History Memes

Which is all of them; the Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest pyramid ever built by man, and I'm pretty sure it was the single heaviest structure built by humans until certain hydroelectric dams built in the 20th century.

The second largest pyramid is only a couple hundred feet away, Khafre's pyramid. Khafre's pyramid is the middle of the three Giza pyramids, it's the one that has some of its casing stones left on the top. It is somewhat smaller, the base isn't as wide and it's at a slightly shallower angle, so it isn't as high. To partially compensate for this, it was built uphill from Khufu's pyramid to hide the size difference somewhat, and since antiquity several courses of stones have been removed from the peak of Khufu's pyramid, slightly shortening it, but Khufu's pyramid still stands higher above sea level than Khafre's pyramid.

The third Giza pyramid, Menkaure's pyramid, is much smaller, though about a third of its height was cased in granite rather than limestone. Something incredibly stupid happened to Menkaure's sarcophagus. You've probably seen a picture of what's left of Khufu's sarcophagus, a plain, partially ruined granite box with the lid entirely missing. Khafre's sarcophagus is intact, almost mysteriously so, it was set into the floor and the lid had a locking mechanism that apparently wasn't defeated, yet the lid stands open. Menkaure's pyramid used to contain a beautifully carved basalt sarcophagus, but in the 1800s the British decided to take it back to England, and then the ship wrecked and it was lost to sea.