Even with the tools the ancient Egyptians supposedly had, plus today's knowledge, we could not build the pyramids.

The finding

What the evidence shows

Experts who have studied how the pyramids were built say we could build the Great Pyramid today. It would just cost a lot. French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin told Live Science he was 'quite sure we could do the same today.' He estimated about five years, 1,500 to 2,000 workers and roughly $5 billion using ramps, engines and a small crane. In a 1992 NOVA experiment, an Egyptologist and a stonemason also built a small pyramid at Giza mostly with ancient methods: sledges, ramps and hand tools, though they used some modern shortcuts. That project was only a tiny fraction of the Great Pyramid's size. Nobody has built a full-size copy, but the claim that it cannot be done goes against what engineers and archaeologists say. This verdict would be wrong if a serious engineering study found that some part of the Great Pyramid, such as the block sizes or the precision, cannot be matched with modern equipment.