I doubt it was inspired by a random Reddit thread, but rather by the news which the reddit thread refers to, which has been all over the media for days: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151111-egypt-pyra...

I suspect both were inspired by US Presidential candidate Ben Carson's recent claims that (he believes) they were built by Joseph to store grain (as per the Book of Genesis).

For clarity, Genesis recounts grain stores being built, but makes no claim that the Great Pyramids were those stores. The BBC article does reference grain storage directly:

> But Stevenson also says that counter-theories about the pyramids actually being huge grain stores are not helpful. “Archaeologists have in fact found grain silos in Egypt, they’re well known to us and they look nothing like pyramids,” she says.

I think building a grain store in the shape of a giant pyramid wouldn't work anyway. The grains at the bottom would be pretty much unusable and likely you couldn't get them out except from the top because of the weight. I do wonder if someone could work out the math though :-)

If you make the bottom of the pile accessible in some manner (like with a door), it's more efficient to withdraw the grain from that point due to gravity.

Peripherally related, this pyramid talk finally made me look up "critical angle of repose" of various materials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_repose#Angle_of_repos....

The Great Pyramids are around the 50° mark, where modern wheat's angle of repose is roughly half that (27°). That's not to say a pyramid-like structure couldn't be used to store wheat—just that the shape of these particular pyramids don't directly mimic the free-standing angle that a wheat mound would form.

I doubt they were grain stores, but elevators in the USA store grain and corn like that all the time in a pyramid shape and it doesn't hurt the grain / corn (other than moisture).

There is a "ski Indiana" photoshop showing a skier on one of these grain hills.

Here is a nice little pdf with a lot of ways we store product http://calculators.agstar.com/uploads/GrainStorageMethods070...

[edit: I agree they would have been a bad shape of an old style grain store, plus wrong era]

Why is Carson saying this? Is there possible truth behind it or is he just looking for attention?

Edit: I just couldn't wrap my head around why a candidate would be talking about Egyptian pyramids and alternate theories. Apparently it's a little more complicated. He mentioned his own "personal theory" about pyramids during a speech 10 years ago[0], it got brought up recently by the 24h news cycle and now he's defending his theory.

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/05/fact-check-be...

That would make sense, thanks (your reasoning, not Carson's reasoning.)

#overengineered

I wouldn't be surprised. Often I will see an interesting reddit thread and a few days later a Buzzfeed or Wired article will show up discussing the same thing. Maybe it's just coincidence.