[Grut]

"The fact is that building a pyramid is fairly easy, aside from the lifting. You just pile up stones in receding layers, placing one layer carefully upon another, and pretty soon you have a pyramid. You can't help it. In other words, it is not in the nature of a pyramid to fall down."

-- Will Cuppy, 1884 - 1949

[Buddy B]

Will Cuppy, biography

A fellow Hoosier...

[mhx]

That makes sense. People built all sorts of structures by piling up stones, and the only ones that are still standing are pyramids :-)

[Ostlandr]

There's a very ancient tradition where when someone dies, the relatives build a cairn of stones to protect the body. Every time someone comes to visit the grave, they add a stone. The more important the person (generally speaking) the bigger the pile of stones. The discrepancies would no doubt lead to cairn envy.
Perhaps some self-important personage decided to order his cairn built while he was alive, and the rest (as they say) is history.

[dr_lew]

... it is not in the nature of a pyramid to fall down.