1755, already shows the Sphinx without its nose.

The Great Sphinx has the head of a human and the body of which animal?

A lion: the statue also once wore a stone beard; fragments found between its paws in 1817 are now in the British Museum.

On the Dream Stele, the Great Sphinx promises Thutmose the throne for doing what?

Clearing its sand: the prince had dozed off in the statue's shade while out hunting, and once he was king he set up the granite slab to record the dream.

The Pyramid Texts, first carved inside the pyramid of Unas, are a collection of what?

Afterlife spells: meant to help Unas rise to the gods, they were later adapted for the coffins of non-royal Egyptians and grew into the Book of the Dead.

The steep-sided royal pyramids of ancient Nubia stand in which modern country?

Sudan: in 1834 the Italian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini wrecked several of its pyramids while searching them for gold.

The Nubian pyramids of the Nile Valley were built by the rulers of which ancient kingdom?

The Kingdom of Kush ruled Nubia from Napata and later from a capital further upstream; its kings adopted pyramid burial and ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty.

The last Nubian royal pyramid went up around AD 350 at which site?

The royal cemetery at Meroë, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, received the last Nubian pyramid around AD 350, when the kingdom that built it collapsed.

Piye, the Nubian king credited with reviving pyramid burial, had which animals buried near his tomb?

Horses: his four favourites were given graves of their own at el-Kurru, close to the tomb where his pyramid once stood.

The world's largest pyramid by volume, hidden under a grassy hill at Cholula, is in which country?

Mexico: archaeologists who began tunnelling into the Cholula hill in 1931 went on to dig about five miles of passages through the pyramid inside.

The Great Pyramid of Cholula, the largest ever built by volume, is traditionally said to honour which god?

Quetzalcoatl: the temple was rebuilt again and again over many centuries, each new pyramid swallowing the one before.

Which colonial-era building crowns the overgrown Great Pyramid of Cholula?

A Catholic church: the Spanish built Nuestra Señora de los Remedios on the summit in the 16th century, and the pyramid beneath lay untouched until tunnelling began in 1931.

El Castillo at Chichen Itza is also known as the Temple of which Maya deity?

Kukulcán: visitors could climb his temple's stairways until 2006, when access was closed after a tourist fell to her death.

Counting the top platform as a step, El Castillo's four stairways at Chichen Itza total how many steps?

365 is the count when the top platform joins the four stairways of about 91 steps each, matching the days of the solar year.

Around the equinoxes, shadows on Chichen Itza's El Castillo create the illusion of what?

Near each equinox the stepped corner casts a zigzag of sunlit triangles along the north stairway that meets the carved serpent head at its foot: a serpent slithering down the stairs.

A red throne shaped like which animal was found in the inner temple inside Chichen Itza's El Castillo?

Jaguar: excavators tunnelling into the pyramid in the 1930s found the red throne, inlaid with jade, inside an older temple that El Castillo had been built over.

Who gave the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan its name?

The Aztecs, who found Teotihuacan in ruins centuries after its fall, gave it and its Pyramid of the Sun their Nahuatl names; the builders' own name for it is unknown.

The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon at Teotihuacan stand along which grandly named thoroughfare?

Avenue of the Dead: the name is said to come from later arrivals who mistook the buildings lining it for tombs.

The Pyramid of the Magician stands in which Maya city of the Puuc region?

Uxmal: in one legend a magician raised the pyramid in a single night; in fact it was built up in phases over several centuries.

The stepped, flat-topped temple towers of ancient Mesopotamia are known by what name?

Ziggurats: the one at Babylon, Etemenanki, is widely thought to have inspired the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

Which architect designed the glass pyramid that serves as the main entrance to the Louvre?

I. M. Pei proposed one central entrance beneath the courtyard to link the museum's three wings, and set the glass pyramid above it as a skylight.

Which French president launched the project that built the Louvre Pyramid?

François Mitterrand: newly elected in 1981, he also ordered the finance ministry out of the palace so that the museum could fill the whole building.

Which thriller repeats the myth that the Louvre Pyramid has 666 glass panes?

The Da Vinci Code: the museum counts 673 panes, yet the 2003 bestseller revived an old rumour that the pyramid has exactly 666.

Which Las Vegas Strip resort is a 30-storey pyramid with a light beam at its tip?

Luxor opened in 1993, and the beam at its tip draws so many moths that bats come to feed on them.

Since 1993, the Sky Beam atop a pyramid-shaped Las Vegas resort has claimed what distinction?

Most powerful man-made light in the world: that was the claim at its 1993 debut, but in 2008 the resort began lighting only half its 39 lamps each night to save money and energy.

The Pyramid of Cestius, built around 18–12 BC as a magistrate's tomb, stands in which city?

Rome's Pyramid of Cestius has steep sides more like Nubian pyramids than Egyptian ones, perhaps because Roman troops had campaigned in Nubia shortly before.

The 48-storey Transamerica Pyramid, completed in 1972, is a landmark of which US city?

San Francisco: the futuristic design provoked debate when it was proposed, yet the tower became a symbol of the city and was its tallest building for over four decades.

Why does the Transamerica Pyramid taper?

More street light: William Pereira argued that the taper let more light and air into the streets below, while its shape gave Transamerica a headquarters nobody could mistake.

The World Heritage listing for the pyramid fields around Giza is named after which ancient Egyptian capital?

Memphis: the city is now scattered ruins near a village, while the cemeteries its kings built along the desert edge joined the World Heritage list in 1979.

Medieval pilgrims commonly believed the Giza pyramids had been built as what?

Granaries: the idea came from Genesis, where Joseph stores grain ahead of a famine, and a mosaic in St Mark's, Venice, shows him doing it in front of pyramids.

An unfinished pyramid topped by an eye appears on which banknote?

The US one-dollar bill: the pyramid comes from the reverse of the Great Seal, where its 13 courses stand for the original states; it joined the note in 1935.

Why were nearly all of Egypt's pyramids built on the Nile's west bank?

It was the land of the dead: the west, where the sun set each evening, was tied to the afterlife, and only one small step pyramid is known on the east bank.

Djedefre, whose ruined pyramid stands at Abu Rawash, is the first pharaoh known to be titled 'Son of' which god?

Ra: the title 'Son of Ra' became a standard part of later pharaohs' names; Djedefre's own pyramid was quarried away, most heavily in Roman times.

The Great Pyramid's sides are aligned almost exactly with what?

The cardinal directions: the builders left no record of their method, but they are thought to have taken their bearings from the stars or from the sun's shadow.

When large pyramids returned in the Middle Kingdom, what replaced stone as the main material?

Middle Kingdom kings such as Senusret II and Amenemhat III built cores of mudbrick behind stone casings; once the casing was stripped, the brick eroded into shapeless mounds.