Why were the later pyramids of worse quality?

Why were the later pyramids of worse quality?

Did they lose techniques?

It's not so much a question of technique, but those things were ridiculously fucking expensive, and later pharohs weren't quite so willing to shell out such enormous sums to make artificial mountains like that.

>inb4 filthy kuffars say muslims tried to destroy them cause "muh idolatry"

But it's true

No. Long story short, the politics of egypt changed to the point pyramid building served no purpose.

As much as I'd like to blame the Muslims, I think they are actually innocent for once.

My understanding is that people figured out that giant pyramids attracted grave robbers, and thus the pyramids got smaller.

Nah it had to do with the nomarchs becoming hereditary positionsc and thus they stopped sucking pharaoh's cock

Close but no cigar. They stopped building pyramids long before Islam. They just built their tombs into hillsides (Bani Hasan)

A Muslim sultan punished another Muslim for destroying the Spinx's nose because it was a form of idolatry.

>Currency existed in ancient Egypt

Ur retarded

It's not that they couldn't it's just that they didn't really want to. Later kings spent enormous sums on temple complexes more than fuckhuge pyramids.

What do you think they paid people with?

Only reason Muslims haven't torn them down is because it's too much effort.

People worked for free in those times

They probably diverted the money to gibs do to an influx of Sub Saharan KANGZ.

You must really like talking about muslims so much.

Nope. They paid them.

With what?

golden scarabs

Food

That explains why they stopped building them, not why there this wierd leap forward, and then decline in quality of construction

It wasn't weird. Pyramids were originally mastabas superposed on top of one another as one can see with djoser's step pyramid during the 3rd dynasty. As their architectural skills developed and switched from mudbricks to masonry it enabled them to build more ambitious projects. They finally got over severe technical hurdles during snefru's reign as one can see by comparing the bent pyramid (his second try) with his third one, the red pyramid (the first "real" pyramid we know of). Then later pharaohs in the same 4th dynasty went OTT and delivered the famous giza pyramids.

During the 5th and 6th dynasty the pharaohs got lax and let the nomarchs become hereditary positions, rather than appointing them personally. Without being able to command the nobility to their will so easily, pharaonic power dwindled sharply as they couldn't count on their martial elite to enforce tax collection and labour control so well, thus their scale and quality severely decreased (see pyramid of unas). By the end of the 6th dynasty and consequently the first intermediate, pyramid building literally became pointless. Nomarchs didn't fellate the pharaoh's ego anymore and thus the cult of the god-king practically ended. Plus the sacking of tombs during the intermediate taught everyone a lesson, as some other anons said. The old kingdom lasted about 450years so it was not sudden "development" or "collapse". It just seems that way to us because it was so long ago and people tend to get confused on ancient egyptian periods.

Because they enslaved the Black Man and lost their civilisational genius in the process

TIL the ancient Egyptians were communists.