When the Roman Empire reached Egypt, the pyramids had stood for more than two thousand years, so to Romans these monumental tombs were relics of a far earlier civilisation and not contemporary constructions.
Roman arrival in Egypt
Rome established control over Egypt after the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, formalising Egyptian province status under Octavian in 30 BCE, at which point Roman administrators, soldiers and travellers encountered standing monuments built millennia earlier.
Age of the pyramids
The major pyramids at Giza date to the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, with construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu around the mid‑third millennium BCE (about 2580–2560 BCE), meaning they were already roughly 2 500 years old or more by the time Rome annexed Egypt, and their origins lay far back in prehistoric Egyptian history.
Roman perception and reuse
Romans admired and repurposed Egyptian monuments and symbolism: obelisks and artworks were transported to Rome and Egyptian styles influenced Roman funerary architecture, reflecting both fascination with and the antiquity of Egypt's monumental past as experienced under Roman rule.
Historical significance
The long interval between pyramid construction and Roman arrival highlights the deep time of Egyptian civilisation and helps explain why later cultures regarded these structures as ancient wonders rather than recent achievements of their own era.