The Giza Pyramids, a massive royal tomb in Egypt, have been the subject of conspiracy theories, with many believing that aliens played a role in their construction. Elon Musk, a SpaceX billionaire, has been invited to visit Egypt to see for himself that the pyramids were not built by aliens. Scholars generally believe that ancient Egyptians built the pyramids with the help of earthen ramps buttressed by mud bricks. Hyperdiffusionist theories are the easiest to adapt to the conspiracy of replacement, suggesting that ancient white Atlanteans, Aryans, or Solutreans traveled to North America first and were “replaced” by aliens.
Archaeologist Sarah Kurnick explains why these misconceptions perpetuate racist and xenophobic notions of history and culture. She demonstrates how people can help debunk these dangerous, outlandish ideas. Egypt has invited billionaire Elon Musk to visit the country and see for himself that its famous pyramids were not built by aliens. Pseudoarchaeology, conspiracy theories that ancient civilizations were founded by aliens or the denizens of Atlantis, are more than just silly—they’re dangerous.
Egyptian pyramid construction techniques are the controversial subject of many hypotheses, with some suggesting that they developed over time. According to ancient Greek historian Herodotus, the Great Pyramid took 20 years to construct and demanded the labor of 100,000 men.
📹 Egyptologist Answers Ancient Egypt Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED
Professor of Egyptology and Archaeology Laurel Bestock answers your questions about ancient Egypt from Twitter. What did …
📹 Secrets of the Pyramids DEBUNKED | Ancient Aliens Pyramid Conspiracy Theories Explained
Were the pyramids built by aliens? OF COURSE NOT! But what about all the shocking precision and measurements lining up to …
“Ancient Egypt was already ancient in ancient Egypt” has stuck in my brain ever since the first time I watched this when it was first uploaded and even after hearing it multiple times, it still blows my mind. I understand it but the concept alone makes my brain feel it’s exploding. It’s so wild to me and really puts into perspective how far back these events happened.
One interesting thing I saw in a documentary once is that Egyptians used to drink a lot of beer for health reasons. Whenever someone was sick or injured, they were prescribed beer by doctors of the time. At first that may seem ridiculous to us that they thought beer could cure anything. But as it turns out, it’s been discovered that they used a unique brewing process and accidentally discovered antibiotics in that process. So beer back then really would have had curative properties.
As a professor myself, her style is amazing. I absolutely loved perusal her speak. She is professional and no question goes unanswered. Very academic, very well explained. I could watch her on a TV show about Egypt if she had one – like on the History website. If she doesn’t already have one, please put her on there. Outstanding and very down to earth explanations.
Another often over looked Egyptian invention is the solar calendar we use. Ceasar based his Julian calendar (which was later slightly updated to the modern Gregorian calendar) on the Egyptian calendar. Most calendars are historically lunar calendars since tracking moon phases is pretty easy, figuring out exactly how long it takes the earth to make a full revolution around the sun when they had no idea about anything like space or orbits was extremely impressive to say the least and involved complex astronomy, math, and pristine record keeping.
I love her so much. She is so kind and knowledgeable. I thought for a long time I was going to be an Egyptologist. Turns out I have ADHD, I found the course to be very demanding, especially learning to live on my own for the first time. Its wonderful to see people who have made a career of it. I can hear the passion she has when she speaks, and she has obviously developed a gift for teaching. Respect.
Statements akin to “Modern humans don’t have the technology to build the Great Pyramids” always make me think that the person saying that is living in an isolated village somewhere in the Midwest, because otherwise there is no way they haven’t witnessed the sheer industrial might of modern humanity. You could only ever think that if you have never seen a building crane.
This is my best and most enjoyed support answers on Wired. Prof Laurel Bestock was so happy and passionate in her responses, and provided responses in such a lovely educative way, breaking complex items down so simple for everyone to understand. Absolutely loved perusal it and learnt a lot. Thanks for choosing the perfect person for this support Wired. Please bring her back for a part 2.
“Didn’t ancient Egyptians know how to paint people face-on?” They did, and did use face-on depictions for a very few usages. The goddess Qetesh was commonly depicted face-on, for example. But as I understand it the reason the vast majority of depictions are a mix of side- and face-on elements is as Professor Bestock explained.
Absolutely phenomenal presentation! The professor’s depth of knowledge and passion for ancient Egyptology shines brightly throughout this article. It’s evident that a tremendous amount of research and expertise has been poured into this, making complex concepts accessible and engaging for everyone. Such educators are rare gems who not only inform but also inspire their audience to explore and appreciate the rich tapestry of ancient Egyptian culture and history. Kudos to the professor for an outstanding job!
I took 2 classes with a professor, polish descent, who natively spoke english, knew sanscrit and presented the class to us idiot puertoericans in spanish. His level of enthusiasm was off the charts. Loved the first one so much that i took the second part. I am/was an engineering major. A good professor who loves his/her stuff will draw you in. Loves this one!
was absolutely enthralled by ancient Egypt when I was growing up and even when my mom had asked what I wanted to do for my 5th birthday party I told her I wanted to go to the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. The only books that ever entertained me and kept me focused on were nonfiction history books mainly being about ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome with Egypt being #1 every single time, so when I got the opportunity to visit the MET in NYC and see all of the artifacts as well as the Book of the Dead It was a magical experience
The great pyramid of Giza took about 40 years to build and cost an absolute fortune. It’s not that we can’t build such structures today, it’s just that we don’t want to spend decades and the whole state budget building something. In some ways, you could say that the skyscrapers of the modern world are more impressive, as they are both taller and built faster.
(18:30) Not to mention what would happen if your heart failed in the feather test. Off to the right, looking like some kind of a Frankenstein’s monster composed of crocodile/lion/leopard/& hippo parts, was Ammit. Also known as “The Devourer of Souls &/or Hearts” & had the job of eating the hearts of the impure, then dissolving them in her stomach acid.
I got pretty annoyed by the incels trying to patronise her by saying “did you know…?”. I mean she’s a f*cking expert, of course she knows the basic things you assume to be novelty and beyond. Instead of asking her interesting questions, they do this troll stuff, maybe there’s something to do with the poor selection for the article.
Sometimes I’m just amazed at the things people just assume are true because they once heard someone say it. Like: “did you know we don’t have the technology to recreate the pyramids?” That is completely false. We absolutely could do it and do it better. It’s just pointless. So we don’t. But the ignorance, the arrogance is troubling.
The patience of this lady is bordering on the saintly. Imagine having to deal with assholes coming to you and spouting conspiracy theories of ‘ancient aliens’ or “hey, let me tell you (insert completely wrong and non-sensical) thing about your own job that I think I heard at a party somewhere, which means it’s definitely right! Aren’t I really helpful?”
I’m amused that people think there is controversy over the ability of ancient civilizations to build pyramids, especially the idea that we are somehow unable to build them anymore. The reason ancient pyramids are impressive is because of their size and scale, and the commitment required to construct them that way, not because they required unknowable technology or lost techniques to build. At the end of the day they’re just massive piles of rocks, arranged using rudimentary high school math. The reason we don’t (not can’t) build them anymore is, as the professor said, because no one cares to anymore. But if you wanted to rebuild the Great Pyramid using historical methods, you certainly could- all you’d need is an unlimited quantity of manual labor and an unlimited timeline in which to complete it. Now let’s see who wants to pay for that!
I’m literally having a crush on her right now. This is my second time perusal. I don’t even care about Egypt but when she talks about it yeah I wanna know more. It’s like those times when you had crush on your history teacher and it made you put more effort in your study. More articles of her talking about anything PLEASE!!!!!!!
Engineer here. We’ve built a pyramid. It’s called the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. There’s also the pyramid at the Louvre in France. But we don’t build the pyramids everyone thinks about because it’s an astronomical amount of labor and cost for what you’re getting, and good luck getting any modern municipality to sign off on putting aside that much land to stick a rotting body into. Not to mention the customs of Egypt has changed drastically since antiquity
I mean, we probably don’t know what it sounded like. We have some reconstructions of what some things sounded like, but even then there’s approximations and guesses. Putting aside the fact that you have Archaic, Old, Middle, Late Middle, Medio-Late, Late, and Neo-Middle Egyptian, along with Demotic with various points of overlap in use, the vowels likely shifted, probably multiple times as we’ve seen in most languages. The vowels are what is missing even if we do have some translations via Greek. Particularly older Egyptian, it’s a lot more guesswork than she’s making it out to be and presenting Coptic as being near 1:1 with languages that predated it by millennia is…well…a choice…
Sadly i used to be way into the whole ancient aliens/ ancient technology thing, ley lines, levitation, Atlantis, the whole thing…I was in fact so into it that when i ran out of Eric Von Daniken etc books i started reading actual history books….aaaaaaaand that’s when it fell apart because this stuff just can’t stand up to any sort of critical scrutiny and in the end the facts make a much better story. Keep up the good work Raven 👍
This was great! Please do more of these debunking of Ancient Aliens. We all know that the pyramids at Giza were built by Joseph to store 7 years of grain in, as per Ben Carson. I had a dream once that I went inside of Khufu’s pyramid and it was a giant candy store that was run by two old ladies in rocking chairs. I bought red rope licorice, of course. I’m done mow. Keep being awesome, Raven!
Please please do more debunking of other supernatural or mythology-based theories that intersect with archaeology, and more sites whose origins, purpose or even existence has been debated! Stonehenge, Nazca, and other things like Atlantis, Garden of Eden (different sites purported to be them), etc. Hearing your thoughts and those of the scientific community on these would be fascinating and I am sure would correct a lot of people’s assumptions or false impressions of history.
This is EXACTLY the kind of article I’ve been looking for. I know that Ancient Aliens is BS, and I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole after seeing some content about wild speculation regarding this topic. I’d really appreciate a article debunking Ben Van Kerkwyk. He made an appearance on Joe Rogan, and has a popular website that frequently spouts nonsense speculation about Egyptian structures. I’d love to see you cover this. I’ll be making some popcorn if you ever release a article about him!
I love the ones about how the circumference of the Earth and the speed of light are encoded in the measurements of the pyramid. This was, I suppose, intended as a message to people far in the future. Strange that only a handful of really smart people figured it out. However, that was only after it was all figured out with modern means…by smarter people. Makes me wonder if these values were only in the “Great” pyramid or are they present in just any old pyramid.
This was great! And now I feel bad for the other pyramids ;( all pyramids matter!! I’d love to see more debunking theories, or actually A series on Indigenous archaeological sites would be amazing too! A lot of NA tribes built massive earthernworks and stone structures, it’d be so cool to hear more about these less remembered sites
Amzing article, loved the “bring it baby” style. Now, Let’s start to waste an hour or so in reading all the comments by angry people coz it’s fun. Edit : How on earth there is only one angry keyboard warrior here? There must be some other worldly influence. 😂😂😂. But to be honest, these people are fun : hey, do you know alphabets start from A because A means Aliens hahahahaha and you know world will end by a zombie attack coz Z means Zombie huahuhahahahaha
“Can you even make a bigger invitation for looters & robbers ?” hahahhaha exactly surprisingly and ironically those conspiracy theorists are the modern age looters & robbers of history and all Sciences at once. Yeah it turns out that yeah, it’s a pretty Big deal. Even if it was always empty, it’s still a Tomb. Coz the word Cenotaph didn’t come out of Mars.
Fuck yeah, this follow up was so great. I love how with the speed of light theory, they assume the ancient Egyptians would have used a geographical measurement, a velocity measurement, a distance measurement, AND a time measurement, ALL from time periods LONG LONG after the pyramids were even built, AND they assume Egyptians would have chosen to divide the distance measurement they didn’t have by the time measurement they didn’t have, all to gesture at a velocity measurement they didn’t have!! Ridiculous!!!!
Ah! Once again, you have so very effectively, convincingly, entertainingly, mic-dropping-ly cleared out the bunk! (Truly, my heart was all aflutter with your style and presentation!!!!) MAYBE if there was evidence they all used banana peels to move the stones, there might be a connection. But even then…people had BOATS to get around. No need for spaceships to spread info. But as you said…they didn’t need “triangle” construction suggestions from other areas. North America: Teepee (also Tipi)…which is a…wait for it…TRIANGLE. And, of course, the ancient Egyptians already HAD calendars. The whole country need not and would not glance out their window at the great pyramid to find out what day it was. Besides, not everyone could see it. It would be like fitting a fish with rock climbing gear: waste of time. And did knowing the, ahem…WRONG geographic center of the earth help the ancient Egyptians in their day to day life? Nope. That is about as helpful as attaching a spigot to an apple tree…won’t get anyone any juice. Not useful. And a race from outer space and cross millions of light years, but once they get here, they stay in a very hot place with mostly sand and hardly any waterfront property. And even if they (wrongly) determined it to be the geographical center of the earth, so what? What would their game of “find the surface center of the planet” get them? A free order of fries on their next visit? Maybe they thought they could charm the local ladies with not so fun false facts?
OK this confused me so much I had to do the math. If you take the average of the 4 sides times 4, and then add up each of the 4 sides you should get the exact same number. I think maybe you flipped two numbers when converting 230.363 to feet which is 755.784. Of course still not the number those guys are looking for.
Ah! Once again, you have so very effectively, convincingly, entertainingly, mic-dropping-ly cleared out the bunk! (Truly, my heart was all aflutter with your style and presentation!!!!) MAYBE if there was evidence they all used banana peels to move the stones, there might be a connection. But even then…people had BOATS to get around. No need for spaceships so spread info. But as you said…they didn’t need “triangle” construction suggestions from other areas. North America: Teepee (also Tipi)…which is a…wait for it…TRIANGLE. And, of course, the ancient Egyptians already HAD calendars. The whole country need not and would not glance out their window at the great pyramid to find out what day it was. Besides, not everyone could see it. It would be like fitting a fish with rock climbing gear: waste of time. And did knowing the, ahem…WRONG geographic center of the earth help the ancient Egyptians in their day to day life? Nope. That is about as helpful as attaching a spigot to an apple tree…won’t get anyone any juice. Not useful. And a race from outer space and cross millions of light years, but once they get here, they stay in a very hot place with mostly sand and hardly any waterfront property. And even if they (wrongly) determined it to be the geographical center of the earth, so what? What would their game of “find the surface center of the planet” get them? A free order of fries on their next visit? Maybe they thought they could charm the local ladies with not so fun false facts?
The reason that the Pyramid was made was because they can see that the mountain’s and Hill’s have stable structure. And that the shape can be made to ascend to heights. Until it was symbolize into many reason like the head of a male “pallus.” The Egyptian Pyramids just were made to symbolize in that…
The Great Pyramid sells books, that’s why ancient astronaut theorists have a fixation with this monument. Stonehenge attracts similar attention, so I’d chalk this up to a desire to sell books rather than a racial bias unless you consider that Corded Ware Neolithic farmers were Africans. While we’re at it, I’ve heard the Great Pyramid actually has 8 sides (each of the 4 sides are slightly concave). If so, that would give the structure greater stability.
Would love to see you debunk Ancient Technologies….Antikythera mechanism,Flexible glass from the Roman era,The Baghdad battery, and the Holy Grail of ancient mythological technologies Atlantis is there even any proof that the place ever existed….just how true is the information we see about all of these ancient technologies
Your hypotheses re pyramids are based on the same basis as the Conspiracy minded, which is beliefs. There as many beliefs,and as regularly happens to archeologist’s hypothesis that are presented as facts only to debunked by new discoveries. Hopefull,y with Ground Penatrating Radar, survey satellites etc. Archeologist can by pass much of the control the Eygption’s Dept of Antiquity has (for non scientic reasons) over explorations making it nearly impossible for even world class Archeologist to get permissions for a specific areas without restrictive time lines, conditions and lots of Buckshee. The fact the head of Antiques was dismissed and charged for taking artifacts for himself says a lot. There are many who will argue with your assumptions based on their assumptions but what is needed are large teams of internstional expert Archeologist etc with enough funding and unrestricted access to explore and uncover what still lays below the sand. Hopefu,ly, we will someday see the hundreds of years of small, intermittent, tightly controlled digs, censorship, bribery finally being replaced by these teams of experts and accomplish what has only been “nibbled” at for centuries, Since Europeons came across the Pyramids etc to date the number of Archeologist explorations are minimal as Eygpt’s principal concern re Giza etc is tourism not ancient history. Hence, every few years they relase from their inventory another “Recently” discovered burial site, mummies etc to encourage tourist to keep coming and see the lastest discovery.
Ok my ancestors were living in mud huts when the pyramids were being built but they did produce the Ewart Park sword which; oh dear. I guess, if you look around the place,(world), it isn’t actualy a surprise they produced a great sword and no pyramids. Oh look! A henge! (plods off to chat with ancestors).
What are your thoughts on how precise some of the measurements are? Cardinal directions alignment, leveling so precise we use lasers today, etc.? To be clear, I believe the ancient Egyptians constructed the pyramids, including the Great Pyramid. But some of the aspects of it are pretty uncanny! I also heard a theory about the pyramid being a power plan that made unlimited clean energy! Would love you hear you examine it and pick it apart.
you got 3022 as the base perimeter. If you scale this and the height of the pyramid up by 1:43200 you get the dimensions of the earth. The equatorial circumference of Earth is about 24,901 miles The Polar radius of the earth is about 3,950 miles Pyramid’s Perimeter (3023.16 ft) x 43,200 = 24,734.94 miles Pyramid’s Height (481.3949 ft) x 43,200 = 3938.685 miles why 43200? 43,200 seconds is 12 hours (half a day) our planet wobbles on its axis every 72 years like the heartbeat of our planet. 72 x 600 = 43,200 However, this is based upon 2-dimensional math. The Pyramids are 3 dimensional and thus when you change the measurements relative to this and double the scale (43200 x 2) using 1:86400 you again get the dimensions of the earth. 86,400 seconds is 1 day. 60 seconds X 60 minutes X 24 hours = 86,400 seconds approximate diameter of the sun = 86,4000 miles youtube.com/watch?v=Ft1waA3p2_w youtube.com/watch?v=o2gOiDaCdqg
I don’t know if you actually debunked anything. You use the word “probably” quite a lot. I wonder if you have listened to or read anything by Mauro Biglio. If so would you also debunk what he has to say? I’m not trying to pick an argument I am just wandering this planet looking for some insight. Thank you for your input.
The pyramids weren’t built by skilled workers with manual tools. It is impossible. Reason, using the latest available technology today and the most renown contractors and engineers it would be very difficult and challenging to do, even today year 2024. It is arguable that the pyramids were built to bury Pharaohs. The Pyramids were built by people who knew exactly what they were doing to serve a purpose. We do not know that purpose, but what we do know, is that the people who built them had very advanced engineering, architectural, maths and construction knowledge as well as the tools and technology require to do the job. However, mainstream historians, archaeologists and Egyptologist refuse to acknowledge this, without giving enough evidence or any plausible explanation. Please, think of the size, dimensions, scaling, orientation, and precision of construction, then take rudimentary tools and try to cut, drill, carve and transport granite and limestone blocks, and then think again. So,my conclusion as a senior structural engineer is that who ever built the pyramids were, obviously, way more advanced than what it is accepted today.
We have all that technology, computers, touchscreen (we are all connected), quantum computers, fighter jets, James Webb Telescope (we see 13.8billion light years in history)….all engineering marveles and yet Piramids (no offense) doesn’t have any of that woows and yet somehow it must ‘ve been Alienes 🤦♂️ its just sad
The problem people have is the amount of certainty you experts talk about these things. We do not know that the pyramids were initially built for tombs. Also every attempt to create the pyramids in methods using the tools that they had available at the time failed. The truth is we know very little but “experts” often talk with certain on things that are theories or speculation at best. Or theories that have been disproved using the scientific method .
Back again. Simple math – as you invited us to run – based on the dimensions of the great pyramid provided by wikipedia (but you can confirm the dimensions elsewhere): Base perimeter of the GP: 921,36 m (230,34 m each side) GP height: 146,5 to 146,7 m If you make the ratio between these two, you get (921,36/≈146,6)= 6,284 Now, despite the unit of measure you consider, the ratio 6,284 is 2 times the number 3,142 which is pi.
I do not care about that Ancient Aliens Crap. But there is one thing, that baffles me. It’s that the great pyramid is so perfect and already the tombs for Khufu’s daughters are only small stone heaps. Sure, they were certainly once more beautiful, but also the size of the stones that were used for the construction are strikingly smaller than in the great pyramid. And the whole necropolis also seems so much more disordered than the great pyramid…I would have thought at least, if the architects of Khufu had planned and built the great pyramid as perfectly as no other building in the world, they would at least have had their influence on the construction of the necropolis. This does not look like a neighborhood among kings. This looks like a few hippies pitched their tents next to a 5 star luxury hotel. So…what if the king just thought to himself and his staff: Bury me in that huge triangle next to our palace. We can’t build another Tomb as big as that anyway. And write down, that I build it.
The pyramid shape was supposed to capture the suns energy to be directed down to the dead king! The original Egyptians were driven out and Egypt was looted to a certain extent then, another tribe came along and took Egypt! This happened several times in history with each new conqueror finding more treasure.
Really really enjoyed your article and the light you shine on the different theories. It was a fantastic article right up until the last minute where you start throwing judgment on people and suggesting that others are being racial and there was no need for that and it killed the momentum of your factual article. Stick to facts, not opinions.
What we do know of the great pyramids… Built before the flood of Noah’s times, and maybe before the one that took down Atlantis. Before the earthquake that loosened and broke down the outer limestone covering, there was a flood mark over halfway up the pyramid sides. There was also writting on this outer covering, a shame no one copied them down. Plato’s Atlantean legends confirmed by the scribed account on a temple wall that stated the founders of Egyptian civilization came from an Island in the Sea that was destroyed . Perhaps if efforts were made to stop the destruction of the Laybrenth by salt water, and that site drained and excavated we might know more. Also apparently, by Sumerian writings the great pyramid’s mechanisms were dismantled and the site’s ‘ownership’ handed over to Isis. More, much more research and excavation is needed.
Have you heard about the supposed restorative/preservative powers of the pyramid (the shape)? Of course, it has to have the same proportions as the Great Pyramid. They said keeping food under a scaled down model of the Great Pyramid would keep them fresh for days, and razor blades would get their sharpness back when left under it overnight.
You’re using modern units of measurements to do ancient calculations 🤦♂️ The height was ~280 x ~440 along one side If you divide 280 / 440 you end up with the recurring number 0.63636363 Multiply this by pi and you end up with 6.. 6 / the golden ratio (1.61803398874) = pi IE. They knew maths that wasn’t expected to exist at the time which included pi and the golden ratio which exists in all of nature.
Okay, I’ll be coming from a Biblical Perspective and one of the question is, do you believe in God or Not?…I don’t agree on The Pyramids being a TOMB, yes that square thing looks like a sarcophagus, but it doesn’t mean it’s a real one, there are parts of the Pyramids that are way too obvious and tells us that their purpose are not to be a part of a Tomb, the Kings chamber for example, being suspended and being a separate part of the pyramid or the controversial Gantenbrink tunnel, and so on and so forth, all these parts are saying something that they are not to be part of a Tomb, this will sound Crazy but The Pyramid is an Energy Source, not like an alien type and all that crap but because of Human’s Intelligence, which is not impossible because also you have think that if God created Man in his image then HUMANS are INTELLIGENT. You will not build something that GRAND if you will not get something in return….and oh those SIMILARITY among those other Structures around the World? Well they are pretty similar but yeah it doesn’t mean then come from an Alien Engineering Guide Book LOL…and Yeah, like what everybody say, Everything in EGYPT is debatable…
Wait! At 13:20 in, you state that all ancient civilizations created fire. BUT, it’s my understanding that your tribe (archeologists) have discovered fire pits as old as 3 million years, implying that fire was used as a tool by humans before we even became human. and my tribe (the geneticists) have, based on this evidence, started to say that fire was one of the reasons we became human in the first place. Fire precooked meat allowing us to expend fewer calories in order to extract the calories in our food, inflating our caloric budget which allowed us to survive as we developed things like brains that were not an immediate survival advantage (I mean that Myelin 16 mutation that got rid of our ape like jaw muscles meant that for a long time we couldn’t chew things as well, but the lack of this musculature meant that we didn’t need the huge skull crest, and not needing that allowed other mutations to inflate the skull and grow the brain, and then the FoxP2 mutation allowed our neural network to add longer length connections between the neurons allowing for a hierarchical organization of the brain… but from the initial mutation to having a bigger brain, that took a while….) If you want farther evidence, look at some australian birds that use fire as a tool, it’s even been hypothesized that we humans learned to use fire from perusal these birds… So, what I am saying is that the use of fire allowed us to become human, no ancient civilization “discovered” it, it was there all along.