ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Pyramid Texts

Imagine you are building a big pile of blocks or toys. Sometimes, people in ancient Egypt built huge piles of big heavy rocks, called pyramids. Ancient Egyptians believed in life after death, so they wrote special texts or messages on the pyramids to help their pharaohs or kings get to the afterlife.

These special texts that they wrote on the pyramids are called the Pyramid Texts. They were first written down over 4,000 years ago, which is a super long time ago! These texts are very important, and they are some of the first written texts from ancient Egypt, which makes them very special.

The Pyramid Texts are like a guidebook for the pharaohs or kings to go to the afterlife. It tells them what they need to do to get there, like what spells they need to say, and what offerings they need to give. It also tells them about the gods and goddesses they would meet on the way.

The texts were written in a special way, using pictures called hieroglyphs. These hieroglyphs are like tiny pictures that represent words or ideas. The texts were also written in a secret code, so not everyone could read them. Only special people called priests could read the Pyramid Texts.

Overall, the Pyramid Texts are an ancient Egyptian text that contains magic spells and instructions for kings or pharaohs to travel to the afterlife. They were written over 4,000 years ago using pictures called hieroglyphs and a secret code that only priests could read.