Why myths grow around Giza
No new “truth” about the pyramids has been suddenly uncovered. The solid facts have been built up over two centuries from excavation, inscriptions and survey, and the main outline is secure: the three big pyramids at Giza were royal tombs of the Fourth Dynasty, built by Egyptians. Myths persist because the monuments are huge and old, and because some early writers guessed wildly. Here are the most common ones, and what the evidence shows.
Myth: the pyramids were built by slaves
This idea comes largely from the Greek historian Herodotus, writing roughly two thousand years after the pyramids were built, who described huge gangs of forced labour. It was later mixed with the biblical story of the Israelites in Egypt, though nothing in the archaeology ties Giza to that story. The evidence from the site points elsewhere. Excavations of the workers’ town found bakeries, breweries and meat supplies. Cemeteries beside the pyramids contain the tombs of workers, buried with bread and beer jars. Some skeletons show healed fractures and even amputations, which suggests treated injuries. Work-gang graffiti show crews with names and loyalties.
The accurate picture is nuanced. Egyptian rulers could demand labour from the population as a form of service, and some of the workers were probably not volunteers in a modern sense. But that is different from chattel slavery, and the evidence is of fed, housed, cared-for crews with a skilled core. The article on the pyramid builders’ workforce gives the detail.
Myth: the Diary of Merer shows nothing, or shows everything
In 2013 archaeologists working at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea coast announced the discovery of papyri, the oldest inscribed papyri known in Egypt. They include the logbook of an official named Merer, who led a crew of around forty men. The text, dated late in Khufu’s reign, records trips transporting limestone blocks from the Tura quarries to the Giza building site by boat, along the Nile and canals. It names Khufu’s pyramid by its ancient name, the “Horizon of Khufu.” It also shows the state organised food, travel and supply. It does not describe the whole construction, and it does not explain how stones were lifted. It is a remarkable administrative document, but it should not be read as a complete building manual.
Myth: aliens or a lost advanced civilization built them
Ancient astronaut claims became popular in the twentieth century. Archaeologists do not accept them, because there is no physical evidence for them, whereas there is abundant evidence for Egyptian builders: quarries with unfinished blocks and tool marks, ramps in other sites, workers’ housing, tools, pyramid predecessors and successors. The pyramids can be followed through a sequence of trial and improvement, from the Step Pyramid at Saqqara to the Bent and Red Pyramids, which shows human learning rather than a sudden import. Variations on this theme also include a lost civilization such as Atlantis in Plato’s dialogues, which Plato presents as a story passed down by Egyptian priests and which says nothing about Giza.
The assumption behind such claims, that people of the past could not have managed this, is the weakest part of the argument.
Myth: the pyramids encode pi and other secrets
The Great Pyramid’s perimeter divided by its height is close to 2π. This follows from the slope the builders chose. If the base is 440 cubits and the height is 280 cubits, the ratio of perimeter to height is 1760 divided by 280, or about 6.286, compared with 2π at about 6.283. That arises naturally from a slope of 5½ palms per cubit of rise, and the Egyptians measured slopes with that kind of ratio, as in the Rhind papyrus mathematics. There is no ancient text saying they intended to encode pi, so the match is probably a by-product, though this cannot be proved either way. Claims of hidden messages in dimensions often work by choosing which measurements to compare.
Myth: the pyramids were granaries, or a pharaoh’s curse protects them
In the Middle Ages some writers, both Christian and Muslim, believed the pyramids were granaries built by the biblical Joseph. This was a reading of the Bible and not based on any inscription. The so-called curse of the pharaohs is a modern legend that arose after the Tutankhamun tomb discovery in 1922–23, and it has no connection to Giza. Egyptian tombs did sometimes contain protective threats written on walls, part of broader Egyptian magical practice, but these were warnings against desecration, and no study has shown that excavators suffered unusually.
Myth: the pyramids are older than Egypt’s history
Some claims put the pyramids at tens of thousands of years old. The standard evidence runs against this. Kings’ names are written inside the Great Pyramid, the associated papyri date to Khufu’s time, and radiocarbon dating of organic material in the mortar points to the Old Kingdom. Reasonable disagreement concerns a few decades or a century in the chronology, not millennia.
Checking claims yourself
A useful rule is to ask what evidence a claim would leave behind. Alien builders would leave no workers’ town, no quarries and no gradual development. Slave labour would not leave tombs with care and offerings. The real picture is less sensational, but it is supported by finds you can visit.