Loading…

Just read that the Great Pyramid was originally covered in white limestone that was so polished it reflected sunlight like a mirror | Archaeology Discoveries - Vivisector

lucasw84•3mo ago

Just read that the Great Pyramid was originally covered in white limestone that was so polished it reflected sunlight like a mirror

I was killing time on Wikipedia after dinner last night and stumbled onto this fact about the Great Pyramid's original casing stones. Apparently they were all smooth and white, making the whole thing glow like a beacon from miles away. Then over the centuries people just pried them off to build houses in Cairo. It honestly blew my mind because every picture I've ever seen shows that rough, stepped look. Has anyone else come across a random fact like this that totally changed how you picture an ancient site?

4 comments

4 Comments

phoenix_singh253mo ago

Haha right, I totally feel that. My brain short-circuited because now I can't unsee it - all those smooth white stones just getting yanked off for some guy's house in the 1300s. I swear if I ever time travel I'm going to be the dork who just stands there staring at the pyramid like it's a disco ball instead of doing anything useful. Made me wonder what other ancient buildings looked completely different back in the day, you know? Like imagine the Colosseum when it still had its marble facade, wild stuff.

the_claire3mo ago

I read somewhere that the Great Pyramid of Giza actually had a capstone made of gold or electrum, which is basically a natural gold-silver mix. So not only was it blinding white with all that polished limestone casing, but there was a shiny gold tip sparkling at the top like a giant beacon. Can you imagine seeing that from miles away in the desert? Plus those casing stones were so precisely fitted you couldn't slide a piece of paper between them, not even a credit card. People back then must have thought it was built by actual wizards.

gavin_kim3mo ago

Yeah that one messed with my head too when I first learned it.

smith.elliot3mo ago

phoenix_singh25 mentioned the casing stones getting "yanked off for some guy's house in the 1300s" - that's not quite right. It wasn't one guy with a specific house, it was a long process over centuries. They started taking them in the Middle Ages, but the big push came after a massive earthquake in the 1300s loosened a lot of them, and then people from Cairo used them for mosques and fortresses. The stones were still being carted off into the 1800s. So it was more like a slow, organized demolition over hundreds of years rather than some random medieval homeowner grabbing a few stones for his kitchen. But yeah, the idea of the whole thing being a smooth, white, mirror-like surface is still wild to picture.