Comparing Mexico's Pyramids to Egypt's

The more than 100 pyramids that punctuate the west bank of the Nile have intrigued mankind for millennia. Numerous articles and books have discussed the pyramids of Egypt and the wondrous tombs, sculpture, jewelry, and artwork they secreted. However, pyramids are found in various locations in the world beyond Egypt—most notably in South America, Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, India, and Cambodia. Is it possible that the ancient civilizations of Central America and South America, as an example, somehow came to be aware of the pyramids of the ancient Egyptians or did the Mesoamerican pyramids arise spontaneously from the culture of the Inca and subsequently from that of the Maya? The latter is believed to be the case. There is no convincing evidence that the methods of designing, and constructing the pyramids built by the ancient Egyptians thousands of years earlier could have in any way been communicated to the Inca and the Maya. At the time the Egyptians were building their pyramids the Inca and the Maya were still nomadic hunter-gatherers who had not yet advanced to the point of establishing social and legal institutions and had not yet acquired and mastered the considerable skills necessary to erect such structures.
Although they are not nearly as celebrated as the Egyptian pyramids and have not received comparable scholarly attention, the extraordinary pyramids, temples, and other structures constructed by the Maya in what is now southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras are nonetheless significant from archaeological, historical, architectural, and engineering perspectives. Like the ancient Egyptians, the Maya—whose civilization dates from at least 3000 B.C. and who flourished from the fourth to the ninth century A.D.—produced extraordinary structures, had a superb command of mathematics, developed highly accurate calendars as well as an elaborate system of hieroglyphic writing, and established sophisticated and complex social and