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Oof. I'm not happy upon this post, but the basic idea is to convey the fact that the Great Pyramids looked *absolutely spectacular* before their limestone and marble casings got carried off and stripped upon multiple other building projects, later.
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JohnnyEnzyme piefed.social JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-06-11
Quote

Not sure, but I think these are credit to German artist Gabriel Nagypál upon a videogame they were developing around the aughts.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Gabriel+Nagypál+Giza+pyramid+complex&udm=2

In any case, the original Giza-area pyramids were absolutely spectacular, IMO. We moderns see basically thousands-year old rubble and make judgements upon all that.

Au contraire, those suckers were absolutely unreal for the time. Truth. Facts & reality.

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pelespirit sh.itjust.works pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2023-06-14
#2 · Quote Reply

I read somewhere that they thought they were painted with hieroglyphic prayers too. So it might not have looked like that either.

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snoons lemmy.ca snoons@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2023-06-16
#3 · Quote Reply

I read somewhere that they thought they were painted with hieroglyphic prayers too. So it might not have looked like that either.

And had gold on their tips. Just the tips though.

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iocase lemmy.zip iocase@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2026-05-11
#4 · Quote Reply

And had gold on their tips. Just the tips though.

(👁 ͜ʖ👁)

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JohnnyEnzyme piefed.social JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-06-11
#5 · Quote Reply

And had gold on their tips. Just the tips though.

That's right. Small-ish to us, but absolutely spectacular upon the Egyptian populace.

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Madison420 lemmy.world Madison420@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-02
#6 · Quote Reply

I read somewhere that they thought they were painted with hieroglyphic prayers too. So it might not have looked like that either.

Weirdly enough assassins creed origins did it pretty well.

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Arda piefed.social Arda@piefed.social
Joined: 2026-09-10
#7 · Quote Reply

The must have been blinding

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fizzbang lemmy.world fizzbang@lemmy.world
Joined: 2026-04-04
#8 · Quote Reply

This is incredible. I just recently finished reading a history of Egypt. It’s really important to understand how much the climate of that region changed as well.

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JohnnyEnzyme piefed.social JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-06-11
#9 · Quote Reply

This is incredible. I just recently finished reading a history of Egypt. It’s really important to understand how much the climate of that region changed as well.

Ah, that's interesting. What did you learn?

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RebekahWSD lemmy.world RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-10-19
#10 · Quote Reply

A just finished pyramid must have been an absolute sight to behold. Wish I could see back through time sometimes just to see things like that!

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Typotyper sh.itjust.works Typotyper@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2024-08-25
#11 · Quote Reply

Ah, that's interesting. What did you learn?

Not sure if this was what they discouverwd

From link

"Today, the river lies a bit further away. Like a green ribbon bordered by fields, it winds its way from the Ethiopian Plateau through the northeastern Sahara to the wide delta in the north. We know, however, that the course of the river was further west at the time the pyramids were built, and the construction site was connected to the river via canals and a harbor.

However, the history of ancient Egypt actually begins much earlier when the Sahara was not yet a desert. About 15,000 to 5,000 years ago, people lived along rivers and lakes in a green Sahara because at that time the climate was much wetter. The Nile Valley, on the other hand, was probably less popular at that time, as it was a rather swampy area and there was a risk of being eaten by crocodiles or at least attacked by thirsty mosquitoes.

https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/mnfakul/news/detail/2025-03-17-what-does-climate-change-have-to-do-with-the-pyramids-in-egypt

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charokol lemmy.zip charokol@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2026-07-27
#12 · Quote Reply

A just finished pyramid must have been an absolute sight to behold. Wish I could see back through time sometimes just to see things like that!

Is there a VR ancient Egypt?

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Swedneck discuss.tchncs.de Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
Joined: 2023-06-10
#13 · (edited) Quote Reply

The must have been blinding

they were actually constructed as defence against aliens, ironically enough.

It's the same principle as modern drivers with 5 billion lumen LED headlights aimed directly into your rear mirror, and was particularly effective since Greys have such big sensitive eyes.

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fizzbang lemmy.world fizzbang@lemmy.world
Joined: 2026-04-04
#14 · Quote Reply

Ah, that's interesting. What did you learn?

Here’s an example, it’s not exactly climate change though. Tanis was a major royal city during the new kingdom. It was abandoned after the branch of the Nile it sat on silted up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanis

Reading 3000 years of history about a single civilization (that began 5000 years ago) gives an incredibly humbling sense of scale to modern civilization. It’s very hard to imagine how a culture endured largely intact for such eons and eons in terms of religion and language.

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JohnnyEnzyme piefed.social JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-06-11
#15 · Quote Reply

Here’s an example, it’s not exactly climate change though. Tanis was a major royal city during the new kingdom. It was abandoned after the branch of the Nile it sat on silted up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanis Reading 3000 years of history about a single civilization (that began 5000 years ago) gives an incredibly humbling sense of scale to modern civilization. It’s very hard to imagine ho...

It’s very hard to imagine how a culture endured largely intact for such eons and eons in terms of religion and language.

Thanks for adding on, and yeah, isn't it... downright inconceivable?

Altho they did get conquered by neighboring realms at certain points while still maintaining an 'Egyptian' identity, as I understand it.

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fizzbang lemmy.world fizzbang@lemmy.world
Joined: 2026-04-04
#16 · Quote Reply

It’s very hard to imagine how a culture endured largely intact for such eons and eons in terms of religion and language. Thanks for adding on, and yeah, isn't it... downright inconceivable? Altho they did get conquered by neighboring realms at certain points while still maintaining an 'Egyptian' identity, as I understand it.

They were conquered a few times in different ways. I think no there was an ethnically non Egyptian dynasty between the old and middle kingdoms. One of the more notable pharaohs reclaimed independence and Egyptian rule. I’m having trouble recalling the exact details. There were also numerous civil wars. Power struggles between upper and lower Egypt or between pharaonic power and local power.

Then in this order they were conquered by Libyans after years of border skirmishes. Egypt was pretty weak at this point. It must have been around 800-600bc. The Libyans did some pretty extensive and systematic grave robbing.
Then came the Persians. Achaemenid dominance didn’t last long, but they did manage to build a sweet canal from the Nile to the Red Sea.
Then came Alexander. This wasn’t much of a military conquest and the Egyptians recognized Alexander as a true pharaoh and established a pharaonic cult with some legitimacy. The Ptolemaic dynasty lasted until cleopatra until ~40bc

The Egyptian language lived on in some form as Coptic. The writing system that evolved over millennia as hieroglyphs, hieratic and then demotic was adapted to Greek and Latin symbols. I find that to be fascinating in itself because Greek and Latin alphabets have characters that may be traceable back to hieroglyphs or hieratic.

Sorry for any factual inaccuracies, this is just what I can remember from one read through of one summary of Egyptian history!

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JohnnyEnzyme piefed.social JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-06-11
#17 · Quote Reply

They were conquered a few times in different ways. I think no there was an ethnically non Egyptian dynasty between the old and middle kingdoms. One of the more notable pharaohs reclaimed independence and Egyptian rule. I’m having trouble recalling the exact details. There were also numerous civil wars. Power struggles between upper and lower Egypt or between pharaonic power and local power. The...

Ah yeah, a lot of that echoes true with my self-education. Sadly, I never tackled Egyptian history in University.

IIRC my German buddy who helped me for a while upon "EGN" (my own PieFed project) talked about the kingdom below ("Nubia" I think?) also conquering Upper Egypt for a while, which would have been in the South, based on the source of the Nile.

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