The pyramids of Egypt and of pre-Columbian Central America are not so much subjects for comparison as they are for contrast. While they have a superficial resemblance in that they have a four-sided base and four triangular faces, they developed in a very different manner and serve different purposes.
The most fundamental difference lies in the fact that the Egyptian pyramid is a tomb, while the Central American pyramid is a temple. Neither theme is completely alien to either pyramid; Egyptian pyramids typically had a temple complex built upon the same site, while Central American pyramids occasionally contained burials (the tomb of Lord Pacal of Palenque and the remains of human sacrifices found at Teotihuacan serve as ready examples). On the other hand, these “crossover” functions are decidedly secondary. Burials in Central American pyramids remain exceptional, as far as we currently know, while the temple component of the Egyptian pyramid was physically separated from the pyramid itself.
The construction of the first Egyptian pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Sakkara, seems superficially to be an astounding break with tradition. Certainly, its visual effect contrasts strongly with that of the tombs that preceded it. In Egypt, however, nothing was really a decisive break with the past, and this is especially true of the Step Pyramid. For that reason, one must first look at the traditions of Egyptian burial before the appearance of pyramids.
By the end of the Pre-dynastic period, however, powerful kings had established themselves in the Nile valley, and they demonstrated their power by turning their graves into a second palace, complete with the niched facade that appears to have characterized the early palaces of the living. The concept of tomb as secondary womb remains in the form of the burial shaft, in which a perpendicular shaft is built into the earth, culminating in a larger burial chamber. Here is an important concept: the tomb consists of two very distinct elements, a womb-like burial chamber dug into the earth, and a man-made superstructure based on the palace as a model. It is not insignificant that later Egyptians would refer to the tomb as the Mansion of Millions of Years.
Kings contented themselves with mastabas until the reign of Djoser. His vizier and architect, Imhotep, proposed a grandiose tomb that reflected the two zones of the tomb in multiple buildings, rather than in a single one. The burial complex of Djoser was a return to the notion of a large palace of the dead, in which the zone of the living comprised a temple complex for the service of the king’s divine soul, and the zone of the dead was a mastaba of grand proportions. Djoser’s tomb retained the original idea of burial inside a shaft leading into the earth, but now the superstructure was to be not one, nor two, but three mastabas, built one atop the other. Eventually, the three mastabas were extended so that a fourth could be built atop it. The Step Pyramid had been created, the first of its kind.
Having said all of this, both sets of pyramids remain an example of sacred space. Central American pyramids are clearly a place where the realm of the gods can connect with the realm of men; Egyptian pyramids are a point of interface between the realms of the dead and of the living, just as they are the place where the earth and the heavens meet.
