World’s Largest Pyramid Isn’t In Egypt - It’s Inside A Hill In Mexico

Egypt’s Great Pyramid gets all the publicity - but the largest pyramid in the world (by far) is actually Mexican.

But the Great Pyramid of Cholula actually went unnoticed by Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés - who thought the structure was a hill, and built a church on it.

The locals referred to it as Tlachihualtepetl - ‘man made mountain’, the BBC reports - and the pyramid is truly vast, with a base measuring 1,480 by 1,480 feet, four times that of the Great Pyramid.

The pyramid is thought to have been used as a place of worship for 1,000 years - but fell into disrepair when it was abandoned, having been built from mud bricks.

‘They made a conscious effort to maintain and in some cases display previous construction episodes. This is pretty novel, and shows deliberate efforts to link to the past,’ archaeologist David Carballo from Boston University said.

It was abandoned sometime in the 7th or 8th Century CE,’

‘The Choluteca had a newer pyramid-temple located nearby, which the Spaniards destroyed.’