I posted about a week ago on this. I would wager Napoleon and his troops built the pyramids. All through history, even through the Renaissance when there was a targeted rebirth of ancient techniques and knowledge, there was no mention of the great pyramids, no inspiration from them, no copying, no great pieces of art referencing them.
But then Napoleon goes into Egypt to ‘record’ and ‘survey’ the pyramids and unbury the Sphinx and then from that moment onwards the age of mummies begins, Howard Carter finds King Tut’s Tomb and the pyramids become one of the main inspirations of the Romantic Age that followed.
I'm talking about Greek art and sculpture being developed from Ancient Egyptian art, and yet they never used or referenced pyramids in their own art/sculpture. And then in the Gothic, Renaissance, Neo-Classical etc. there is no reference to or amazement of the Great Pyramid. As if it never existed. For instance, it was supposedly the largest structure in the world for thousands of years, yet nobody tried to refine or develop the shape, building it better and higher using less stone as they did with churches, arches, domes, towers, etc.
I'd wager the early pyramids like the Saqqara step-pyramid or the Naqada step-pyramid are the real Egyptian pyramids of antiquity. It wouldn't even surprise me if Napoleon was influenced by pyramids in the New World. I think it's safe to say pyramids in Mexico or South America were not copied from Egypt. Plus those pyramids are step-pyramids, as are generally all pyramids built elsewhere around the world. Only the great Egyptian pyramids perfected the smooth sides and the mystical 'super precise cutting techniques that could only be done by aliens,' and the 'moving thousands of stones without even having developed the wheel,' techniques etc.
They certainly heard there were pyramids in Egypt. The Greek historian Herodotus mentions them around 400 BC, but even he had never seen them and what he mentions doesn't line up with what they were supposed to be. Plus he mentions several times in his Histories that he doesn't believe what he's writing (for instance about the wars with Persia and the battle of Thermopylae) but he's writing it down because it's what people say is true. And yet he's our source for so much of that stuff, even though he says his own history cannot be real and numbers for a lot of things are exaggerated.
Also the Greeks built Alexandria and several other cities in the Nile Delta and were at any moment less than a day's journey from the Great Pyramids, yet they never visited them or recorded down their existence.
The Egyptians of 3000 BC didn't have the wheel. Pretty much everything was moved down the Nile by boat or by camels/donkeys or such. Later on better technologies came in from the Middle East and then later they had chariots and stuff and major roads.
I posted about a week ago on this. I would wager Napoleon and his troops built the pyramids. All through history, even through the Renaissance when there was a targeted rebirth of ancient techniques and knowledge, there was no mention of the great pyramids, no inspiration from them, no copying, no great pieces of art referencing them.
But then Napoleon goes into Egypt to ‘record’ and ‘survey’ the pyramids and unbury the Sphinx and then from that moment onwards the age of mummies begins, Howard Carter finds King Tut’s Tomb and the pyramids become one of the main inspirations of the Romantic Age that followed.
I'm talking about Greek art and sculpture being developed from Ancient Egyptian art, and yet they never used or referenced pyramids in their own art/sculpture. And then in the Gothic, Renaissance, Neo-Classical etc. there is no reference to or amazement of the Great Pyramid. As if it never existed. For instance, it was supposedly the largest structure in the world for thousands of years, yet nobody tried to refine or develop the shape, building it better and higher using less stone as they did with churches, arches, domes, towers, etc.
I'd wager the early pyramids like the Saqqara step-pyramid or the Naqada step-pyramid are the real Egyptian pyramids of antiquity. It wouldn't even surprise me if Napoleon was influenced by pyramids in the New World. I think it's safe to say pyramids in Mexico or South America were not copied from Egypt. Plus those pyramids are step-pyramids, as are generally all pyramids built elsewhere around the world. Only the great Egyptian pyramids perfected the smooth sides and the mystical 'super precise cutting techniques that could only be done by aliens,' and the 'moving thousands of stones without even having developed the wheel,' techniques etc.
They certainly heard there were pyramids in Egypt. The Greek historian Herodotus mentions them around 400 BC, but even he had never seen them and what he mentions doesn't line up with what they were supposed to be. Plus he mentions several times in his Histories that he doesn't believe what he's writing (for instance about the wars with Persia and the battle of Thermopylae) but he's writing it down because it's what people say is true. And yet he's our source for so much of that stuff, even though he says his own history cannot be real and numbers for a lot of things are exaggerated.
Also the Greeks built Alexandria and several other cities in the Nile Delta and were at any moment less than a day's journey from the Great Pyramids, yet they never visited them or recorded down their existence.
The Egyptians of 3000 BC didn't have the wheel. Pretty much everything was moved down the Nile by boat or by camels/donkeys or such. Later on better technologies came in from the Middle East and then later they had chariots and stuff and major roads.