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Before the First Pyramids

The mysterious era preceding the ancient pyramids
(4th edition - February 2008) by A.O. Kime

The centuries immediately preceding the building of the ancient pyramids in Egypt and China is a time of great curiosity… 10,000 BC until 5,000 BC. It was a time when the human race was undergoing its most radical transformation since the beginning. People began to leave behind isolationism, their world of small independent clans and tribes, and headed down a path towards a world of networking associations… later to be known as ‘kingdoms’ and ‘countries’ and this transformation led to the building of massive structures never before seen. It was the beginnings of civilization.

Claims to a territory would have occurred much earlier however… perhaps tens of thousands of years earlier. Just as bears or mountain lions inherently believe they have the exclusive right to an expanse of territory, so did man have this inherent belief. Except that long ago man wasn’t preparing to build monumental structures.

While it would be interesting to know when man first began to defend an expanse of territory which he considered his, nameless expanses, the boundaries of which he only visualized, this could have occurred even 200,000-300,000 years ago... but that time period is actually less a mystery. The most profound and mystifying time period were those centuries immediately preceding man’s building aspirations. The mighty questions are… what in the world caused man to want to build? And… how was it possible his first projects were such engineering marvels? Or were the stone pyramids really his first?

While there are older surviving structures, the oldest (8,000 BC) being the stone tower in Jericho, they weren't nearly as massive as the later pyramids. Yet, this 25 foot high tower deserves mention since it demonstrates, as Amihai Mazar puts it: "the existence of social organization and central authority which could recruit, for the first time in human history, the necessary means and manpower for such building operations." (quote from the book Archaeology of the Land of the Bible by Amihai Mazar)

The ancient pyramids of Egypt, China, Mexico and... Greece?
Since the Egyptians were the first to devise a calendar in 4,236 BC enabling them to date events, we know the oldest Egyptian pyramid was built during the reign of Netjenkhet Djoser, the 2nd King of Egypt's 3rd Dynasty (2687-2668 BC). However, some believe the oldest pyramids exist in China... alleging the oldest of the approximately 100 pyramids were built around 4,500-5,000 BC. Then there are the pyramids in Mexico… but its pyramid-building era didn’t debut until thousands of years later; construction on the largest pyramid in Mexico (Teotihuacán) didn’t begin until about 200 AD.

There are also 16 small stone pyramids in Greece and mentionable because they were built about a century before the first Egyptian pyramid. While much smaller, about the size of a house, archaeologists have determined the Hellenikon pyramid in Greece predates the Djoser pyramid by about 100 years. Perhaps the Egyptians got the idea of pyramid-building from the Greeks? There are also claims of another, perhaps older, Greek pyramid... a so-called a ‘sculptured pyramid’ said to exist at Taygetus mountain. It remains scientifically unknown whether it is manmade or a natural formation however.

It is believed these small Greek pyramids served either as memorials or observation-communication towers but only a few have been studied. Even though they are much smaller, the Greek pyramids seemed to have served a practical purpose whereas the larger Egyptian and Chinese pyramids didn’t. The building of a monstrous structure for burial purposes doesn't seem a practical undertaking. Those in Mexico, on the other hand, were multipurpose.

Aside from having the same architectural design (pyramidal), there exists another similarity between the pyramids in Egypt, Mexico and China… their monumental size. In Egypt the Great Pyramid of Giza is 481 feet high, Mexico's Teotihuacán is 187 feet and most of those in China are about 300 feet high. China’s largest is the 1,000' Great White Pyramid which is the tomb of Empress Wu of the Tang Dynasty except it isn't a 'real' pyramid, instead it was once a small mountain re-shaped into a pyramid (sculptured pyramid). It is not especially old however, constructed around 700 AD.

Since hugeness was obviously important in all three regions, perhaps there was some religious significance. If so, then it was curiously universal. While a pyramid is the sturdiest of structures, a monstrosity goes beyond reason... but in defying logic so boldly it must have been a powerful reason. Of course, incorporating religious concepts into architecture invariably the results appear illogical.