A Golf Course Sits Next To The Great Pyramids Of Egypt
History is an endless story of people building on top of each other
In 2009, Gerald Eskenazi had a surreal experience. As he lined up to address a golf ball on hole twelve, he raised his eyes to notice the forty-story Pyramid of Cheops sitting silently hundreds of yards away. Talk about pressure.
Gerald didn’t mention if he blew the shot, but he did give a staggering review of the Mena House’s Golf Course in his NY Times article. Currently, it’s under renovation, so you can’t presently play there. However, you can still stay at the hotel. It’s run by Marriot now and its Twitter (or X) account has unreal pictures.
Marriot Mena House, Cairo, X (Twitter Page)
It’s amazing when you think of it. One can munch on a pancake with the pyramids in view, in a land once occupied by Alexander the Great, Saladin, and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Now, this story has nothing to do with golf or a hotel, but the pictures above are an interesting reminder of a historical phenomenon. We build upon previous cultures. All at once this is obvious, but yet, not so obvious.
Any archeological exploration usually revolves around one activity: digging. Throughout history, cultures have been buried and rebuilt upon. Sometimes intentionally or nefariously, but not always. In fact, a good example of both is the largest pyramid in the world, and it’s not in Egypt.
The Stages Of The Pyramid of Cholula
“…Hiding under tufts of grass, trees, and soil, is an ancient pyramid of truly gigantic proportions. Standing 450 metres wide and 66 metres tall, from end to end the Great Pyramid of Cholula is equivalent to nine Olympic sized swimming pools.”
— Zaria Gorvett, BBC
While the pyramids in Egypt are tall, those in Mexico are wide. But the latter can be a bit deceiving, where Pharaohs built their structures as a single project, Cholula’s builders modified what they found. And not just once.
In fact, Rachel Funnel at IFL Science compares the pyramid at Cholula to those Russian nested dolls which are placed within each other. At least three stages of building took place. Each nesting the previous stage within the newest addition.
An unknown group of builders are thought to have begun the first pyramid in 300BC, and by 1500AD the Aztecs ruled the land.
At this time, the entire structure was covered in dirt and revered by the locals. They called it Tlachihualtepetl, or “man-made mountain.” As Hernan Cortez and the Spanish arrived, after slaughtering the natives, they built a church on top of the unassuming dirt mountain.
It wasn’t even known the massive pyramid existed underneath the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (Church of Our Lady of Remedies) until about four or five hundred years later.
Overall, this is par for the course (sorry for the golf humor.) Moreover, despite the impressiveness of the structures built, they don’t always last the test of time. Sometimes nature takes them back. Other times it’s the work of the locals, who’ve forgotten what those structures signified and strip them for material.
While you may not realize it, this was almost the fate of the Colosseum in Rome.
The Many Lives Of The Roman Colosseum
The Colosseum’s official website says it was dedicated in 80AD and hosted gladiators and games for about five hundred years. By the late sixth century, the arena floor was used as a cemetery.
According to the Smithsonian, the structure was also used as a housing complex from 800 to 1349AD complete with terra cotta sewage pipes.
Eventually the powerful Frangipani family turned the Colosseum into a fortified castle. About a hundred years later an earthquake toppled part of its walls. For the next few hundred years Italians used it as a quarry, and some of its marble is thought to have been used in building Saint Peter’s Basilica.
In the 1500s Pope Sixtus planned to turn it into a wool factory. With all this in mind, it’s a wonder the Colosseum is still around to host a grappling match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
For instance, while the Greek general Xenophon wandered through Persia, he came upon the ruins of a magnificent city the locals called Larisa. As they quarried its remains, the people said the city was once inhabited by the Medes.
But the city was actually Calah. It was the military capitol of the Assyrian empire, the superpower of the ancient world. It only took a few hundred years before the locals forgot who they were, once they collapsed. Eventually those ruins were either repurposed or buried.
And this seems to be an endless recurring theme in human history — even in the present day.
Humanity Is An Endless History Of Building Upon What Came Before
“…If, on the other hand, there is a limited number of elements from which events are interwoven, the same things must happen many times, being brought to pass by the same agencies.”
— Plutarch, “Parallel Lives”, 2nd century A.D.
The warehouse our family business owns has an interesting history. An older neighbor explained it housed a boxing gym inside when he was a kid. The building has an odd shape too. A metal beam hangs from the center of the top — just before the roof — and it used to have a massive window below.
It’s odd today, but back in the day it was perfect because the building was once a horse-stable with a hayloft above, before boxers occupied it. Imagine that, right in the middle of the hood.
But it really isn’t surprising when you think about it. That’s why we have golf courses next to Egyptian pyramids, and a church on top of a multi-staged pyramid in Mexico that has unknown initial creators. It’s also what encourages a pope to transform the Colosseum into a wool factory.
People often wonder why history seems to repeat. If you think about what you’ve read previously, it’s not really a mystery. Plutarch above gives us a hint.
Much of what’s come now is built on the frame of what’s come before. Therefore, how could certain elements not repeat? History is an endless tale of culture building upon culture — sometimes figuratively, other times literally.
So if you want to know what comes next, dig underneath what you see in front of you. There will usually be a hint buried below, or a golf ball next to a pyramid.
-Originally posted on Medium 7/30/23