The Pyramid Paradox: Why Egypt’s Greatest Achievement Led to Its Own Obsolescence

Within three generations, Egypt’s pyramids shrank dramatically. Traditional theories blame crisis and decline. The evidence suggests otherwise.

It is one of the greatest enigmas of the Old Kingdom. Following the stunning engineering and organizational feat of the Great Pyramid of Giza, something unexpected happened. Instead of continuing and perfecting this formula, subsequent pyramids became... smaller and smaller. Why, after reaching the zenith, did Khufu’s successors, his son and grandson, and later the pharaohs of the 5th and 6th Dynasties, begin to drastically and systematically reduce the scale of their monuments?

Traditional explanations, such as “resource exhaustion” or “state crisis,” seem insufficient. Others, pointing to “religious change,” also fail to fully explain such a radical shift in construction strategy.

In a previous article, we presented a theory suggesting that the Great Pyramids were more than just tombs. They were primarily pragmatic state tools. Their goal was not the product itself (the tomb), but the multi-year, integrating process of construction. This was the driving force behind a broader concept which author Jacek Krzysztoń termed the PaG (Process as a Goal) Model. This model suggests, among other things, that in the case of Egypt, the pyramids were a radical response to the “integration crisis” of a young state.

If we adopt this perspective, the answer to the riddle of the “fading giants” becomes surprisingly logical. The decline in pyramid scale suggests not failure, but proof of strategic maturity and the success of the original plan.