Pyramids of Giza
The account
Blocks weighing up to 80 tons and an almost perfect alignment with the cardinal points would have been impossible without outside help.
What investigators found
Excavations uncovered the workers' village, and the Diary of Merer, the oldest papyrus in Egypt, describes blocks being shipped along the Nile. The exact lifting method is still debated.
The story
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built for the pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BC. It stood about 146 meters tall, was made of millions of stone blocks, and its sides were aligned almost perfectly with the cardinal points. It was the tallest structure in the world for some 3,800 years.
That is why so many people doubt it was built by human hands. Theories point to extraterrestrial help or to a lost civilization older than Egypt.
Archaeology found a different story. Next to the pyramids stood a workers' town, with bakeries, living quarters and cemeteries. In 2013, at the port of Wadi al-Jarf, the diary of the inspector Merer turned up, describing how his crew carried limestone blocks by boat along the Nile to Giza during Khufu's reign. What is still debated is how the stones were raised: straight ramps, zigzag ramps or internal ramps.