The Story of the Rocks of the Egyptian Pyramids

Did you know that the Egyptian Pyramids were built of granite at the core and had a nice finish of limestone on the top?

This is what the Pyramids would have looked like when they were completed 4000 years ago, Shiny white with perhaps a gold crown, they would have shone bright enough to be visible from far distances in the desert.

The Limestones that were once used to coat the pyramids are actually of a special kind called Nummulites or ‘coin-stones’, these are made of the dead remains of ancient oceanic microbes known as foraminifera. Of the 300 species still alive today, Nummulites gizehensis is particularly abundant in the 56-Million-year-old (Eocene) rocks of Egypt which were used as building stones for the Great Pyramids of Giza. (These forams have been found as early as 65 million years ago in the fossil record)

These forams were deposited in a shallow seaway that covered Egypt during much of the Late Palaeocene. As time passed, their shells piled up and created a thick layer of limestone rock. Further, as the sea retreated and a desert landscape began to replace it.

These Nummulites are also rich in Petroleum resources for the very reason, that the dead decayed parts of forams have accumulated in hydrocarbon traps and the conditions found in the subsurface have allowed the formation of fluids that can be extracted by the oil industry

The oil-rich zones are found in the offshore Bourri field, Libya; the offshore Ashtart and Hasdrubal fields, Tunisia; the Kerkennah, etc.

Over time, the limestone has either weathered away or has been taken away for construction purposes in recent centuries.

Some pyramids may well last into the next Ice Age. By then, humankind should have constructed structures on Earth and other planets which will make the pyramids look like a "piece of cake", but they will remember the people who built the pyramids and carry on their legacy into the future.

Further information can be obtained at the following link: https://youtu.be/ujX9MEnYzU4

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/great-pyramid-giza-egypt-casing-stone/

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/06/the-great-pyramid-of-giza-was-once-covered-in-highly-polished-white-limestone-before-it-was-removed-to-build-mosques-and-fortresses/?chrome=1