How The Pyramids Were Made

For my whole life I have been interested in the pyramids and Egypt itself  because I loved the idea of the pyramids. But as I've gotten older I’ve wondered how the pyramids were even built if this was so long ago?! I got fascinated with it and then looked into other people's theories. It ranged from aliens building them, to then making some sort of contraption to drag the massive blocks into place, but none of these seemed realistic to me. How did the pyramids get so massive? How did they move the giant blocks so far? What were they doing with the pyramids and in them? These are all questions I will be trying to answer in this article.

First I had to do a ton of research on the pyramids to find out how most people think they were built and what their purposes were. I also wanted to figure out a little bit of what was inside of them. In the article, ‘The Egyptian Pyramid,’ It gives very detailed descriptions of everything I just listed, and even more information that I didn't even know could be part of the pyramids! (https://www.si.edu)

In the article it states that, “Tombs of early Egyptian kings were bench-shaped mounds called mastabas. Around 2780 BCE, King Djoser's architect, Imhotep, built the first pyramid by placing six mastabas, each smaller than the one beneath, in a stack to form a pyramid rising in steps,” This was the early way of forming pyramids, done by the Egyptians. But this was the early way, and later scientists confirmed that the much larger ones were made of massive stone blocks. 

Currently, you might be thinking, “it's just some stone blocks, anyone could have moved them and made the pyramids,” That would be a huge mistake because, “scientists estimate that its stone blocks average over two tons apiece, with the largest weighing as much as fifteen tons each,” according to the article. For a better perspective, 15 tons is about 30,000 pounds, and they also had to carve and move these blocks out of nearby limestone quarries which was about 10 miles away, and for some of the more fine limestone they traveled up to 500 miles away for it.

This adds even more mystery to how the Egyptians built the pyramids, because how could they carry 30,000 pound blocks 10 miles, let alone 500?!? To carve out the massive blocks, “Egyptians had copper tools such as chisels, drills, and saws that may have been used to cut the relatively soft stone,” This shows that they carved these blocks out with no machines or amazing tools that we have today which would seem to be nearly impossible with how precise the blocks are.

To conclude the first article I read on the pyramids, it said that their main theory of how the blocks were moved and the pyramids were made was, “the cardinal points, and water-filled trenches probably were used to level the perimeter. A tomb painting of a colossal statue being moved shows how huge stone blocks were moved on sledges over ground first made slippery by liquid. The blocks were then brought up ramps to their positions in the pyramid. Finally, the outer layer of casing stones was finished from the top down and the ramps dismantled as the work was completed.”

So basically in very simple terms, they used the water to wet the sand and they used sledges to move the blocks and they used ramps to hoist the blocks up, which they later dismantled after they were done.  But I don't agree with that theory. This is because we tried an experiment where we tried to build a smaller version of the pyramids and we failed with our modern technology. In the article, ‘Japan’s Attempt to Rebuild the Giza Pyramids | Primitive Techniques and Failure,’ It explains all of this and how they basically failed the whole challenge. (https://adeptexpeditions.com)

I also don’t think their theory is correct because again how did they move the blocks 500-10 miles? Or why dismantle the ramps and sleds and not use them for something else later? One more question could also be how did they get the blocks on the ramp and how did they hold 30,000 pounds of limestone? There are just way too many unanswered questions and assumptions. 

Moving on from that, others suggest that aliens or gods built them the pyramids. Don’t worry, I'm not actually suggesting that aliens and gods were involved. However, it is important to say that the pyramids were very religious places used for burial and practices that the Egyptians used. In the previous article, ‘The Egyptian Pyramid,’ It says, “On the walls of Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramids are inscriptions known as the Pyramid Texts, an important source of information about Egyptian religion.” (https://www.si.edu)

This tells us that they were also used for religious practices or purposes, and people saying gods and aliens built them frequently use this as evidence that they were the ones who built the pyramids for the Egyptians. But there is just a massive lack of evidence for obvious reasons so I don't believe in this theory either.

Also, with all of the information we have now, there is just no possible way we could have any idea how the pyramids were built. I haven't even covered one tenth of what there is to cover about all of the things that are in the pyramids.  There is even a theory that some of the great pyramids were used as power plants, because using some sonar device they found that under the pyramids was a huge tic tac-like metallic pole that people believe was used to generate power. But this was also never confirmed and the device is not always accurate.

So in the end I have no idea how the pyramids were made, but my guess is that they were used as some form of religious, scientific research center that the Egyptians used to bury their people and leaders and  also to find out things. I do think they were used for some form of power, but again there is no solid or completely proven evidence that this is true. But after all of this information, what do you think? How could an ancient civilisation build the pyramids? What were they used for? Thank you so much for reading this article, and if you're still curious about the pyramids I definitely encourage you to do your own research.