There are pyramids all over the place. No, really. Pyramids have been found all across the planet. It is as if thousands of years ago, ancient civilizations that were not connected between each other got a pyramid building fever and started erecting massive, towering structures that reached for the skies.
And while most people are familiar with the pyramids of Giza, and the Egyptian Pyramids in General, the truth is that Egypt isn’t the country that has most pyramids, nor is it where the largest pyramid on Earth resides.
That honor belongs to modern-day Mexico and the Great Pyramid of Cholula.
In this article, we take a look at some of the most fascinating pyramids that were built in the American Continent.
Pyramids of Caral
Have you ever heard about the Pyramids of Caral?
More than 5,000 years ago, an extremely advanced civilization developed in Peru. Most people have never heard of it. In fact, the existence of this civilization was revealed only in1996, thanks to the work of a team of archaeologists headed by Ruth Shady, through the Caral-Supe Special Archaeological Project.
This ancient culture settled in the north-central Peruvian area or Norte Chico.
They built the city of Caral, which gave this ancient civilization its name.
There, in a city that has remained hidden from sight, the ancients erected pyramids.
Scientific studies have shown that this civilization is contemporary with other civilizations of the world, such as Egypt, India, Sumeria, China, but unlike them, it developed in complete isolation.
In America, it is the oldest of the pre-Hispanic civilizations, surpassing in 1500 years the Olmec civilization.
The Pyramids of Caral are contemporary with the ancient Egyptian Pyramids. According to excavation, the main pyramid at Caral covers an area of nearly four football fields, with a length of around 20 meters.
The urban complex of Cara spreads out over 150 hectares (370 acres) and is home to plazas and residential buildings as well as pyramids. Caral was a thriving metropolis at roughly the same time that Egypt’s great pyramids were being built.
Great Pyramid of Cholula
As we have already mentioned in previous articles, the largest pyramid on Earth is located not in Egypt but in the Ameican Continent. More specifically in modern-day Mexico.
There, thousands of years ago an ancient culture built a massive pyramid with a volume of over 4.45 million cubic meters.
This means that the Pyramid at Cholula is much larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza (often mistaken as the largest pyramid on Earth) with a volume of around 2.5 million cubic meters.
The base measures a total of 160,000 square meters which means the Pyramid of Cholula has three times the area of the 53,056.5 square meter base area of Pharaoh Khufu’s Great Pyramid of Giza.
The Great Pyramid of La Venta
La Venta is an archeological site belonging to the Ancient Olmec civilization in present-day Mexico, in the estate of Tabasco.
The city of La Venta belonged to the Olmec which was one of the earliest civilizations to develop in the American Continent.
The city of La Venta is home to the Great Pyramid, which is the central building in the city layout.
The structure is believed to have been built entirely out of clay and can easily be spotted from miles out.
The structure was erected on top of a closed-in platform which is where Frans Blom and Oliver La Farge discovered altars Altars 2 and 3 and found the Olmec Civilization. Prior to the studies by La Farge and Blom, the site was thought to have been an ancient Maya city.
The Pyramid of La Venta is one of the earliest known pyramids to be built in Mesoamerica. The Gret Pyramid is currently 34 meters high and is believed to contain around 100,000 cubic meters of earth fill.
