How much would it cost to build the pyramids today?

Today's cost of the 2,300,000 limestone blocks used to build Pharaoh Khufu's Great Pyramid amounts to $495 per block. Each block is estimated at 2.5 ton and the cost per ton is just under $200, making the total cost for the pyramid itself, $1.14 billion.



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Today's cost of the 2,300,000 limestone blocks used to build Pharaoh Khufu's Great Pyramid amounts to $495 per block. Each block is estimated at 2.5 ton and the cost per ton is just under $200, making the total cost for the pyramid itself, $1.14 billion.

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Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt As per the records, the structure was made of around 2.3 million blocks of limestone, and going by this record, experts opine that it would cost a whopping $1.2 billion to build this structure today.

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Many people have said that the pyramids would last 1 million years or even until the world ended, but I'd say around 10,000 to 100,000 years based on current observations.

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Legend has it that the structure was erected in just 20 years' time, meaning that a block had to have been moved into place about every 5 minutes of each day and night. That pace would have required the (slave) labor of thousands.

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NOVA: The Greek historian Herodotus claimed in 500 B.C. that 100,000 people built the pyramids, and yet modern Egyptologists believe the figure to be more like 20,000 to 30,000.

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Archaeologists now tell us that the workers who built the pyramids were recruited from poor communities in Egypt, and worked in three-month shifts. There were 10,000 of them (considerably fewer than the 100,000 reported by Herodotus) and they ate relatively well.

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The Great Pyramid of Giza contains 2.3 million individual blocks of stone, meaning one block would have to be laid every five minutes of every hour, 24 hours a day, for the entire 20 years.

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But in reality, most archaeologists and historians today think that paid laborers, not enslaved people, built the Pyramids of Giza. A few archeological findings support this theory. Deceased builders were buried in a place of honor: tombs close to the pyramids themselves, furnished with supplies for the afterlife.

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Pyramids were built for religious purposes. The Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to believe in an afterlife. They believed that a second self called the ka lived within every human being. When the physical body expired, the ka enjoyed eternal life.

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The construction of the pyramids is not specifically mentioned in the Bible. What we believe about their purpose does not impinge on any biblical doctrine.

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In 2014 a small raptor skeleton was uncovered in a small section deep within The Great Pyramid of Giza. The skeleton is presumed to have been unearthed in the building process by the ancient Egyptians and placed into the pyramid due to it being an interesting find (4). All in all the Pyramids were built by people.

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Peasants and enslaved people would, of course, eat a limited diet, including the staples of bread and beer, complemented by dates, vegetables, and pickled and salted fish, but the wealthy had a much larger range to choose from.

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Archaeologists believe that the Great Sphinx was built during Egypt's Old Kingdom (circa 2575–2150 B.C.) by the fourth-dynasty pharaoh Khafre. It is one of the world's oldest works of monumental sculpture and one of the largest.

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At the time the Giza pyramid complex was built—between 2670 and 2500 BCE—the channel was about 40% as high as during the African Humid Period, a peak wet period more than 1,000 years prior. This earlier period saw relatively soggy conditions throughout northern Africa and a mostly green Sahara desert.

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Inside the pyramid, Egyptians included treasured items such as gold, jewelry and pottery, and statues of the Pharaoh, which they believed he would take with him on his journey to the afterlife. Let's take a closer look at some of the most celebrated Egyptian pyramids and the almighty leaders who were buried inside.

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