this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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This is what the pyramids used to look like. They were covered with polished white limestone and had a peak made of pure gold. (lemmy.today)
submitted 4 weeks ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world
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[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

A gold top wouldn’t even be visible from the ground on a large polished white pyramid.

The point of pyramids was of religious nature, it was to be closer to the sky and allow dead pharaohs to go in their version of the after life so it's likely that the gold wasn't to be pretty but for a religious something

Also, i wonder if it was really gold or something else because gold was and is expensive as fuck, maybe a gold alloy

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If it was for religious reasons they would definitely use pure gold

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Just looked on wikipedia and they say

"... and were sometimes covered with plates of copper, gold or electrum." (electrum is an alloy of gold and silver IIRC)
Which makes a lot of sense, gold was and is very expensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

"Plates of" especially makes sense. And you do recall correctly, electrum is a natural alloy, which means they wouldn't have had to create it from scratch.