To understand how the pyramids were really built, we first need to understand the society responsible for their creation. The Great Pyramids were constructed during the Old Kingdom (c. 2686-2181 BCE), a period of internal security and prosperity in Egypt (Weiss, 2022). Specifically, the Giza plateau was developed during the Fourth Dynasty under the reigns of three successive monarchs: Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure (Lehner, 1997). 

During this time, the king was viewed as a divine figure that possessed both religious and authoritative significance, with the construction of these massive tombs posing as a state-sponsored project that mobilized a vast amount of the Egyptian population (Figure 4) and their resources (Lehner, 2015).

The Giza Plateau was chosen as the site for the Pyramids because of its solid limestone bedrock, which builders utilized to support the weight of the massive structures (Lehner, 2014). It served as a royal necropolis that included not only the Pyramids but additional temples, causeways and the mastaba tombs of high-ranking officials. 

The scale of this landscape and its structures are often what is cited by pseudoarchaeologists to claim supernatural intervention, but archaeological surveys of the plateau reveal a complex infrastructure of worker villages and administrative buildings (Lehner, 2015). These discoveries, alongside primary administrative records, imply a permanent, highly organized, and skilled human presence at the site (Figure 5) (Tallet, 2017).