50 Insane Facts About The Egyptian Pyramids You Didn't Know

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 Brain surgeon Dr. Ben Carson thinks they used to store grain. Many people believe aliens built them. Egyptologists really want you to understand that neither of those things are true, but get ready for 50 insane facts about the pyramids you never knew before. 

50 Insane Facts About The Egyptian Pyramids You Didn't Know

50. The pyramids were for a long time the tallest structures ever built by man. For almost 3,000 years they would remain in the top spot until the Lincoln Cathedral came around in 1311 AD. 

49. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only surviving member of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World Club. The other wonders included the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon- which archaeologists are still unsure really existed. 

48. Despite what numerous YouTube channels which usually have the word 'Gaia' or 'enlightened' in the name will tell you, archaeologists have a very good idea of how the pyramids were built, and no, they required zero alien technology. 

47. The only thing required to build the pyramids was a few primitive tools such as chisels, hammers, and lathes, along with a bonkers amount of laborers and an equally nuts amount of time. We're talking tens of thousands of people and decades to construct each pyramid. 

46. The Great Pyramid of Giza took 20,000 workers an estimated 20 years to build. 

45. The incredible accuracy and leveling shown in the pyramid's construction was achieved with nothing more than a plumb bob- a tool still used today and almost completely unchanged since its ancient form. This tool is a simple pointed weight suspended by a cord, and when it hung straight up and down an architect knew the ground they were standing on was level. 

44. Some believe that the humble plumb bob also aided the Egyptians in achieving incredible accuracy in the fields of astronomy and navigation's well. Like we said, no alien tech required- just simple human ingenuity. 

50 Insane Facts About The Egyptian Pyramids You Didn't Know

43. Many of the construction materials used in the pyramids are still used today. Gypsum mortar- made from plaster and sand-was used to lubricate the stones as they were moved and set in place, and is still used in the driest parts of the world today. 

42.Each stone used in the construction of a pyramid weighs an average of 2.5 tons, and was quarried miles from the construction site. Archaeologists believe that a clever system of canals allowed the workers to simply float the stones to the construction site. 

41. For years it was believed that the Egyptians built ramps to haul the stones up the outside of the pyramid and move them into place. A new theory however posits that much like an igloo, the Egyptians actually built the pyramid from the inside out. 

40. In their heyday, the pyramids would've looked even more glamorous than today. Each pyramid was wrapped in an outer fa cade of white limestone, and capped with a pinnacle made of precious metals or more limestone which would reflect sunlight for miles. The white limestone and the pyramid caps have long ago been stripped for building materials or eroded away. 

39. Each pyramid's low center of gravity, relative environmental stability, and the dry environment of Egypt, helped to ensure that they remain standing to this day. 

38. Oh so you like the pyramids? Name all of them. Good luck, because there's actually over 100of them. Much like being a Hems worth brother though, everyone only knows- or cares about- the famous ones. 

37. It's believed that construction of a new pyramid took place during the flooding seasons, when the Nile would overflow and make farming impossible. The farmers would leave their fields and become construction workers for a few months. 

50 Insane Facts About The Egyptian Pyramids You Didn't Know

36. The Great Sphinx was erected near the pyramids of Giza in order to watch over them. The human face of the Sphinx is believed to be that of the pharaoh Khafret, who's pyramid is directly behind the Sphinx, and the lion's body symbolized his immortality. 

35. For centuries legend held that some of Napoleon's soldiers blew the nose off the Sphinx with a cannon. However, sketches of the Sphinx from well before Napoleon's time show that the Sphinx was missing its nose as far back as 1737. 

34. In the 15th century an Arab historian wrote that his nose was crushed by a Sufi Muslim named Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr. He was outraged at Egyptian peasants praying and making offerings to the Sphinx in exchange for limiting the effects of the yearly floods. Seeing this as heresy, Sa'im al-Dahr destroyed the nose, and was rewarded with an execution for vandalism. 

33. Despite speculation from fringe sources, the pyramids are widely accepted as having been built to serve as tombs for Egypt's greatest pharaohs. Or you can choose to believe they're navigation aids for ancient aliens- if you think aliens were smart enough to fly across the galaxy but too stupid to invent GPS. 

32. In ancient Egypt the 1% were better than you even in the afterlife. Serving as tombs for the pharaohs, each pyramid once housed untold riches that the dead pharaoh would enjoy in the afterlife. Hate to break it to you, but even after you die you'll still be just another peasant. 

31. For centuries it was believed that slaves were used in constructing the pyramids, however new findings are pointing at a highly skilled and well-paid work force- which would help explain the incredible craftsmanship and durability of these ancient buildings. 

30. Despite having been packed with untold riches, no treasure was ever discovered inside the largest of the Pyramids, the Great Pyramid of Giza. It's believed grave robbers plundered the site well over a thousand years ago. 

29. During the early days of pyramid construction, when a wealthy noble died they were entombed with their still living slaves and all of their flocks of animals. Eventually someone decided that putting dozens of people and hundreds of animals to death every time some rich boomer died was a massive waste of money, and the practice was discontinued. Just imagine going to work tomorrow and finding out you were going to be buried alive because your boss died. 

28. Despite being 100% dead, some pyramids came equipped with private bathrooms for the deceased Pharaoh. 

27. Some of the larger building blocks towards the base of a pyramid weighed over 70 tons, or more than an elephant. 

26. The ancient Egyptians built pyramids over a span of a whopping 1,000 years, prompting many Egyptologists to believe that many dozens-or even hundreds- of pyramids lay undiscovered under several feet of sand. 

25. Because of its shape, over 80% of all the stone used to construct a pyramid is actually located on the bottom half. 

24.Researchers were able to verify the age and quarried location of stones used to build the Sphinx and some pyramids by studying fossils held within the stones themselves. 

23. The three pyramids at Giza are the largest pyramids ever built by the Egyptians, either before or after their construction. 

50 Insane Facts About The Egyptian Pyramids You Didn't Know

22. Working on a pyramid was considered highly prestigious, and often the laborers themselves would be rewarded with burial tombs that surrounded the pyramid- quite the upgrade from being buried in a tiny family tomb carved onto a cliff somewhere. 

21. 'Worker cities' had to be constructed to house and feed the massive army of laborers required to build a pyramid. These cities lay undiscovered for centuries, the tell-tale architecture overlooked by Egyptologists due to the splendor of the pyramids themselves and the treasures sometimes discovered alongside mummies. 

20. A photographer setting up for a photo accidentally discovered a burial chamber filled with riches belonging to Queen Heathers. As he set his tripod up for a photo of an ongoing dig, his tripod leg punched through the desert sand and into a hidden shaft that led directly to the underground chamber. 

19. The discovery of massive amounts of cow bones near an ancient worker's city helped solidify the theory that skilled laborers, not slaves, were responsible for constructing the pyramids. At a time when meat was an extremely rare meal for most people, these pyramid workers were regularly feasting on young, tender beef. 

18. Graffiti discovered inside pyramids revealed that workers gave their groups names, such as “Friends of Khufu” or our favorite, “Drunkards of Menkaure”. Seems the ancient Egyptians had pretty much the same sense of humor as modern humans. 

17. The early Egyptians kind of sucked at building pyramids. Despite knowing that hundreds of pyramids were built over a thousand years, few remain clearly identifiable today. It's believed that early Egyptians gradually got better over time at building their massive pyramids, and that a lack of skill early onled to catastrophic collapses and severe weather erosion of the early pyramids. 

50 Insane Facts About The Egyptian Pyramids You Didn't Know

16. The Egyptians aligned their tombs on a north-south line with astonishing accuracy- to within .05 degrees. Despite, once more, claims that it took alien technology, astronomers believe this would have been simple to accomplish by simply carefully observing the path of the sun, or perhaps watching a single star as it circled over the north pole and then aligning with the center of that circle. 

15. Their accuracy wasn't consistent however. Archaeologists have discovered that the accuracy of the pyramids improved steadily up to the building of the Great Pyramid, and then deteriorated again. Modern astronomers tracking the path stars took over the last few thousand years revealed that this was explainable if the builders were using stars in the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper to align their pyramids. Over time, as the stars moved through space, their alignment would slowly shift towards and away from true north. 

14.   A testament to the endurance of the pyramids, an old Arab proverb roughly translates as, “Man fears time, time fears the pyramids.” 

13. A whopping 500,000 tons of mortar helps keep the Great Pyramid together. 

12. Cosmic particles helped scientists detect a secret chamber inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. Muons, an elementary particle and cousin to the electron, zip through space all the time, and can travel through solid rock. Using a muon detector, scientists were able to map the inside of the Great Pyramid, detecting areas where less muons were being absorbedly the stone and thus revealing a 30 meter cavity inside the pyramid. 

11.Fearing doing damage to the pyramid itself-or perhaps trying to protect the world from a vengeful undead pharaoh seeking to devour all human flesh- the Egyptian government has not approved any plan to explore the mysterious cavity. 

10. Other, much smaller, hidden chambers have also been discovered using remotely operated vehicles crawling along shafts too small for humans to enter. The discovery of metal pins in one of the hidden spaces led many to speculate that the Egyptians- or the aliens who guided them-had used electric wiring. However on closer inspection, the pins were discovered to be purely ornamental. 

9. Blocking stones bar the way of further exploration by ROV of many of these secret chambers. The only way to discover what lies beyond would be to engage in very destructive digging through the pyramid itself, something the Egyptian government would never allow. 

8. One robot drilled a small hole through a blocking stone and inserted a small camera... only to discover a small chamber with yet a second, larger blocking stone behind. Whatever secret the Egyptians had hidden there was something they really did not want rediscovered. 

7. Not every pyramid is pointed. Many Egyptian pyramids- specially their earliest ones- were 'stepped pyramids', with a large, flat top. 

6. The Great Pyramid of Khufu weighs an estimated5,750,000 tons. Compare that with the weight of the Burj Khalifaat 500,000 tons. The Egyptians clearly knew what they were doing when it came to building very large things. 

5. In 1877, a Dr. Joseph Seiss believed that he had discovered that the Great Pyramid of Giza is located at exactly the intersection of the longest line of longitude and the longest line of latitude. This however is not true, as the equator is the longest line of latitude and all longitudinal lines are the same length. That hasn't stopped nearly 150 years of conspiracy theorists from regurgitating the long-debunked claim as proof of alien conspiracy. 

4. The aliens did not build the pyramids. Seriously, we can't stress this enough. 

50 Insane Facts About The Egyptian Pyramids You Didn't Know

3. Sometime in the 12th century, Sultan Al-Aziz Uthman declared war on the pyramids of Egypt, seeing them as an affront to his own greatness. He lost against the massive immovable objects, badly, as the attempts to destroy the pyramids proved to be impossible. He did however manage to leave a large gash on the side of Meknaure's Pyramid. 

2.The carving of a Pharaoh's sarcophagus may have been done using tools with cutting teeth made out of precious jewels. This wasn't for ceremonial reasons, but because the granite was so tough that bronze or copper simply wouldn't get the job done. 

1. Woolly Mammoths still walked the earth when the pyramids were being constructed.