[Fitzcarraldo]

Interesting, I never thought the Pyramids were actually painted. I once lived at a house where a tenant painted the sidewalks red and then a later tenant had it sandblasted off. You could tell because the sandblasting left some around the edges.

[Wneighbor]

I don't know - just my guess - but maybe they were painting pictures within the pyramid.

[SunkenCiv]

Fitzcarraldo: Interesting, I never thought the Pyramids were actually painted.

Most ancient sculpture and buildings were painted for various reasons. That nice smooth white finish we associate with ancient statues isn't the way they appeared when new -- they used to be painted up the same way we see concrete lawn dwarfs painted today. :')

Wneighbor: I don't know - just my guess - but maybe they were painting pictures within the pyramid.

That would be my guess as well -- the interiors of the pyramids were plastered, and sometimes given low relief in plaster, then the plaster painted and inscribed. Trouble was that the Giza pyramids turned out to be very damp inside, and by Roman times the Great Pyramid was open to tourists (further decay). It was resealed before the Moslem conquest, then cracked open again during the Middle Ages.

The exteriors of the Giza pyramids had been finished with smooth facing stones but that too was for the most part removed (some is still visible near the summit of Khafre at least) for buildings (and rendered for plaster) in Cairo. Ancient reports exist that the exterior finish stones were carved with inscriptions, now lost.