Pyramids around the world stand on four continents: Egypt built roughly 118 to 138 of them, Sudan's ancient Kingdom of Kush built more than 200, China's emperors lie under huge flat-topped earthen mounds, and the peoples of Mexico and Central America raised stepped temple platforms, including the largest pyramid by volume, at Cholula. Several other famous "pyramids", such as Visočica hill in Bosnia and a peak in Antarctica, are natural landforms that archaeologists and geologists do not accept as built structures.
This matters because the pyramid's appearance in Africa, Asia and the Americas is the starting point for some of the biggest arguments in alternative history. Mainstream archaeology explains the pattern as independent invention driven by engineering. Billy Carson reads it as the fingerprint of an older, shared source. Getting the facts about each site right, including which "pyramids" are not pyramids at all, is the only way to judge either argument fairly.
How many pyramids does Egypt have?
Egypt has somewhere between about 118 and 138 known pyramids, depending on how ruined and subsidiary structures are counted. The tradition begins in the 3rd Dynasty with the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, around 2670 BCE, a stack of six stone mastaba-like tiers traditionally credited to the architect Imhotep. The full story of that site, and of the Serapeum nearby, is in our guide to [Saqqara and the Step Pyramid of Djoser](/saqqara-explained-the-step-pyramid-of-djoser-the-serapeum-and-the-oldest-necropolis).
The move from steps to smooth sides happened under Sneferu, the first king of the 4th Dynasty. His builders worked through the structure at Meidum, then the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, which changes angle partway up, and finally the Red Pyramid, also at Dahshur, which is generally regarded as the first true smooth-sided pyramid.
Sneferu's son Khufu then built the Great Pyramid at Giza, originally about 146.6 metres tall on a base roughly 230.3 metres per side. Khafre and Menkaure added the two other large pyramids on the plateau. For the layout of the site, the Sphinx and the valley temples, see [the Giza Plateau explained](/the-giza-plateau-explained-a-visitors-guide-to-the-pyramids-sphinx-and-what-lies-beneath); for the construction debate itself, see [how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built](/how-was-the-great-pyramid-of-giza-built-evidence-theories-and-open-questions). Readers who want the older overview from the site's archive can also start at [the pyramids of Giza](/pyramids-of-giza).
After Giza, pyramids became smaller. The 5th Dynasty kings built at Abusir and Saqqara, and the Middle Kingdom pharaohs used mudbrick cores faced in stone, many of which have since slumped into mounds. Small pyramids appeared later, but royal pyramid building in Egypt was essentially over by the end of the Middle Kingdom.
Why Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt
Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt: over 200 survive at the royal cemeteries of El-Kurru, Nuri, Jebel Barkal and Meroë. They were built by the Kingdom of Kush, a Nubian state on the Nile south of Egypt, from roughly 750 BCE to around 350 CE.
Kush's kings conquered Egypt and ruled it as the 25th Dynasty, and Kushite royalty revived pyramid burial centuries after Egyptian kings had abandoned it. Piye was buried at El-Kurru, and Taharqa's pyramid at Nuri is the largest in that cemetery.
Nubian pyramids look different from Egyptian ones. They are steep, with sides at around 70 degrees, and relatively small, usually between 6 and 30 metres high. Each typically had an offering chapel built against its east face, and the burial chamber was cut into the bedrock below rather than built inside the pyramid.
Many of the pyramids at Meroë are damaged at the top, and the reason is modern. In 1834 the Italian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini blew the tops off dozens of them looking for gold. He found jewellery belonging to Queen Amanishakheto. Today the sites are protected: Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2003, and the Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe in 2011.
Are there pyramids in China?
China's "pyramids" are imperial burial mounds, not stone pyramids. Near Xi'an, the emperors of the Qin and Western Han dynasties were buried beneath huge flat-topped mounds of rammed earth, and more than 40 Western Han mausolea are known in the region.
The best known is the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BCE. His mound is thought to have originally stood around 115 metres high and today rises about 51 metres after more than two thousand years of erosion. The Terracotta Army was found in pits about 1.5 kilometres east of it. The Maoling, tomb of Emperor Wu of Han, stands about 47 metres high.
The Western legend of a giant "White Pyramid" in China traces back to a story attributed to Fred Meyer Schroder in 1912 and to a pilot's report published in 1947. The structure usually identified as the source of the pilot's account is the Maoling, an earthen mound far smaller than the legend claimed. None of these mounds is a hidden stone pyramid; they are well-documented royal tombs.
Mexico and Central America: temple pyramids and the largest by volume
Mesoamerican pyramids are stepped platforms built mainly to raise temples toward the sky, and the Great Pyramid of Cholula in Puebla, Mexico, is the largest pyramid in the world by volume. Known in Nahuatl as Tlachihualtepetl, "the made-by-hand mountain", it has an estimated volume of about 4.45 million cubic metres on a base of roughly 400 by 400 metres, far more than the Great Pyramid of Giza, although at about 66 metres it is much lower. It was built in several stages from around the 3rd century BCE to the 9th century CE. It now carries a colonial-era church, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios, on its summit.
Teotihuacan, north-east of Mexico City, holds the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon along the Avenue of the Dead. Our [Teotihuacan explainer](/teotihuacan-explained-the-city-of-the-gods-its-pyramids-the-mica-and-the-mysteries) covers the city, its pyramids and the questions about the mica found there.
The Maya built pyramids across the Yucatán and Central America. El Castillo, the Temple of Kukulcán at Chichén Itzá, is the most visited; Temple IV at Tikal in Guatemala rises about 70 metres; and La Danta at El Mirador, also in Guatemala, has been estimated at around 2.8 million cubic metres, which would place it among the largest structures of the ancient world. New surveys keep adding to the map; see our report on [hundreds of Maya sites buried underneath Mexico](/hundreds-of-ancient-maya-sites-lie-buried-underneath-mexico-revealing-a-mysterious-blueprint). Some Maya pyramids did hold burials, most famously the tomb of the ruler Pakal inside the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, but their main role was as temple platforms.
The Aztecs continued the tradition at Tenochtitlan, where the Templo Mayor carried twin shrines to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc.
Ziggurats and European pyramids: similar shapes, different jobs
Mesopotamian ziggurats are often grouped with pyramids, but they were stepped temple platforms, not tombs. The Great Ziggurat of Ur dates to around 2100 BCE, and Etemenanki at Babylon, the temple tower of Marduk, is widely linked to the biblical Tower of Babel story.
Europe has only a handful of pyramid-shaped structures. The Pyramid of Cestius in Rome, about 36 metres tall, was built around 12 BCE as the tomb of the Roman magistrate Gaius Cestius. In Greece, the so-called Hellinikon pyramid is a small, tower-like building of disputed date, placed in the 4th century BCE by most estimates, and not a pyramid in the proper sense.
The disputed claims: Bosnia, Antarctica and other "pyramids"
The best-known disputed pyramid is Visočica hill near Visoko in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which geologists and archaeologists identify as a natural formation. Since 2005 the businessman Semir Osmanagić has promoted it as the "Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun", claiming it is about 220 metres tall and more than 12,000 years old.
Here is the case on each side. Supporters point to the hill's regular, faceted profile, to slab-like blocks exposed on its slopes, and to the "Ravne tunnels" nearby. Critics answer that the facets are flatirons, a common natural landform, and that the blocks are layers of Miocene conglomerate and sandstone that fracture along natural joints. The geologist Robert Schoch visited the site and concluded the features were natural. In 2006 the European Association of Archaeologists issued a statement calling the project a hoax and warning that it threatened genuine heritage in the area. The Ravne tunnels are being excavated by Osmanagić's own foundation, and no artefacts or construction evidence from the site have been accepted by archaeologists.
The Antarctic "pyramid" that circulates online is a nunatak, a rocky peak poking up through the ice sheet, in the Ellsworth Mountains. Its sharp, four-sided look comes from freeze-thaw erosion, which commonly carves mountains into pyramidal peaks. Neither case has the evidence that marks confirmed pyramids: quarries, tool marks, workers' settlements and datable remains.
Why did so many cultures build pyramids?
The mainstream answer is engineering: a pyramid is the most stable way to build something very tall out of unreinforced stone, brick or earth. A heap of material settles at a stable angle, and a structure that is wide at the base and narrow at the top carries its own weight downward without collapsing. Any society that wanted a monument to rise high without steel, concrete or arches was likely to arrive at the same basic shape, so archaeologists expect independent invention.
The pyramids above were built thousands of years and kilometres apart, for different purposes and in different materials: Egyptian royal tombs, Mesoamerican temple bases, Chinese earthen mounds and Mesopotamian temple platforms.
The alternative, diffusionist view holds that the shape spread from a single source, whether a lost "mother culture" such as Atlantis or, in some modern readings, the design of non-human visitors. Mainstream scholars reject diffusion for these sites because no chain of contact, shared writing or shared tools links them, but the idea remains central to alternative-history research.
Billy Carson's reading
Billy Carson argues that the global distribution of pyramids reflects a pyramid-building tradition inherited from an earlier, advanced civilisation rather than a series of unrelated coincidences. In his framework, that earlier civilisation connects to Atlantis and to the Anunnaki, the gods of the Sumerian texts, whom he reads as real beings who shaped early human culture. The recurrence of the same shape across continents and the scale of the largest structures are, in his view, echoes of that common inheritance.
This is his interpretation, not the consensus. The independent-invention case explains the shape through physics and explains the differences between regions through local history and purpose, and readers should weigh both. His position on Atlantis is set out in [Atlantis explained: Plato, locations and Billy Carson's Anunnaki connection](/atlantis-explained-plato-locations-and-billy-carsons-anunnaki-connection), and the wider background is on [the Anunnaki topic hub](/topics/anunnaki). His interest in a shared origin does not extend to endorsing the Bosnian claims, which remain unsupported by the physical evidence.
Watch, read and go deeper
Billy explores ancient sites and the questions around them on 4BK TV in [Ancient Enigmas](/watch/ancient-enigmas). For more on Egypt, from Djoser's Step Pyramid to Giza, start at [the Ancient Egypt topic hub](/topics/ancient-egypt). The Great Pyramid and Teotihuacan articles linked above cover the two sites that come up most often in comparisons.
Frequently asked questions
Which country has the most pyramids?
Sudan has the most, with more than 200 at El-Kurru, Nuri, Jebel Barkal and Meroë, built by the Kingdom of Kush between roughly 750 BCE and 350 CE. Egypt has around 118 to 138, depending on how they are counted.
What is the largest pyramid in the world?
By volume, the largest is the Great Pyramid of Cholula in Puebla, Mexico, at an estimated 4.45 million cubic metres. By height, the Great Pyramid of Giza, originally about 146.6 metres, is the tallest ever built. Cholula is much lower, at about 66 metres, but its base is roughly 400 by 400 metres.
Are the Bosnian pyramids real?
No built pyramid has been demonstrated at Visočica hill near Visoko. Semir Osmanagić has promoted it since 2005 as a 220-metre, 12,000-year-old pyramid, but geologists identify its faces as natural flatirons in Miocene conglomerate and sandstone. The European Association of Archaeologists rejected the claims in 2006, and no artefacts or construction evidence have been accepted by archaeologists.
Does China have a white pyramid?
The "White Pyramid" story traces to a 1912 account attributed to Fred Meyer Schroder and a 1947 pilot's report. The structure usually identified with it is the Maoling, the earthen burial mound of Emperor Wu of Han near Xi'an, which stands about 47 metres high. China's so-called pyramids are all rammed-earth imperial tombs.
Were pyramids around the world built by the same civilisation?
Mainstream archaeology says no: the sites differ in date, purpose, materials and methods, and the pyramid shape is the natural way to build tall with unreinforced masonry. Billy Carson argues for a shared inheritance from an earlier civilisation connected to Atlantis and the Anunnaki. That remains his interpretation rather than an established finding.
Sources and further reading
- Mark Lehner, The Complete Pyramids (Thames & Hudson, 1997)
- Derek A. Welsby, The Kingdom of Kush: The Napatan and Meroitic Empires (British Museum Press, 1996)
- László Török, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization (Brill, 1997)
- Jane Portal (ed.), The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army (British Museum Press, 2007)
- Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston, The Maya (Thames & Hudson)
- Kenneth L. Feder, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology
- Garrett G. Fagan (ed.), Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public (Routledge, 2006)
- UNESCO World Heritage List entries for Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region (2003) and the Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe (2011)
