It is difficult to imagine how stone weighing as much as one and a half tons gets stacked some 450 feet high without the use of modern machinery in order to build the pyramids of Egypt. Further, this leads to the question of why. Why do it? Did the ancient Egyptians embark on a feat simply to prove that it could be accomplished? This essay will investigate literature written on the topic that covers the reasons for building them and how they were built. Following this literature review, this essay will attempt to utilize all of the research to develop a more complete answer that cannot be limited to one particular theory.