The pyramids weren’t lost, weren’t built by slaves, and aren’t aligned with aliens. They’re aligned with true north and a Pizza Hut.

Sketch and Coffee Live at 5:30am Texas time

Today’s sketch came from a Safari Ltd. model of the Pyramids of Giza, lined up just like the real ones: Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. While I sketched, we dove into why these monuments still capture the imagination. They’re about 4,500 years old, aligned to true north within 1/20th of a degree, and they weren’t built by slaves. The builders lived in villages, had cemeteries and health care, and left graffiti like “The Drunkards of Menkaure.” Most of what we know about the pyramids actually comes from later tombs, some over a thousand years younger. The pyramids themselves are mostly empty, and they’ve never been “discovered.” They were never lost. They’re right next to a Pizza Hut.

We talked about how Egypt is deeply invested in protecting these sites because of its culural heritage, and because tourism is vital to the economy. Giza alone brings in 15 million visitors and about $368 million a year. Regional conflict can tank that by 30 percent, even when the trouble’s far away like Iraq, or Turkey, or even India. Egypt puts serious effort into peace talks and site security to keep the tourists coming. We also talked about how many Americans pretend to be Canadian because they don’t want to explain U.S. politics to every cab driver.

Click here to watch the live stream recording over at the YouTubes