[Q] Who removed the outer stones from the Gaza pyramids?

[atlantian-1]

Dear Friends:

 

I am in search for any information on when and who removed the stones from from the outer skin of the great pyramids on the Gaza plateau. It has been stated that a town was constructed near the base of the pyramids to construct them. Could just the opposite have happened, that a town was built in order to strip the stone and use it else where? Like a large quarry? Can anyone can solve this for me? It has been on my mind for a long time. Thanks.

 

Atlantian-1

[modest]

According to page 48 of Pyramid Handbook by Moustafa Gadalla, the casing stones of the great pyramid were quarried during and after the 13th century to build mosques and palaces or for burning lime.

 

A significant amount of the damage was probably done by Bahri Sultan around 1356 to build fortresses and mosques in Cairo (timeline).

 

It's interesting, also, that writings of around 1200 AD from Abdollatiph of Baghdad (born 1161) described the surface of the great pyramid as having "hieroglyphs such that would fill 10,000 volumes". That account echoes what Herodotus wrote more than a thousand years earlier and supports the idea that the casing stones were still mostly/partly there in the last part of the 12th century AD.

 

~modest