The Pyramids of Giza in the Past: They Were Never Discovered

Who discovered the Pyramids of Giza? This question has an unusual answer: no one, because they were never lost.

There is no point in the last four and a half millennia when it was not known that these structures stood there. They are over 146 meters high and sit on a rocky ridge at the edge of a densely populated valley. Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, and Europeans have seen them, described them, measured them, looted them, and marveled at them, without interruption.

This fundamentally distinguishes Giza from sites usually associated with archaeological discovery. Troy had to be found; Pompeii lay under ash; Tutankhamun’s tomb was forgotten. Here, nothing was ever forgotten, only buried, looted, and overgrown.

Thus, what exists is not a story of discovery, but a history of research. And this is more interesting because it shows how the treatment of a monument has changed over two hundred years: from explosives to endoscopes.

A caveat is necessary. Individual parts of the site were indeed lost and had to be found: the workers’ village, whose existence was long only suspected; the necropolis of its inhabitants, stumbled upon by a horse in 1990; the cult pyramid at the southeast corner, which lay beneath a road; and the shaft with its gilded fittings, which no one expected in 1925. So discoveries do exist, but they never concern the three structures being sought.

This page tells this story of change and shows what the site looked like before it took on its current appearance.

What the Site Looked Like Before Excavation

The Pyramids of Giza before excavation looked different from how most people imagine, and the difference is greater than for almost any other monument.

The most striking aspect concerns the sand. The desert is constantly active, and what is not kept clear disappears. For most of its history, the Sphinx was buried up to its shoulders in sand; only the head and neck were visible. The surrounding burial fields were buried under dunes. The causeway of the middle pyramid was not recognizable as a path, but as an edge of the terrain.

The pyramids themselves also stood differently. Massive heaps of rubble from collapsed core masonry and from the waste of stone robbers who had removed the casing stones lay along their flanks. These heaps reached several meters high in places and completely obscured the lowest courses. Anyone drawing a pyramid in the 18th century drew a cone with a foot of gravel, not the sharp-edged structure seen in today’s photos.

Then there was the usage. For centuries, the site served as a quarry for Cairo, as grazing land, and as a residential area. People lived in the burial shafts, and animals stood in the chambers.

This condition is well documented because it lasted so long. Travelers of the 17th and 18th centuries described climbing over rubble to reach the entrance. Drawings show the Sphinx as a head without a body. Early photographs from the mid-19th century capture the same condition, only more accurately. Thus, for the site, there exists something missing for most monuments: a dense series of images spanning two hundred years, allowing every change to be traced.

What you see today is therefore not a preserved original state, but a constructed one: cleared, supported, fenced, and made accessible.

The Turning Point Around 1880

The turning point lies around 1880, and it has a name and a method.

Until then, excavation was essentially searching. One wanted to find chambers, and if no path led inside, one created one. In the 1830s, black powder was used, both at the smallest pyramid and at the Sphinx, where a hole was drilled into its back. By today’s standards, this is destruction. By the standards of the time, it was common, and remarkably, careful measurement and drawing occurred in parallel.

Then came a young Brit with a theodolite and the conviction that measuring is more important than finding. His survey from 1880 to 1882 presented reliable figures with error margins for the first time, thereby refuting a number of circulating theories. The principle that an excavation documents its results rather than just collecting objects gained traction from here.

It was consistently implemented from 1902. For over thirty-five years, the longest excavation series the site has ever seen ran, with photography, diaries, find lists, and plans for each individual grave. This material is the reason why so much is known about Giza: it was not only dug up, it was written down. The archive of these campaigns is now digitized and freely accessible.

Notable about this series is the volume of material. Not only finds were documented, but also find contexts, layer sequences, empty spaces, and daily work itself. Where older excavations gave an object to the museum with the note “from Giza,” here it is traceable for every piece which shaft and which structure it comes from. This difference determines whether an object is a source or merely a pretty piece.

In parallel, Austrian and Egyptian teams worked. The clearance of large parts of the burial fields and the pit around the Sphinx between 1929 and 1939 was under Egyptian leadership, which was remarkable for the time and often overlooked in European accounts.

Today, Excavation Happens Elsewhere

What is being excavated today has only indirect connection to royal tombs, and this is the second major shift.

Since the 1980s, the focus has been southeast of the plateau, below the terrain edge, where the people who worked on the construction lived. The excavations at this settlement have revealed bakeries, storage facilities, cattle pens, housing, and administrative buildings, along with thousands of seal impressions.

The difference from older archaeology is fundamental. One no longer searches for the most impressive object, but for the order of everyday life: What was eaten, how was work organized, how did supply chains function? The finds are accordingly unassuming—animal bones, ash layers, pottery shards—and they answer questions that gold cannot answer.

In parallel, technology has changed. The spectacular findings of recent years came without a single shovel strike: cavities detected by counting particles from space, confirmed by ground radar and ultrasound, viewed through a six-millimeter-thin endoscope inserted into an existing joint.

This restraint is paid for with speed. A cavity that could be clarified with drilling in a week takes years with non-destructive methods and ultimately yields an outline instead of a view. This is a conscious trade-off: the gain in knowledge is slowed down so that the object is preserved for later procedures that do not yet exist. Experience from the 19th century speaks in favor of this trade-off.

Thus, the circle is closed. At the beginning stood black powder to get into a structure. At the provisional end stands a procedure that looks inside without touching it.

What Is Visible on the Site

For visitors, this history has a practical side that changes the perspective on the site.

Much of what looks like nature is actually work. The open area in front of the Sphinx was created by removing hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of sand. The straight alleys between the burial structures were wind-blown shut for centuries. The quarry south of the Great Pyramid is recognizable as a depression because it was cleared out.

Conversely, some things that look like destruction are actually findings. The rubble heaps on the flanks have largely been removed, but the traces of stone robbers remain because they belong to the history of the structure. Even the hole in the Sphinx’s back and the borehole from 1837 were not concealed.

Since 1979, the entire area has been protected as a World Heritage Site. Practically, this means that major interventions require permits and non-destructive methods take precedence. A project like that of 1837 would be unthinkable today.

A note for anyone wanting to compare old views with the current state: The image collections of the major campaigns are digitized and freely accessible, as is the table work of the French expedition and the survey from 1882. If someone places a historical view next to their own photo, they can see in a few minutes how much work lies between the two.

And it is said that the research is not complete. Excavations continue, areas are remeasured, and the number of known graves grows. Anyone going there today sees an interim state, not a final one.

Frequently asked questions

When were the Pyramids of Giza discovered?

Never. They were never lost and have been continuously known since their construction. What exists is a history of research, not a history of discovery.

Did Napoleon shoot at the pyramids?

There is no evidence of damage caused by French artillery. The most famous version of this narrative concerns the nose of the Sphinx, which was demonstrably missing already in 1737. There is a separate page on this topic.

What did the French expedition achieve?

A comprehensive table work with measurements and views. It made the site systematically known in Europe for the first time and sparked scientific engagement with it.

Is excavation still ongoing today?

Yes, continuously. For decades, the focus has been on the workers’ village and the burial fields, not on the pyramids themselves.

Where can one view the old excavation records?

The material from the major campaigns from 1902 onwards is digitized and freely accessible, including photographs, diaries, and plans.