388
This is what the pyramids used to look like. They were covered with polished white limestone and had a peak made of pure gold.
(lemmy.today)
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
388 points (96.4% liked)
interestingasfuck
9446 readers
56 users here now
For exceptionally interesting content
Rules:
- Posts must be interesting
- Posts must be based in reality
- No hateful content
- No harmful content
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
So one thing that happens in history is, people stop paying to maintain things or governments don't care anymore, so people start taking them apart and using it for building materials.
Let's say you're a modern day contractor, and need $10,000 worth of brick... or you could go and uh just take some from that old library that no one uses anymore, except some homeless dudes camp in it. You could take down maybe just like one small part of it and not spend ANYTHING on brick. Other contractors are already doing this... No one will care.
Basically what happened to the library of alexandria if I remember correctly. It was less fire and more just hundreds of years of people stopping caring.
but it costs money to demolish the white pyramid and rebuild the shitty one. whyd they do it if money is a concern
They didn't demolish a limestone pyramid and replace it with what you see now... What you're seeing now is what was underneath a layer of limestone. They dismantled the limestone slowly to use it for building materials.
It's still limestone. The core masonry, the bulk of the pyramid, is made of locally quarried limestone, while the casing stones and finished interior spaces are made of higher quality limestone brought in from elsewhere.
the limestone was clearly already used as building material.... why would they demolish a nice building for the limestone only to rebuild it but worse
Gotta learn when the joke is spent my man
it's spent when nobody replies anymore
I have the same question about fried chicken. Why do people eat the chicken and replace it with bones? It costs money to buy the bones. Why not just eat the chicken and not bother replacing it with bones?