ELI5: How were the ancient Egyptian pyramids built?

The ancient Egyptian pyramids were built by thousands of regular workers who carved giant stone blocks from the earth, slid them across the desert, and stacked them up using large dirt ramps.

Imagine building the biggest sandcastle in the world, but instead of using light sand, you have to use heavy stone blocks that weigh as much as an elephant. Because the ancient Egyptians did not have modern trucks, cranes, or engines, they used clever tricks and simple everyday tools to do the heavy lifting.

Here is how everyday life helped them build these giant monuments:

• Clever moving tricks: To move the giant rocks from the quarries across the desert, workers placed the stones on wooden sleds. Sand is tricky to pull things across, just like it is hard to pull a wagon on a sandy beach. To fix this, workers poured small amounts of water right in front of the sledges. Wet sand becomes firm and slick, making it twice as easy to drag the heavy stones.
• River highways: For stones that were far away, the Egyptians used the Nile River like a giant highway. They floated the blocks on large wooden boats during the flood season when the water was deep, bringing the stones very close to the building site.
• Giant hills for ramps: To stack the blocks on top of each other, builders made long, sloping paths out of mud, dirt, and limestone, kind of like a ramp you might skate down. As the pyramid grew taller, they made the ramps longer and higher so they could push the stones all the way to the top.
• A community effort: For a long time, people thought prisoners built the pyramids, but it was actually regular citizens doing their civic duty. Farmers, bakers, and stonemasons worked together during the time of year when the river flooded their fields and they could not farm.