Planning a pyramid

Before the Egyptians could start to actually build a pyramid they had to plan it first. In our modern time we have architects to plan and design our buildings for us, they not only have good pencils and paper but they have computers and calculators to help them. The ancient Egyptians had none of this modern equipment so how did they do it? We do know that they had a rough paper called papyrus, made from the papyrus plant, which grows in the fresh water of the river Nile. Many examples of papyrus have survived from ancient Egypt including one piece written around a thousand five hundred and fifty years BC, which has a series of drawings showing how they tackled the overall dimensions and the angle of the pyramid. There are also carvings on stone, which give us an insight into how they planned and built their pyramids. Some drawings show a Pharaoh performing sacred rights at a foundation ceremony, and we still do this kind of thing today, we often get a famous person to lay the foundation stone on a new building.