This kind of pyramid can also be called a tetrahedron. A triangular pyramid has 4 faces, 6 edges, and 4 vertices. If the base of a pyramid is in the shape of a triangle, it is said to be a triangular pyramid. Observe the square pyramid shown below to understand its shape.

In other words, it has 8 edges, 5 vertices, and 4 faces. A square pyramid consists of one square base and three triangular faces. Let us look at the different types of pyramids: Square PyramidĪ square pyramid is formed when the base of the pyramid is in the shape of a square. The Incas, Latin America’s last great indigenous civilization to survive, used the same building techniques to construct their marvelous stone city, Machu Picchu, high in the Andes.There are different types of pyramids based on the shape of their base. It took 20,000 workers 50 years to build the pyramid, constructed from huge stones fitted together without mortar.

1438 to 1471) began the construction of a great temple-pyramid, Sascahuamán, in the capital city of Cuzco. Some 80 years before the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro arrived in the Andes, the Inca ruler Pachacuti Yupanqui (A.D. The Huaca del Sol (or Holy Place of the Sun) was almost 100 feet tall and built of more than 143 million bricks, while the Huaca de la Luna (dedicated to the moon) was rebuilt multiple times over a 600-year period. The Moche, who lived along the northern coast of what is now Peru, built their pyramids of adobe, or sun-dried mud-bricks.

More pyramids can be found in South America, which was home to indigenous populations like the Moche, Chimú and Incas. When the Spaniards destroyed the holy city of Cholula in the 16th century, they built a church atop the ruins of the huge pyramid complex in a conscious attempt to claim the New World for Christianity. The Aztecs later claimed it as their own, dedicating it to the god Quetzalcoatl. The warrior Toltecs conquered the region around 1200 and rebuilt the pyramid as their ceremonial center. Constructed from adobe in four stages of construction beginning around the second century B.C., the Pyramid of Cholula measured 1,083 by 1,034 feet at the base and was about 82 feet high. Located in the plains surrounding the city of Puebla (founded by the Spanish colonists), the pyramid complex of Cholula (named for the Mesoamerican people that built it) was the largest single structure in pre-Columbian Mexico. Its massive size rivals that of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. The base of the Pyramid of the Sun measures 730 feet per side, with five stepped terraces reaching a height of some 200 feet. The walls were then faced with adobe bricks, and then covered with limestone. Like many Mesoamerican pyramids, each was constructed around a core of rubble held in place by retaining walls. The Teotihuacán built the Pyramids of the Sun and of the Moon between A.D.

More temples have been discovered there than in any other Mesoamerican city. According to Aztec tradition, the sun and the moon, as well as the rest of the universe, traced their origins to Teotihuacán. The Teotihuacán was one of the most dominant societies in Mesoamerica their namesake capital, located northeast of today’s Mexico City, had a population of 100,000 to 200,000 during the fifth and sixth centuries. The most famous single pyramid in Latin America is the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán, Mexico. However, more recent excavations have unearthed evidence that some pyramids did include tombs, and there is also evidence that city-states used the pyramids for military defense. Rebuilding the pyramid, it was believed, was a crucial process that renewed the king's relationship with the gods.Īt one point, historians concluded that (in contrast with Egyptian pyramids), pre-Columbian pyramids were not intended as burial chambers but as homes for deities. Did you know? In many cases, pyramids in Latin America were rebuilt again and again over already existing structures, in order to glorify the current ruler.

Simple pyramids