How the Pyramids Became Ruined

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:08]Welcome to History for Granite. Join me to explore ancient Egypt. Please subscribe and together we'll uncover secrets from the past written in stone.

[00:00:20]The casing stones that once covered the pyramids of Egypt are essential for understanding how these amazing monuments were constructed. Each one of those stones contains evidence about how it was inserted onto the structure. With enough data about how stones were moved into their final location, the method of transportation and installation can be reasonably inferred. However, almost every pyramid has lost its casing stones, and the precious remaining evidence on them is degrading by the day. If the great mystery of how the pyramids of Egypt were built can ever be solved, it will depend on preserving and studying their casing stones. To properly preserve and study the remaining casing stones, it is necessary to understand how the missing ones came off the pyramids and why the remaining ones are deteriorating. Each pyramid has a unique story as to why, when, and how its casing stones disappeared. Contrary to popular assumption, people were rarely pulling stones directly off the large pyramids of the fourth dynasty.

[00:01:28]That only occurred a few times in distinctly large campaigns of thievery.

[00:01:34]In this video, we're going to examine the full history of the fourth dynasty pyramid casing stones. It is my hope that this knowledge will accelerate the process for preserving them and may even lead to discovering where a great many of the stolen ones ended up. Knowing when the blocks were taken, there are only so many things that would be constructed using thousands of pyramid casing stones. I hope someone watching may have the missing knowledge to get us closer to a solution as to where the coffrey and manare casing stones were repurposed. Overlooked testimony of Coffrey's casing stones will also provide the ultimate clue as to what caused the bent pyramid to look as we see it today. Let's start our investigation with the earliest large pyramid, the stepped pyramid of Pharaoh Joser. In the past two decades, this pyramid underwent a major restoration campaign that radically changed its exterior. I find such efforts controversial. The pyramid lost its romantically ancient appearance with this transformation. Some of the structure is better preserved, but evidence becomes obscured, including the ability to see interior stages of construction. This restoration of Joser's pyramid did not return it to its original appearance. The casing stones are still missing, and major portions of the lowest step were not reconstructed.

[00:02:59]At no point in history did the pyramid look anything like it does today. And it's a perfect example of how restoration is different than reconstructing the past. However, the renovation of Joser's pyramid provided valuable information about how stones become damaged over time that we can apply to later pyramids. Perhaps counterintuitively, the most damaged stones on Joser's pyramid were the stones covered by fallen debris. You can see at the bottom of each pyramid step the more lightly colored restored blocks that have been added recently. One would normally expect buried blocks to be more protected from erosion caused by wind and rain. However, it turns out how the pyramid is covered determines if damage is occurring. If a stone is covered by clean and dry sand, then it may remain pristine, such as we see below the entrance to the Great Pyramid of Kufu.

[00:03:56]However, if a casing stone is covered by limestone debris from the pyramid itself, this can accelerate erosion dramatically. An article by Zahi Hawas in 2022 about Joser's pyramid states that pyramid debris contains and traps salt, which then becomes the corrosive agent that damages the remaining stones.

[00:04:17]Therefore, it was important to clear Joser's pyramid of fallen debris to prevent further damage. Whether or not the pyramid itself needed dramatic reconstruction in the damaged areas is unclear to me, but I'm not a fan of its new appearance. There was also some controversy about the quality of this reconstruction effort publicized by the newspaper Egypt Independent in 2014. I'm curious what viewers think of the renovation to Joser's pyramid. So, please let me know in the comments.

[00:04:49]Joser's casing stones were smaller than later pyramids and probably ideal as a construction material. They might have been taken at any point in history.

[00:04:59]There is no known testimony of the pyramid with its casing stones intact.

[00:05:04]We can however apply what we've learned at Joser to the next large pyramid at Maidum built for Pharaoh Nefru. This pyramid appears to have partly collapsed but in fact the evidence for collapse is minimal. We know the pyramid did not collapse for over 1,000 years because 18th dynasty graffiti attributing the pyramid to Snfru was found inside the buried temple on the eastern side by Flender's Petri. A close look at the remaining casing stones on the pyramid will also corroborate that the pyramid was not encumbered by debris in the era it was constructed. Intrusive burials from the 22nd dynasty were found inside the debris pile about a century ago by Gerald Wright. These burials were as high as 10 m above the base, suggesting that the major damage to the Maidum pyramid occurred between the 18th and 22nd dynasties of Egypt. As the Maidum pyramid sits extremely close to cultivated farmland in modern times, it was a very convenient source for taking stones. large-scale theft occurred until the 20th century and the only reason the temple on the eastern side survives today is because it was rearied by those who discovered it. After excavating the pyramid temple, Petri writes, quote, to have left it open would have been to ensure its destruction in 6 months. The pyramid of Maidum is the quarry of all the neighborhood. End quote. So while the Maidum pyramid became ruined in antiquity, the removal of its fallen stones was an ongoing phenomenon. The ironic benefit of this early destruction is that the debris pile covered the bottom third of the pyramid's casing stones and thus prevented them from being quarried away. However, like the pyramid of Joser, these buried casing stones are slowly being damaged by the limestone chips on top of them. At a glance, it's easy to think the damage on the casing stones could have been caused by the pyramid collapsing. These casing stones have a unique pattern of damage that is not seen on other pyramids.

[00:07:13]However, the small sections of smooth casing stones reveal the true cause. If upper sections of the pyramid falling onto the lower casing was the source of the damage, the area around the entrance would not have been spared. A semic-ircular band of casing stones across the northern side remain smooth while stones below them are rough and damaged. In the 1980s, a major excavation of the debris covering the lower casing stones was conducted in the northwest corner of the pyramid. The clearance of the pyramid here revealed additional stones near the bottom that also remain smooth. There is only one common factor that would protect the lowest casing stones and blocks around the pyramid entrance from damage that exists everywhere else. The casing stones that remain smooth were not covered with limestone chips for thousands of years. The base of the Maidum pyramid had over a millennia to accumulate windb blown sand along the bottom. As seen elsewhere, stones covered in this manner are well protected from erosion. When debris from the upper 2/3 of the pyramid spilled downwards, it lay on top of the sand dunes already present along the base.

[00:08:26]This is additional evidence the pyramid could not have collapsed during construction because sand would not have accumulated so high at that time. It's simple to determine the entrance was also spared of encumbrance because people have kept the pyramid accessible throughout history. A rare photo of the Maidum pyramid's entrance from over a century ago shows the undamaged section matches the exact shape of exposed casing stones. Knowing the pyramid debris is actively damaging the remaining casing stones adds some urgency in clearing the entire pyramid.

[00:09:02]It's a significant job, but perhaps one Egyptologists would be keen to take on because the debris piles may unearth artifacts from Egypt's new kingdom when the pyramid was first deconstructed. Ali El Kouli's excavations from the 1980s found some very interesting clues within the debris itself. Notably, only debris on the north side of the pyramid contained sizable blocks from the core of the structure. The debris on the western side contained only small limestone chips. There were no blocks of any kind. Pictures of this excavation from 1984 show the western debris is stratified into very thin layers. Such a pattern could not be the result of a collapse of the pyramid, but rather a slow and steady quarrying of the blocks above. The Maidum pyramid would thus be the only large fourth dynasty pyramid that was quarried from the top down.

[00:10:00]Perhaps this was due to the destruction occurring during dynastic Egypt instead of later. It's unclear why the Maidum pyramid was selected for this purpose.

[00:10:10]Perhaps like modern times, it was in the most convenient location for plundering.

[00:10:15]As you will see later in this video, human psychology also plays a role in what is taken. Perhaps the pyramid's steel being uninscribed gave a pharaoh extra justification to take it for his own purposes. Let's now examine the casing stones of the next pyramids together known as the red pyramid and the bent pyramid. When looking at the red pyramid today, a common assumption is that it was stripped of its casing stones similar to what happened to the pyramids of Giza. The evidence, however, suggests that the Red Pyramid was never quarried in any substantial way. Like the bent pyramid, the Red Pyramid's casing stones suffered damage from thermal expansion. I recommend my previous video on that subject for a complete explanation of the phenomenon.

[00:11:05]However, compared to the bent pyramid, the Red Pyramid's casing stones were shallower and perhaps more easily detached from the structure due to thermal expansion. Consequently, the stones all fell off the pyramid on their own without humans needing to extract them from the monument. Drawings and descriptions of the Red Pyramid from the 18th and 19th centuries prove that large swaths of casing were still in place not so long ago. Furthermore, the pattern of the last remaining casing stones shows a random patchwork across all faces and elevations of the pyramid. People do not quarry stones off pyramids in scattered patches. That would be the most difficult and least logical way to take them. We see this clearly at the pyramid of Cafre where it was stripped systematically up to a high elevation and then left alone. However, once stones detach and fall off a pyramid, they are quickly scavenged by local inhabitants. This is why almost all the fallen stones are now gone. It was a process that took hundreds or even thousands of years in contrast to largecale plundering which is done in a very short time frame. Why for some pyramids would only the fallen stones be taken? I suspect that throughout the ages most people admired the pyramids enough to understand dismantling them was not a proper thing to do. But if a stone had fallen and was no longer part of the structure, everyone considered it fair game. Also, most people probably didn't need more than a few casing stones at a time for whatever they were building. The risk and effort required to remove blocks attached to the pyramid was not worth it for small groups of scavengers. The Red Pyramid still has some casing stones intact at the base which were protected by embankments of sand. These stones did not erode like those at Maidum because the sand does not introduce damaging salt crystals or other chemical weathering. Only the eastern face of the red pyramid has been partly excavated due to archaeological interest in the temple on that side. A restoration job of a pyramidian found in the debris was poorly executed and the fragments can no longer be scrutinized.

[00:13:27]The last casing stones attached to the red pyramid up high fell off the structure in the late 1800s. I have yet to see an old photograph with a clearly identifiable casing stone on the pyramid. But while we just missed the time to study red pyramid casing stones, the neighboring bent pyramid gives us the most opportunity to survey stones where they were installed. Why did casing stones survive on the bent pyramid is a common question, but the answer isn't elegant or simple. The explanation is not because the casing stones are slightly inclined. This was put forth by Egyptologists, and I had previously accepted it, but there's no reason to think it was a significant factor. James Dawkins testimony from 1751 indicates the Red Pyramid also had inclined casing stones, but he didn't specify at what elevation those now missing stones were located. Scavengers were not quarrying stones from the Red Pyramid directly, and so it wasn't the size or inclination of the neighboring bent pyramid casing stones that discouraged people from stripping it.

[00:14:36]The stones missing from the bent pyramid today would mostly have detached from thermal expansion and were simply picked up from the desert floor like the stones from the Red Pyramid. Evidence suggests the Giza pyramids may have better resisted erosion and thermal expansion damage, but they were specifically targeted in largecale campaigns which took stones directly from those pyramids. In fact, the Bent Pyramids casing stones are in great peril, and we just happen to be living in a short period of time between when the Red Pyramid lost its stones and the Bent Pyramid is in the final stages of doing so. 19th century photographs give us a good look at most of the pyramid. Each face shows a substantial loss of stones when comparing them to the present day.

[00:15:24]Every side shows a difference of a few hundred stones, meaning well over a thousand casing stones have fallen off the bent pyramid in the last century.

[00:15:35]This is a staggering loss, the equivalent average of losing about one stone every month. I do not believe Egyptology is aware of how severe the problem is. Only the lowest casing stones have received any structural support in modern times. However, almost all the stones falling off the pyramid are coming from the top. Again, the primary cause of this failure is due to thermal expansion, whereby the blocks are slowly pushed outward from the pyramid and towards the corners. The bent pyramid's casing stones run exceptionally deep into the pyramid, often 2 m, and I believe this is the primary reason they have clung on a bit longer than the red pyramid's casing.

[00:16:19]But unless a large-scale effort is mounted to fully save the bent pyramid, it will soon end up just like its neighbor. I should remind everyone that Egyptologists have not acknowledged the thermal expansion. And this is part of the problem. Peter James' book and papers which explain the phenomenon have yet to be cited in any Egyptology publication. Perhaps it's considered unprovable and thus easily ignored. So, let's fix that problem and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Later in this video, when we get to the pyramid of Coffray, I will show you that some of its casing stones had an identical pattern of damage to what we see at the bent pyramid. A critical point of the thermal expansion is that it also explains all the patches inserted into the bent pyramid because they are localized where the casing stones are bulging. Egyptologist Mark Laner's explanation for the patching was that the bent pyramids casing stones were made earlier and with less care. In a recent TV documentary, he states, quote, "At Darur, you can see where again and again and again they were breaking the edges of the casing stones and having to patch them. Now at Maidum, they learned to be really careful when they dressed the stones down to those edges." End quote. Many of the bent pyramid patches are enormous and extend half a meter or more into the stones. To accidentally cause that much damage, the builders would have been dressing the stones with sledgehammers. I think we can give the ancient Egyptians a little more credit than that. In fact, so clever were the ancient Egyptians that they might have observed the pattern of thermal expansion damage to the pyramids and altered their later designs to eliminate it. Even if they didn't understand the physics behind thermal expansion, they could observe how casing stones were moving and cracking over time. Let's move on to the next pyramids at Giza, where the casing stone story gets even more fascinating. The three major pyramids here retained nearly all their casing stones in excellent condition for thousands of years. In the last 600 or so years, they were stolen in three distinct campaigns of thievery. Among that which was lost in this plundering was the testimonies of countless visitors to the pyramids. And I recommend my recent video which dives into that subject. The first victim was the Great Pyramid, fully intact until at least 1336 and witnessed stripped about halfway up in 1395. The only other detail about this looting was that tackle or ropes was being used. The most likely candidate for a structure built with great pyramid casing stones is the mosque Madrasa of Sultan Hassan built between 1356 and 1363.

[00:19:17]However, as the mosque was completed before the pyramid was half stripped, it can't have been the only building made from the pyramid. It is notable that every casing stone was taken from the Great Pyramid before any were quarried from the other two large Giza pyramids.

[00:19:34]Were the Great Pyramid stones valued above the others? Or did people feel more entitled to take them after largecale quarrying had begun? A good question is if stones taken from the Great Pyramid can be identified by their ancient graffiti. Probably most stones were recut such that the graffiti would be gone. But if there is ever a practical way to search for them, I hope it will be done. It's remarkable how few casing stones from the Great Pyramid have survived the looting. Even broken fragments were all taken. Other than the stones still attached to the pyramid, there is only one survivor in the Museum of Scotland, which Wayne Dixon took with official permission in 1872. But while the Great Pyramids casing stone theft seems generally understood by Egyptology, the situation with the Menari and Cafre pyramids is entirely different. There is practically no discussion about what happened to the casing stones on these pyramids, and the rare explanations amount to guesswork.

[00:20:39]For example, in 2024, there was an aborted effort to reconstruct the lower granite casing stones on Manari's pyramid from the scattered debris field surrounding it. Former Secretary General Mustafa Wizeri announced this project by stating, quote, "We do not know the date on which the granite stones that covered the pyramid of Manare fell, but the time has come to return them as they were in ancient Egypt." End quote. Another Egyptologist, Monica Hannah, opposed reconstructing Manari's pyramid and claimed the scattered casing stones had never been installed. She stated, quote, "None of the stones are actually original. They were not finished, so they have not fallen from the pyramid."

[00:21:24]End quote. Neither Egyptologist had any idea what happened here at Manari's pyramid. It was the next pyramid to be quarried after the Great Pyramid. So, let's now focus on it. European travelers to Egypt increased as the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance.

[00:21:42]Visitors in the 14 and 1500s were keen to compare what they saw at Giza to the classical knowledge of Herodotus that had been revived. One notable testimony of Herodotus was that Manari's pyramid was built up to half its height with dark Ethiopian stone. This would be an easy observation to verify and so numerous travelers documented what they saw of Manari's casing stones. In about the year 1547, Pierre Balon writes that Manari's pyramid is entirely intact, showing no signs of ruin, appearing if it had just been completed. He observes also the darker casing stones and believes they are made of basalt. Other travelers also noticed the striking visual difference between the stripped pyramid of Kufu and the smooth intact faces of the manari and coffrey pyramids. Johan Helfrich in about 1565 and Hans Yakob Bruning in about 1579 also provide illustrations of Giza in which we can clearly see how only the Great Pyramid has had its casing stones removed. Hellfrick even draws the detail of the notch and the cave on the northeast corner. Many travelers, despite seeing the contrast in the pyramid exteriors, could not extrapolate that the Great Pyramid was once cased in smooth white stones as well. When people look at the pyramids, they always assume that they are seeing them as they have looked for thousands of years. The consequence is that even immediately after a pyramid is stripped of its casing, the next visitors are completely unaware of what had just happened. A good example of this is explorer John Greavves, who visited Giza in about 1639 and writes an entire book about the pyramids there. Greavves too was interested in the ancient Greek accounts of Manari's pyramid and its dark Ethiopian stone. However, upon investigation of the pyramid, Greavves becomes exasperated. He claims that all the Greek authors are wrong about the darker stone and must have copied each other's work. He writes, quote, "For else how can it be imagined they should so constantly agree in that, which if my eyes and memory extremely fail me not, is most evidently false. For they have mistaken both in the quality of the stone and color of the pyramid. For the whole pyramid seems to be of clear and white stone, somewhat choicer and brighter than that in either of the two other pyramids. End quotes. How can it be that Greavves sees a smooth and cased pyramid of Manare but believes that the stories of its granite casing were entirely fabricated? simply that the granite was taken from Manari's pyramid recently, but the rest of the limestone casing had been left in place. In about 1611, George Sans also comments that Heroditus and Strabo were wrong about the pyramid being constructed in a different stone. He writes, quote, "Surely this is not the case.

[00:24:52]Nevertheless, the intention had been to clad it in marble from thieves, a large quantity of which lies close by." End quote. Sans is the earliest recorded person to dispute the granite casing, but also mentions a lot of granite is lying around nearby. This is obviously the granite we see today. The remains of the blocks that were ripped off the pyramid shortly before Sans's visit.

[00:25:17]Jacqu de Vilmon in 1590 and Prospero Alpini in 1591 say that Manari's pyramid is undamaged. And with Alpini being a strong investigator, I'm inclined to say the granite was stolen from Manari's pyramid between 1591 and 1611. Prospero Alpini looked at all sides of the pyramid and stated that it was not decorated with any steps on the outside.

[00:25:43]The pyramid once had between 4 and 5,000 granite casing stones, and a significant number were left halfbroken around the pyramid. This suggests the granite stones were being split into much smaller blocks for reuse. I look forward to hearing from my audience about where the granite might have been taken between 1591 and 1611. That brings us to the final casing stone heist. The event when Manari's pyramid and most of Coffrey's pyramid would lose their white Tura limestone exteriors. Egyptology's failure to investigate this massive theft is strange, especially considering how recently the stones were removed.

[00:26:23]Whenever there is a substantial gap in knowledge about a famous monument, wild and bizarre theories tend to fill that gap with inaccurate information. There's a theory I keep seeing online that Coffrey's casing stones were washed away by the ocean from some ancient cataclysm. Unfortunately, when Egyptologist Peter Brand attempted to refute this theory, he had no knowledge of what happened to the casing stones either. All he could offer was inaccurate guesswork, claiming the stones were taken to Cairo in the medieval era. Brand also suggested the bent pyramid casing stones were taken in a similar manner, stating that the thieves started at the corners and worked their way up. Of course, we know Peter Brand is wrong because we've already seen photos of the bent pyramid losing its casing stones at the corners to thermal expansion, as well as drawings of Cafre's pyramid with its casing stones intact long after the medieval era. It's no wonder ridiculous pyramid theories propagate when self-proclaimed experts have such a poor grasp of the material evidence. There are at least 10 authors who testify about Coffrey's casing stones after the medieval era and these are the individuals who will help us identify the time the pyramid was violated. The contrast between a perfectly smooth pyramid of coffrey and the exposed stepped core of the great pyramid stood out for many explorers. The casing stone removal occurred before the year 1692 when Benois de Mayet first testifies to the ruined state of the pyramid. He writes, quote, "It was certainly covered only with hard stones. Its summit is still entirely covered with them. The rest was probably torn away, and the last stones were only spared because of the difficulty and danger involved in trying to separate them from such a high and steep place." end quote. Every testimony after May agrees that Coffrey is no longer a smooth pyramid. But leading up to May, earlier testimonies claim the pyramid is still cased, including Vincent Stockov in 1670, who writes of the Giza pyramids, quote, "One of the large ones is entirely smooth, making it utterly impossible to ascend, nor can one even discern the location of the entrance, which is believed to be buried beneath the vast quantities of sand that have accumulated around the structure." End quote. This narrows the destruction to between 1670 and 1692. I was delighted to find a visitor in the middle of this era named Ellis Viard who visited Giza in 1678.

[00:29:09]Viard was a good observer and my excitement grew as he climbed the great pyramid writing in detail about his experience. I was sure that upon reaching the summit he would look out and like so many others before him describe the coffrey pyramid. Sadly, with history on the line, Verard lets us down and simply states, quote, "There is nothing to be seen at present, but the names of such people as have been there cut out on the stone." End quote.

[00:29:40]Although we can't be sure, I'm inclined to say it's more likely the casing stone theft occurred before Veryard in 1678.

[00:29:49]he would have been more likely to comment on the appearance of Coffrey and Menare's pyramids had they still been cased. So while the destruction definitely occurred between 1670 and 1692, a more likely window is between 1670 and 1678, this was a much faster job than stripping the Great Pyramid. And again, I appeal to my audience to help find a probable destination for the stones. The stones could have been shipped anywhere in the Ottoman Empire and taking them all at once seems only necessary for an enormous project. Two modest candidates in Cairo are these Sabil Coutab buildings and conspicuously the mosque Madrasa of Sultan Hassan had a minouret rebuilt in 1671 as well. How many pyramids need be destroyed for a single mosque? A mere 350 years ago, this last major casing stone theft left the Giza Plateau as we see it today. It was a staggering loss, the magnitude of which is yet to be appreciated. But before the stones were taken, there was one brilliant explorer who documented the Cafre Pyramid in a unique way. Prior to the 18th century, most illustrations are simplified or stylized to a degree that many details are lost. However, in about 1664, Jean de Teano sketched the Giza pyramids in a manner that shows the precise amount of damage at the pyramid of Cafre. This sketch has been overlooked because nobody has recognized what it actually shows. Only in studying the bent pyramid's casing stones can one appreciate the detail Jee Teano has preserved. The sketch of Coffrey's pyramid in 1664 shows the exact same pattern of damage caused by thermal expansion in the pyramid's upper section. Thermal expansion pushes stones off the corners and bulges the casing stones in the center. Shown clearly on the pyramid of Coffrey are stones missing in the northwest corner up high and large cracks on the western face in the center. Just like we see a few cracks centered on the eastern face of the bent pyramid. It's a perfect match.

[00:32:09]And it doesn't get better than this for gaining insight into the ancient past.

[00:32:14]What's even more remarkable about this thermal expansion damage at Coffrey is how the fallen stones are localized to the regular masonry band we see now exposed below the upper casing stones.

[00:32:28]It's unknown why the stones are more uniformly laid in this section, but it would have given the ancient Egyptians an enormous clue if they witnessed the damage in that specific area. The casing stones bulge and crack with thermal expansion when they are so tightly fitted that they cannot breathe. But if a casing stone has loose fill behind it, that allows the stone to expand and contract without being forced away from the pyramid. The ancient Egyptians may not have understood why the stones were bulging and cracking, but they would have recognized at Coffrey's pyramid it was only occurring where the backing stones were more solid. This may have been a critical clue that shaped how later pyramids were built. A pyramid with a loose rubble core will be much more resistant to thermal expansion damage than one with a dense and solid interior. It's entirely possible that pyramids were later constructed that way because their casing stones would not suffer damage experienced by the fourth dynasty giants. Everyone has always assumed a rough core was simply a cheaper way to build a pyramid. But what if in fact it was the only method that would guarantee a pyramid could stay pristine forever? Perhaps the smaller size of later pyramids was dictated by the rough core rather than a lack of ability to build so large. Better to have a smaller pyramid that would not lose its casing stones to the ravages of time. We are lucky that just barely enough evidence of the pyramids and their casing stones has survived to put this story together. If action is not taken to save the bent pyramid, it may all be lost in a few hundred years. The casing stones at Maidum continue to be eroded and Manari's fallen granite stones remain uninvestigated.

[00:34:21]There's a lot of work left to do with the casing stones. Some of the greatest discoveries in Egyptology will be made when their true value is finally given its day under the sun. Thanks to everyone who watched this video to the end. Please subscribe to the channel to see more of this content. Give a like or comment as you see fit. And above all, remember to ask your friends if they take their history for granted.