All language subtitles for The UnXplained s08e16 Secrets of the Pyramids

An ancient desert covered in hundreds of
pyramids.

A massive earthen hill hiding a sacred
and deadly spring.

And a controversial discovery hidden
deep beneath the Alaskan wilderness.

For thousands of years, civilizations
around the world built monumental

structures made of stone and brick that
we call pyramids. In Africa, Asia,

Europe, and the Americas, ancient
engineers created surprisingly similar

constructions while having no knowledge
of what other cultures were crafting.

How is this possible?

Were pyramids meant to be tombs or
temples?

Or was there a greater purpose to some
of these incredible works?

Well, that is what we'll try and find
out.

Cairo, Egypt.

Towering over the limestone desert sands
of the Giza Plateau stands the oldest of

the seven wonders of the ancient world.

It is called the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Built in 2600 BC, the monolith

is flanked by two smaller but equally
colossal pyramid structures.

The Giza complex is a monumental
achievement in ancient engineering and a

marvel that has confounded scientists
and researchers for centuries.

The Great Pyramid on the Giza Plateau is
an astonishing construction.

There's 2.3 million blocks of limestone
in the structure itself.

I mean, it takes an hour to walk around
it, at least.

But it's also the fact that you have
these giant platforms, megalithic

blocks, perfectly created.

Inevitably, people want to ask how on
earth a civilization thousands of years

ago could have achieved this.

The right angles of the corner are
almost absolutely bang-on 90-degree

angles. The length of the sides are
almost perfectly equal on all four of

them.

They are closer to perfect than would be
required for modern buildings. It is

an unparalleled achievement.

It's possible we'll never completely
understand how the great pyramids were

constructed with such remarkable
precision.

But perhaps an even greater mystery is
why were they built in the first place?

The Great Pyramids of Giza are one of
the great untold mysteries.

We're not quite sure how they were used,
but what we see today in the Pyramids of

Giza are sort of the bones of these
buildings in Egyptian antiquity.

Pyramids of Giza were encased in white
limestone and presumably

polished.

And so during the daytime, you would
have seen these sort of white mirror

-like surfaces.

What we're missing is a limestone
covering and a golden top piece.

But the pyramids themselves don't have
any particular explanation of why they

were built or the symbolic purposes of
it. So part of the mystery is trying to

figure out what is this thing.

Ultimately...

There are more questions than answers
when it comes to the pyramids on the

Giza Plateau.

Some of them were used as tombs, but in
my own opinion, that was a secondary

function for many of them.

If the Great Pyramids weren't strictly
used as tombs, as most mainstream

Egyptologists maintain, then what was
their fundamental purpose?

The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt.

This massive building houses the largest
collection of ancient Egyptian

antiquities in the world.

Among the many treasures is a
3,800-year-old capstone from the pyramid

of King Amenemhat III that some believe
is connected to a mythical

Egyptian object known as the Benben
Stone.

In the Cairo Museum, there is a
pyramidion, which is made of a beautiful

black basaltic type of rock from a
pyramid that seems to be

our best representation of what the Ben
Ben Stone was like, according to the

ancient Egyptians. That Ben Ben Stone
goes back to maybe 1850 or so BC, so

it's not the original one, but it
represents...

what the original one was in ancient
dynastic egypt there was a literal

ben ben stone that ben ben stone has
long been lost unfortunately but some

people have suggested maybe it was a
meteorite that was pyramidally shaped

and by the ancient egyptians it has
sacred power

While some believe the original Benben
stone was a meteorite, legends from

ancient Egypt suggest it was a place of
divine creation.

Egyptian mythology says that there were
once just waters of chaos.

And then what broke through the waters
of chaos was an island in the shape of a

pyramid called the Benben.

And it was here.

that the sun god Ra came to Earth and
began life.

When they built the first pyramids, it
seems that they were trying to recreate

this Benben stone.

Interestingly, on top of many of the
early pyramids, they actually had a

recreation of the Benben stone on top of
them, a capstone, which was covered in

electrum, which is a...

alloy of gold and silver, so that it
shone in the sunlight.

All this showing that the pyramids are
connected with the sun, and gaining the

power of the sun, or the sun god, Ra.

There's also these ideas that these
Benben stars were actually some kind of

power collector.

Some people suggest they attract
lightning.

There's different ideas about this, but
it has been suggested in Egyptian

tradition that placing such a thing on
top of a pyramid would almost be like

connecting with the solar energy, but
also connecting with the cosmos.

Could the Great Pyramids have been some
type of ancient power plant?

Perhaps clues can be found in the 21st
century research that presents an

extraordinary plan.

March 2025.

After analyzing satellite data, a team
of Italian scientists make an

extraordinary, yet controversial
announcement.

They claim to have identified a vast
underground complex extending

beneath the Great Pyramids of Giza.

One of the most fascinating...

discoveries that could potentially
rewrite the history of egypt and the

world are the discoveries that have been
made beneath the pyramids on the giza

platter now this is the work of the
kafre research project using satellites

to actually penetrate into the ground
with a mix of other technologies what

they claim to have found is a series of
shafts going over 600 meters down into

the ground Then there's these giant
square chambers and many other chambers

and many other systems across the entire
Giza plateau, underneath all the

pyramids and even underneath the Sphinx
as well.

They're now claiming that there's a
whole veritable underground city beneath

Giza. But then the question becomes, why
did they do this?

And we can't obviously tell exactly
what's down there until we fully

investigate.

But it would seem that this influenced
the positioning of the pyramids actually

on the surface.

Could there be an entire city hiding
beneath the great pyramids of Giza?

Only time will tell.

And while Egypt's colossal creations are
awe-inspiring, these remarkable

structures represent a mere fraction of
all the enigmatic pyramids found.

on nearly every continent on Earth.

Pyramids have captured our imagination
just because of their sheer

monumentality. The biggest of them are
among the biggest buildings human beings

have ever built.

They are monumental, serious
achievements.

Very, very beautiful. That, to me, is
absolutely awe-inspiring.

Pyramids were built by different
cultures.

at different times with the earliest
pyramids probably going back to the

beginning of the third millennium BC.

But I suppose the bigger question is why
build pyramids?

Was there some reason different cultures
have done this all over the world for

many thousands of years?

We need to know. Why?

Among the ever-shifting fans of the Nile
Valley stands a remarkable achievement.

Hundreds of ancient pyramids that
stretch about 150 miles across the

desert.

These UNESCO World Heritage Sites
contain what are known as the Nubian

Pyramids.

What often surprises people is that
there are more pyramids in Sudan than

there are in Egypt.

more than 200 known structures.

Most of them are clustered around El
Kourou, Nouri, and Meroe. A few are

found at Jebel Barkal, near the sacred
mountain.

These pyramids functioned as tombs for
the dead, but also a statement

of authority and continuity in ancient
Sudan.

Often there was an offering chapel
placed At the front of these pyramids,

they had a distinct Nubian character to
them.

What's really interesting about them is
the fact that they're like solid stone

constructions. They don't have any
chambers within them, but they have

chambers deep underneath them where the
kings and queens are said to have been

buried with staircases around the side
of them leading down into them.

Construction on the Nubian pyramids
began around 750 B.C. and continued for

about 1,100 years.

These steep structures range from 20 to
100 feet tall and are made from a

combination of sandstone, rubble, and
mud bricks.

And the mysterious lost civilization
that made them is known as the Kingdom

of Kush.

Kush was a kingdom to the south of
Egypt. They seem to have been very much

influenced by the Egyptians.

It flourished from around the 8th
century BC down to the 3rd or 4th

century AD.

In that very early time, 8th century
into the 7th century, Kush became

powerful enough to invade Egypt and take
it over.

A Kushite king took control of Egypt and
made himself recognized as the

pharaoh. He was able to maintain control
of Egypt, and in fact his successors

were as well.

And this line of Nubian kings came to
rule Egypt as the Egyptian 25th dynasty,

and they remained in control for the
best part of a century.

But we don't understand in all the
details exactly how this happened.

As powerful as the kingdom of Kush once
was, Much of their story remains

unknown, because scholars have yet to
decipher their puzzling system of

writing, known as Meroitic.

But some believe the key to
understanding this mysterious kingdom

could still be hiding beneath one of its
pyramids.

Nuri, Sudan, 2018.

A team of scientists begin an
unprecedented investigation of the

ancient necropolis that consists of
around 20 Nubian pyramids, including the

pyramid of King Nastassin, the last
Kushite king to be buried here in 315

BC.

King Nastassin reigned during a very
interesting time of political

transition. The fact that he was the
last to be buried at Nuri And then the

Kushite capital was moved deeper in the
desert. That makes his tomb an

interesting capsule of maybe what was
happening during this time.

The Nuri Archaeological Expedition began
work in 2018 to start excavations

at this massive 170-acre site.

We had a possibility that there was an
intact tomb for Nastassin.

And so I was brought on to work with the
skeletal remains that may be found on

site.

Over the centuries, rising groundwater
has left the three burial chambers of

King Nastassin's pyramid completely
flooded.

To access the tomb, an experienced dive
team was needed to explore the pristine

and unpredictable environment.

The tomb of Nastassin has remained
untouched from looters.

Due to it being flooded, the water has
acted like a protector for the tomb.

No one's going to be able to swim and
hold their breath and swim all the way

into Chamber 3 and retrieve these
objects.

So it's kept them safe over the last
2,500 years.

What wonders could the flooded pyramid
of King Nastassin still hide below?

In 2019, Justin Schneider became one of
the first people in thousands of years

to enter its unknown depth.

The water in the front of the tomb is a
brownish sand color from all of the

outside sediment and all the rock
falling into it.

You come in through chamber one, which
is a long hallway. Water goes all the

way to the top.

Once you go into chamber two, you can
actually put your face out of the water.

You can see inside this tomb.

It was a little scary to see how much of
the ceiling had collapsed.

That chamber was pretty chaotic, but you
could still make out the size and shape

of that chamber. And we were finding
shabtis, these small figures that have

hieroglyphics on them.

These little shakti figurines, they're
these tiny doll-like carved statues.

They are five to six inches.

They're made of clay. They're beautiful.
They're ornate. Just touching the stuff,

to touch history is incredible.

While the team discovered a number of
small artifacts, the real prize was

believed to be inside the pyramid's
third and final chamber.

Within the third burial chamber, while
it was difficult to see, there was a

large rectangular slab that was about in
the middle of the chamber that we

would estimate to be either a
sarcophagus or a burial bed.

They're swimming through this water,
this murkiness, and then finally getting

to chamber three, the burial chamber.

It was breathtaking to see what you know
is a king's burial.

There is a pharaoh, there is a king
buried inside of this.

It's a time capsule that's just waiting
to be opened.

We just can't blatantly go in there and
start digging. We have to figure out how

to take that out in order to be
preserved.

Unfortunately, before the team could
enact a plan to safely open King

Nastassian's sarcophagus, civil war.

broke out in Sudan, and all excavations
have since been halted.

It is my hope that the political
situation can be resolved.

The Nubian pyramids are tantalizing
clues to understand a path in the Nile

Valley that has typically been
overlooked when studying the ancient

world. There is so much more to be
discovered.

It's fascinating to imagine the kingdom
of Kush covered in more than 200

pyramids.

But halfway across the globe, there is a
massive structure that stands alone.

It's the largest pyramid in the world.

And for centuries, it was hidden in
plain sight.

Cholula, Mexico.

In the shadow of an active volcano
stands a massive grass-covered hill

crowned by an impressive 16th century
Spanish church.

And buried below hides something few
would expect, the Great Pyramid of

Cholula.

This is an interesting one. The Pyramid
of Cholula, its name in Nahuatl means

man-made mountain.

So there's already an acknowledgment
that this thing is big, and this thing

is really big.

It is, in fact, contrary to many
people's expectations, the largest

pyramid in the world. It's not the
tallest.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is, in fact,
taller, but by volume. The Pyramid of

Tallulah is the largest pyramid that
humans have ever constructed.

Scientific archaeology really began in
the late 1920s with the

Proyecto Cholula, a project that was
directed by Ignacio Marquina. And

Marquina explored the pyramid through
eight kilometers of tunnels that the

archaeologists dug. These tunnels
uncovered murals, and archaeologists

discovered that there were actually
multiple construction phases.

So the pyramid is sort of a layer cake
with platform that come out from the

sides, all largely unexcavated.

Today, walking through the tunnel, you
absolutely get a sense of the weight of

the pyramid above you because it is
massive.

The pyramid sorted out as a smaller
pyramid.

Later on, that got covered over by just
sort of putting a new one on top of it.

And then that got covered over there,
like eight or nine layers to this. And

over time, it got bigger and bigger and
bigger.

And then when the Aztecs took over, they
had no idea how it got this big. And it

was just as much a mystery to the Aztecs
as it was to us.

Well, it's believed the pyramid was
first constructed about 200 B.C.

and later built upon by Mesoamerican
cultures like the Olmecs and the

Toltecs, local legends.

Describe the original builders as
monumental in stature.

One of the most fascinating traditions
relating to the Pyramid of Cholula is

that of the Quinomethian giant.

This was this very ancient era going
back potentially thousands of years.

These giants, who were said to be up to
12 feet tall, constructed the Cholula

Pyramid because it's so vast, so big.

No one could imagine how any humans
could have constructed it themselves.

While it's intriguing to think that
giants built the first iteration of the

Great Pyramid of Cholula, the legend
itself suggests that even centuries ago,

the structure was only hard to explain,
but also a place of profound ancient

reverence.

This has been a temple at every stage,
so I think one of the things we see

here... It's a recognition of the
holiness or the sanctity of this place.

That a temple followed by another temple
followed by another temple being topped

with a church.

In Cholula we see this unintentional
collaborative process that builds upon

the sanctity of this unbelievably holy
place.

Cholula's importance to many
Mesoamerican cultures.

has led to another fundamental mystery.

Why was the largest pyramid ever
constructed hidden under piles of dirt?

Some people suggest that it wasn't
necessarily just abandoned.

But the Aztecs and the indigenous
people, knowing that the Spanish were

coming to conquer them, they wanted to
cover it up. So there's some suggestions

that they may have tried to plant plants
on it, hide it, disguise it. By the time

the Spanish came, apparently they
thought it was a natural hill. They did

not recognize it as a pyramid.

Was the Great Pyramid of Choluda
deliberately disguised to hide it?

from Spanish invaders?

And if so, what were its guardians
compelled to protect?

According to legend, right at the base
of the Cholula Great Pyramid, there was

a natural spring, and it is seen as the
waters of life emerging from the

place of first creation.

It was said that Cholula was built.

Shortly after the time of a great flood,
a deluge that had ended a previous world

age.

So, did this really happen? Is this a
memory of some of the first people to

create the earliest stages of this
pyramid?

Very possibly.

Could the Great Pyramid of Cholula be
built atop a powerful sacred spring?

It's a belief that was still in
existence in 1519.

when Spanish invaders led by Hernan
Cortes first reached the ancient city

of Cholula.

One of the myths from the time of the
conquest was that the indigenous allies

that were accompanying Cortes on the
attack on Cholula were afraid of

entering the city because they believed
that anybody attacking Cholula would be

washed away, when the pyramid burst
forth with earthly waters.

But we don't know. Chalk it up to a
mystery.

We don't know who built it. We don't
know the details of their mythology or

their cosmology. But we see this
recognition of sacredness in this

location.

It's significant that what was built
here at every stage was a temple.

It's common knowledge that the Cholula
Pyramid was built to be a sacred

religious site and it successfully
served that purpose for over a thousand

years.

But the same cannot be said for a
collection of rectangular pyramid-shaped

structures found in the remote Canary
Islands, whose very existence has

baffled scientists for decades.

Tenerife, the Canary Islands.

More than 200 miles off the northwest
coast of Africa, this remote island

rises from the Atlantic Ocean.

And here stand six enigmatic structures
made of stacked volcanic stone

known as the Steppe Pyramids of Guimar.

These are pyramids that there's a lot of
controversy about.

People have suggested that these are
very ancient pyramids, a very ancient

site.

So there's been a lot of mythology and
speculation about them.

Modern legends have developed about
these pyramids.

But these pyramids may only go back to
the 19th century. They may be nothing

more than the result of people clearing
their fields and stacking them up and

making pyramids out of them.

So just how old are these mysterious
structures?

Well, some believe the most compelling
clue could be their connection to the

summer solstice, the longest day of the
year.

These pyramids are perfectly aligned
towards sunset at the time of

the summer solstice.

And this was actually confirmed by
archaeoastronomers under the leadership

of Juan Belmonte.

who actually lived on the Canary
Islands.

So this is a very special phenomena, and
it could be behind why these

pyramids were constructed in the first
place.

Were the Guimar pyramids built to mark
the summer solstice?

If so, the theory that they were simply
stacked by 19th century farmers after

clearing their fields seems too simple
an explanation.

And more intriguingly, Some claim the
pyramids on Tenerife share striking

similarities to other pyramids around
the world.

There are other alignments to stars,
exactly as we find in the Egyptian

pyramids, and we also find in the
pyramids of Central America.

The native people who lived on Tenerife
before the Spanish arrived in the 1500s

had seemingly been living in isolation
for thousands of years.

How could they possibly be building the
same kind of things as people either

side of the Atlantic, unless there was
some connection between them?

Are the pyramids of Guimar connected to
other pyramids around the world?

Well, according to one world-famous
explorer, the link could be more

significant than we've imagined.

Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian explorer
who was most famous for his Contiki

voyage, which aimed to show that people
could use quite simple rafts to conduct

long-distance sea travel.

Heyerdahl travelled to Tenerife in the
1990s and was particularly intrigued by

the idea that ancient navigators would
have had a very good understanding of

the stars to help them navigate.

and that as they travel, ideas would be
spread around geographically.

So mapping that theory onto the pyramids
of Weimar, Heyerdahl thought, well, if

there are pyramids here in the Canary
Islands, which is between Europe,

Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean, why
can't there have been this sort of cross

-pollination of ideas around the world?

share their knowledge throughout the
ancient world, across vast oceans?

It's a fascinating theory that may
suggest that the pyramids of Guamar

really were constructed in antiquity by
the original inhabitants of the Canary

Islands, a now extinct culture known as
the Guanche.

The Guanche are indigenous people to the
Canary Islands.

They're very mysterious on many levels.

Modern scholarship suggests that they
actually are an offshoot from North

Africa that got to the islands in the
first millennium BCE, living there

until the Spanish ultimately conquered
the Canary Islands in the 15th century.

The Guanche had...

A lot of what appears to have been
advanced knowledge in terms of

mummification and the rituals they
carried out.

They lived in caves and stone huts. But
there's this whole modern, should we

say, hypotheses and legends and
suggestions that somehow they were

descendants of Atlantis, a legendary
civilization that was decimated

by natural events.

Bottom line is the Guanche are a real
mystery.

There is something that needs more
study.

Absolutely fascinating.

Could the early inhabitants of the
Canary Islands have some connection to

the mythical island of Atlantis?

It's fantastic to consider. But more
importantly, were the Guanche people

once part of a network responsible for
the proliferation of pyramids around the

world?

The builders of these pyramids on
Tenerife were pretty sophisticated.

They were building these quite elaborate
blackstone constructions. They were

aligning them to specific movements of
the sun and the stars as well.

It does appear that there was a common
architectural language being spread

across the world in ancient times.

We find very similar pyramid styles in
all these different places, often step

pyramids. It was almost like an ancient
code being embedded within these

permanent structures in all these
different parts of the world.

So this gets into the argument of, was
there knowledge being passed around? We

don't know. There's just a lot of
mysteries about pyramids when it comes

right down to it.

Could the astrological alignments found
at the Canary Island structures

be evidence of a universal pyramid code
spread around the world?

Perhaps time will tell.

Which may also be the case for a
controversial claim that a powerful

pyramid lies hundreds of feet below the
Alaskan tundra.

Alaska.

With over 57 million acres of designated
wilderness, which is more than all other

U.S. states combined,

And with civilization found in less than
1% of its total landmass, there have

been many claims as to what's hiding in
this remote frontier.

But perhaps one of the strangest tales
revolves around an alleged dark pyramid,

obscured beneath Alaska's frozen
wasteland.

The Dark Pyramid is a presumed pyramid
that is hidden under the

ice and tundra of remote areas of
Alaska.

This pyramid is near Mount Denali in the
heart of what's known as the Alaska

Triangle. The Alaska Triangle is a very
anomalous area which stretches from

Juneau in the south to Anchorage in the
middle and Yukiovic at the top, formerly

Barrow. And it's much like its namesake,
the Bermuda Triangle, in which there's a

lot of strange activity that happens in
this area with the dark pyramid right at

the heart of it.

If a pyramid is hiding beneath the ice
in one of the most remote regions of

Alaska, how would we even know about it
in the first place?

Well, according to the story, it was
detected in 1992.

when China was testing weapons of mass
destruction beneath a dry lake bed known

as Lop Nur.

In 1992, the Chinese government
initiated underground nuclear testing.

The United States knew about this. Our
geologists set up a bunch of seismic

equipment.

to be able to detect the shock waves
from this explosion.

And when that explosion occurred and the
seismic equipment was going off, they

discovered this strange pyramidal shape
near Mount Denali in Alaska.

To this day, no public record has
confirmed the discovery of a buried

pyramid beneath Alaska.

But some are convinced that the lack of
evidence...

is purely intentional.

Because it's said that when news of the
Dark Pyramid was released, it was

immediately covered up.

It was broadcast on the local news,
Anchorage Channel 13, that this had been

discovered. And there was a young
service member, Doug Butchler, in the

Army who saw this particular broadcast.

And he was so fascinated by this.

Doug Mutchler worked in
counterintelligence for the Army in Fort

Richardson in Anchorage.

That particular night, there were 40
guys, and they're watching Channel 13,

and it shows a pyramid structure
underneath the ground in Alaska.

So he approaches the general manager at
Channel 13. The general manager said, I

don't know what you're talking about.

And Doug said he started arguing with
the general manager. I was with 39 other

guys, 40 of us. We watched this. And the
general manager said, well, you are

mistaken.

Doug turns around to leave, and coming
around a corner is a man who took hold

of his arm and says, I know what you're
talking about.

Yes, we have that film, but we have been
told that we are not.

to broadcast it or talk about it
anymore.

Was the story of the dark pyramid
deliberately buried?

And if so, why?

For some, the answer is simple. The dark
pyramid isn't really a structure at all,

but a 550-foot-tall, top-secret machine.

There are a few different theories about
the dark pyramid.

One is that it was some sort of ancient
power plant that has been hidden under

the surface of Alaska.

When we look at the Great Pyramid of
Giza, one of the suggested ideas of what

it was was a possible ancient power
plant.

Now, the Dark Pyramid is supposed to be
taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza,

so how much more energy than the Great
Pyramid of Giza?

Could this dark pyramid be harnessing?

Why would a 550-foot solid black pyramid
be underground?

What is it doing in the backcountry of
Alaska, and how long has it been there?

I think there's no question the
government of the United States didn't

want anybody to know anything about this
dark pyramid. Did they know about the

pyramid before the 1992 Lop Nor bomb
test?

Oh, I think so.

Mars, 1972.

As NASA's Mariner 9 spacecraft
photographs the red planet,

It captures something unusual in a
region called Elysium.

Formations that appear at least from
orbit to resemble pyramids.

One of the images that they took in the
Elysium area of Mars actually showed

what appeared to be three-sided
pyramids.

They were noticed by a scientist by the
name of Mac Gibson.

He actually had a science paper
published in Icarus Journal.

titled Pyramidal Structures on Mars.

So early on, there was a lot of
scientific investigation.

Real scientists were looking at Mars,
saying, oh, possibly there's structures

here, structures that look artificial.

Could there actually be artificial
pyramids on Mars?

Well, it sounds far-fetched. In 1976,
NASA's Viking 1 orbiter photographed yet

another strange formation that
researchers named...

The D&M Pyramid.

The D&M Pyramid looks like a five-sided
pyramid, which is unusual unto itself.

Other pyramids in Martian photographs
look like they have three sides. But

people made claims these must be
artificial structures that came from

some, you know, civilization on Mars.

And I'm not opposed to the possibility
of there being...

extraterrestrial sophisticated
civilizations, but we have to be very

careful when we think we see artificial
pyramids.

Nature also forms pyramids and
pyramidal-type structures. You can

have symmetry in nature. As a geologist,
I see symmetry all the time. What are

some of the most symmetrical things?

A pyramid.

Without visiting the red planet
ourselves for a closer look, it's

impossible to know whether the alleged
pyramids on Mars are just natural

formations or artificial constructions.

But with so many mysterious pyramids
that continue to fascinate us right here

on Earth, perhaps it's simply part of
human nature to become enamored with

these iconic, awe-inspiring structures.

Humans have always wanted to build the
biggest thing that lasts for the

longest. So if you're an ancient
culture, this is a pyramid because you

have the stable structure, which allows
you to build quite high.

I therefore think that the fact you have
pyramids in Mesoamerica, in the Canary

Islands, and in Egypt, is just a
reflection of how different cultures

come up with similar solutions to
similar problems.

How do we build high? How do we build
big? A pyramid is your answer.

Each of these things that we call
pyramids has a code.

Whether we understand that code or not,
that's part of what scholarship is

trying to sort of figure out.

How were these places used? And that's
the stuff that scholarship is made of.

But whether we know the code or not,
that's another question.

Could pyramids really exist on other
planets?

Who knows?

For now, it's the remarkable structures
we have here on Earth that continue to

captivate us and challenge our
understanding of human history.

The Giza Plateau may be the best-known
pyramid complex, but it's only one

example of this extraordinary
engineering.

found all around the world. Will we ever
know how and why some pyramids were

built? The secrets surrounding these
mysterious structures are innumerable

and may forever remain unexplained.