What were the Egyptian pyramids made of?
“Many of the pyramids were built with a number of different stone materials. Most of the material used was fairly rough, low grade limestone used to build the pyramid core, while fine white limestone was often employed for the outer casing as well as to cover interior walls, though pink granite was also often used on inner walls. Basalt or alabaster was not uncommon for floors, particularly in the mortuary temples and as was mudbricks to build walls within the temples (though often as not they had limestone walls).
The only rock available for large scale construction projects were sandstone and limestone.The Egyptians had no source of, or access to, granite, so there’s no way they could have used granite. So, the main body of the pyramids was built with large blocks of normal limestone and sandstone; the whole was then faced with white limestone blocks.
Herodotus states in his Histories that there was once an Egyptian princess, who demanded of every man she slept with, a large (modern car-sized) brick. That’s how they gathered together the bricks for the pyramid of Giza. I’m not joking, that’s what he wrote! (Somebody must have had something against this princess, or something.
