The Egyptian pyramids were built mainly during Egypt’s Old Kingdom, roughly between about 2700 BCE and 1700 BCE, with the most famous pyramids at Giza constructed around 2589–2504 BCE.

Core timeline

  • The first pyramids appear shortly after 2700 BCE, when Egyptian royal tombs evolved from flat-topped mastabas into stepped structures.
  • The Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, often considered Egypt’s first pyramid, was built in the Third Dynasty around 2670–2630 BCE.
  • The classic pyramid age runs for about a thousand years, from the early Third Dynasty through the end of the Middle Kingdom, with royal pyramid building most intense in the Old Kingdom (Fourth–Sixth Dynasties).

Giza pyramids specifically

  • The Great Pyramid of Giza (Khufu’s pyramid) was built in the Fourth Dynasty, usually dated to about 2580–2560 BCE, within a broader construction window for the Giza complex of about 2589–2504 BCE.
  • The other two major Giza pyramids followed in the same dynasty: Khafre’s pyramid around 2570 BCE and Menkaure’s around 2510 BCE.
  • Archaeologists estimate that all three large Giza pyramids were completed within roughly 85 years, reflecting a concentrated burst of royal building.

After the pyramid age

  • Pyramid building continued into the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, but the structures became smaller and less solid , marking the decline of the great stone pyramids after about 2150 BCE.
  • By around 1700–1500 BCE, large royal pyramids in Egypt had largely given way to tombs cut into rock, such as those later seen in the Valley of the Kings.

In everyday terms: most of the iconic Egyptian pyramids people think of were built more than 4,500 years ago, mainly between roughly 2700 and 2500 BCE, with Giza at the heart of that “golden age” of pyramid construction.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.