Bright white casing stones, yes. 50 foot tall gold capstone, no.
Actual capstone in Cairo museum
Note, this is from the ruined Black Pyramid, no the Great Pyramid. But what a remarkable artifact, still amazingly intact.
This is in the right community. It is indeed interesting as fuck.
A bit ironic that they removed their comment that was remarkable and interesting. I guess it was about the capstone from Black Pyramid?
They posted an image of this capstone with the text “actual capstone in the Cairo museum.”
It is a genuine capstone, or pyramidion, from a pyramid, one of very few that survives intact to the present day. It’s black basalt, still beautifully polished and inscribed. It’s just not from the Giza pyramids, it’s from the Black pyramid at Dahshur, tomb of Amenemhat III. This is 12th dynasty, centuries later than the 4th dynasty necropolis at Giza, but it does give us an idea of what the pyramidion of Khufu’s pyramid might have been like. Knowing Khufu, his was probably granite. He had a thing for granite, the entire King’s Chamber of his pyramid is lined with it.
The article I linked doesn’t give any sense of scale, Amenemhat’s pyramidion is 1.85 meters tall and weighs 4.5 metric tons. No problem for the mega masons that built the rest of the actual manmade mountain it would rest upon, but still a far cry from a 100 foot tall chunk of gold.
Humans own 23m³ of gold total
Humans have mined more than 200000 metric tons of gold, which is about 10000 cubic meters, not 23
Woops. 23³ m³
23 cubed cubic metres? Why not just put a few zeroes in the first place?
I guess, because that way it easier conveys the point of ‘it’s a cube with 23 meters side’, which makes sense as it’s easier to imagine than just an arbitrary amount of cubic meters.
Correct. Cube 23m on each side. I think I meant to write (23m)³ but forgot the parentheses.
Most of it’s used in tech so how much of it is owned and not licensed? 🤔
Very little gold is used in tech
Was the gold top like a cable connection to the UFO that lands on it?
“Ancient Astronaut theorists say yes.”
I think the gold top would have been smaller
These stones were mostly removed from the great pyramid just 700 years ago. After an earthquake people began removing them for a few centuries to build other things until they were all gone. The great pyramid had its casing stones for 85% of its life.
Thanks for the additional insight!
its amazing how we look at historical constructions and assume thats always how it looked.
You are right, The Pyramids used to be shining white beacons of marble, but the stone was… “repurposed” for building after the end of the pharos.
Medieval castles too, all anyone sees today are grey, bare rock, dingy, cold, drafty castles… But when they were new? before photographs and film? They were plastered white, and filled with rugs and tapestries that made them beautiful, stunning, and warm.
Never been in the “we” category here, it’s just so obvious that ruins of any kind and even just old-ish (like within 200 years) buildings rarely look like they were supposed to. It’s disturbing and sad that most people can’t seem to realise that by themselves.
I see, another wirtual viewer /s
Imagine being the first person to realize that the Empire is dead and you can just fucking climb up there with your buddies and take that gold cap lol.
Remember the Great Pyramid of Giza? This is it today. Feel old yet?
It’s crazy that even on the centuries old photo on the top, Cairo in the background was already that developed!
The pizza hut across the street was probably fire back then
I didn’t know they had such nice cameras either. Really ahead of their time those caironians.
This gave me a much needed giggle. Thanks!
Man, the aliens were sure good at building these
And green/greener lands, as far as I know.
No but shockingly close. The pyramids were built starting around 2630 BCE. But the African Humid Period ended about 5000-6000 years ago, so about 2974 BCE on the near end.
About 350 years is shockingly close. That’s about the length of the Ptolmaic dynasty. That’s Isaac Newton being active to today. Not recent by any means, but that’s “we still know about this” time scales
I think one of the purposes of the pyramids was to be a sort of ancient beacon. The stone reflected the sun and moonlight, making it pretty tough to get lost. In the days of no GPS or electricity, I’m sure this was of great importance.
Have you ever been playing Minecraft and wandered too far from base before building a bed and just had to abandon that base until you find it by accident later? Imagine that IRL and you can’t just build a new base real quick
I think they just wanted to build a giant titty.
The original original Tomb Raider
Feels quite secondary to the “I have the biggest” contest that we saw later with cathedrals and now skyscrapers.
I think one of the purposes of the pyramids was to be a sort of ancient beacon.
Aliens needed to know where to land.
yeah but did they have shitty gray flooring to match the white walls?
They should refurbish them.
Why not? Just because they haven’t been yet? Historical significance? Blah, blah blah. I’m sure the people who made them would want it. And I bet it would increase tourism. We take this shit way too seriously.
Similarly, I would like to see the Coliseum rebuilt and used as a football stadium.
It would have to be remodeled as well, the floor isn’t quite big enough for a U.S. football field, let alone a European football field.
Think I saw it was 83 meters long
Lions vs referees until then
its big enough for a naval battle, its big enough for a football game.
The one in Verona is used for concerts. So that works.
Perhaps not a football stadium then, but… do you like gladiators?
I like movies about gladiators.
I think a politician already meantioned bringing them back to force immigrants to fight to the death. So uh, think I’m going to play it safe and say no until the details are more flushed out
That may be a little small for a lot of the viewers, but then again people go to boxing matches.
That’s interesting bc I was going to reply to a different comment that we should put corrupt officials and billionaires in there.
I’m for it, but I think it would be very expensive to get it up to code.
The Pyramids are just piles of rocks, with no modern purpose.
Really, we should use these things for their intended purpose, if possible. And, keep them in good condition. We do it with other historic buildings.
I weirdly agree.
It would certainly shift focus from all the plastic bags blowing around it in the wind
I would object because of the bureaucracy. It would cost less to make a new one. Then you could do both. And in 5000 years we might get new alien conspiracies about why we have two sets of pyramids in two different time periods.
The neopyramidal period. For some reason they stopped building pyramids for 4000 years but decided to start again
China has successfully killed the wither and now has the resources necessary to activate a beacon
Yup, learned this from Assassin’s Creed.
From what I understand the polished limestone is accurate for many pyramids, but the gold pyramidion seems to be more of an edge case on some smaller pyramids.
A gold top wouldn’t even be visible from the ground on a large polished white pyramid.
I remember the signs there and museum did tell that the great pyramids also had golden Pyramidions.
If it was capped in gold, dusk and dawn could have been very pretty.
A gold top wouldn’t even be visible from the ground on a large polished white pyramid.
The point of pyramids was of religious nature, it was to be closer to the sky and allow dead pharaohs to go in their version of the after life so it’s likely that the gold wasn’t to be pretty but for a religious something
Also, i wonder if it was a gold alloy and not pure gold
If it was for religious reasons they would definitely use pure gold
Just looked on wikipedia and they say
“… and were sometimes covered with plates of copper, gold or electrum.” (electrum is an alloy of gold and silver IIRC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion Which makes a lot of sense, gold was and is very expensive
