PYRAMIDS

You can zoom images or open them is a separate tab. Sorry for the scan quality, that's the best I found online.

1646 Pyramidographia pages 78-79, 105, 110 John Greaves, Professor of Astronomy, Oxford There is no picture of the first pyramid in the book, just description.

1714 A voyage to the Levant pages 192-193, 200-201 Corneille le Bruyn, Dutch artist and traveler

From the pictures and wrong count it's obvious none of the above have seen Egyptian pyramids. Popular, well illustrated, multi-volume French encyclopedia of 1719 L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures reprints the 1714 picture just to confirm that's the status quo in Europe as of 1719.

Americas have been discovered 200+ years ago, Egypt is just accross the Mediterranean, the dried Egyptian mummy powder is sold in Europe as medicine since medieval, there is trade, there are diplomats and catholic missionaries visiting Egypt, not a single realistic picture of pyramids so far, they don't even know how many are there. Somehow nobody has read Herodotus, who described only 3 large pyramids, even the authors of the above mentioned Encyclopedia, who obviously do reference him. Encyclopedia (just like Herodotus) also describes some things that science never discovered, e.g. Colossus of Isis. BTW, the Quran, hadiths, and Bible also don't mention pyramids, despite telling Egypt-based foundational story of Exodus/Moses.

1743 A description of the East, and some other countries page 89 Richard Pococke, English clergyman and writer	1822 Description de L'Égypte Jomard M. Edme-François, French cartographer, engineer, and archaeologist, took part in Napoleon's commission to Egypt

Finally! Both plans above show large pyramids where they should be, and it's 3 of them. But wait, the details still don't match. Look at the southern side of northernmost Khufu (Cheops) pyramid, count those little ... rectangles or squares? In 1743 those were rectangles (mastabas), similar to what we see there today (photo below). Number differs, but that maybe due to some being covered by sand in 1743. In 1822 those look like 6 little pyramids, not mastabas at all! Both position and shapes are different!

Now look at the tiny pyramids at the southern side of smallest southern Menkaure (Mycerinus) pyramid: in 1743 leftmost tiny one is almost aligned with large one horizontally, but in 1822 (and today) it sticks out to the left! As a matter of fact in 1743 map all the pyramids are closer to each other "horizontally" (East-West axis).

ACTUAL STORY

• there were probably some old authentic smaller pyramids and other grave monuments in Egypt
• references to pyramids in old texts either refer to the authentic smaller pyramids or exaggerate (Herodotus described lots of "wonders" science knows nothing about today) or quote/plagiarize Herodotus
• Catholic Church and French government collaborated to build the giant ones we see today, Catholic Church had similar projects of monumental ruins and pyramids in South and Central America, those were also discovered by general public of Europe only after 1800
• as of 1743 intent was there, book was published to advertise it, but construction has not started yet, this explains the difference in relative positioning of the pyramids
• as of 1822 they planned to convert mastabas south of Khufu (Cheops) pyramid to 6 tiny piramids, but this never happened

Possible author of the giant pyramid project is Étienne-Louis Boullée. He had many gigantic projects, this one (bottom of page 460) is almost impossible to find online:

HOW

Technology is geopolymer - concrete-like mixture. No cranes necessary, just mass cheap labor. That area is Necropolis, old cemetery, remote, uninhabited place. There were probably already some smaller pyramids/monuments that were "recycled". Cairo was much smaller than it is today, located only on the Eastern bank of the Nile, distance from Nile to pyramids is 5 miles. Cairo people did see something built in a distance (comparable to view of Manhattan from Staten Island, pyramids are less than half the size of tallest skyscrapers), yet probably territory was guarded and nobody was allowed on the West bank. Nobody remembers anything because people in general don't know anything about their grandparents-parents. People who built pyramids were, I guess, catholic fanatics monks, that guaranteed "non disclosure". Later Egypt was "conquered" by Napoleon, by that time probably somebody remembered something his grandpa told him but official historical narrative was established and spread through new colonial government.

WHY

The main question with pyramids is WHY would somebody build them. Pyramids are a monument to mindless theocracy and tyranny. Pyramids teach us that since dawn of civilization the gods and the power of priests are the pillars of society. It's not so hard to guess who would want to plant that message into our brains and also distract everyone from Persian roots of Judaism and Christianity. Pyramids were intended for the European audience which, as of 18th century, started to "drift away from God" due to popular modern liberal ideas and learning too much about the world to the East. Egyptians would never invest so much into pyramids: they had no such ideological issues on their hands.

Also, if Egypt ever had that much social discipline and extra resources, all of the Mediterranean would be speaking Egyptian, not Latin or Arabic/Hebrew. We don't see great ancient roads, large cities or fortresses in Egypt, just useless pyramids and temples. According to historians Egypt was conquered many times, so why waste all those resources on pyramids and gigantic statues instead of at least reasonable defence infrastructure?

French kings and later the revolutionaries "bought" the project with the intent to make it a symbol of French Empire (we conquered the majestic cradle of civilization!), that's why there are two well known pyramids in Paris (Eiffel tower and the Louvre one) and several more in France: Aux Morts des Armées de Champagne, pyramid of Couhard, pyramid of Austerlitz, pyramid of Mont Cenis, Falicon pyramid, La Grande-Motte. There were, in fact, plans to build more in the times of Napolen.

CAMBODIA

Angkor Wat ... In 1860, the temple was effectively rediscovered by French ... popularised ... in the West - for few hundred years Europeans all over the region, temple has been seen by some of them in 1586, yet no public interest in Europe, no books, no pictures. Built 140 miles (200km) North from capital Phnom Penh, no other major settlements around it, only a town Siem Reap established in 1907.

CENTRAL AMERICA

Mesoamerican pyramids were built for the same reason the Apocalypto (2006) movie was filmed by Mel Gibson, a devoted catholic. Pyramids/movie sell (to the mexicans, who are mostly native) the idea of their past of mass human sacrifice. That's what the noble catholic colonizers saved them from! This is same Phoenicians burning their own children story once again. The truth is there were no pyramids, nor there were human sacrifices. Probably just good old (ritual) cannibalism and head-hunting, just like everywhere else in the world. Below are few examples (out of dozens all over Central America) giant monuments completely abandoned, forgotten, ignored, and miraculously rediscovered.

MEXICO:
Xochicalco ... 1810, Alexander von Humboldt published a description and illustration ... restored ... in 1910 - unfortunaely I failed to find that 1810 illustration online, which is strange given that it's Alexander Humboldt.

Chichen Itza ... published in 1843.
Teotihuacan ... Pyramid of the Sun ... 1905 ... archeologist and government official ... led a major project of excavation - it's only been 100+ years since all the fuss about Egyptian pyramids.
Edzna ... discovered in 1907 ... organized excavations began in 1958 - note that it takes dozens of years to not only "discover"/"publish" but to actually start researching the discovery, despite of acknowledged world-wide interest.

BELIZE:
Xunantunich ... first modern explorations of the site were conducted by Thomas Gann in the mid-1890s.
Lamanai ... first detailed description of the ruins was made in 1917 - in a country as small as Belize, it took them 20+ years to just write up a description.
Caracol ... first reported by a native logger ... who came across its remains in 1937 - after foreign expeditions been researching/excavating for 40+ years, some random guy wins the lottery.

GUATEMALA:
Tikal ... published in Germany in 1853 ... archaeologists started to clear, map and record the ruins in the 1880s - note the pause.
El Mirador ... surveyed in 1885 ... noted the presence of ruins ... had little attention paid to it until ... the first map of the area in 1962 - huge pause, again.
Mixco Viejo ... 1896 and published a brief description of the ruins ... visited the ruins in 1949 - note the same multi-decade pause.

It's the same pattern all over Central America: 1) construction and (fake) publication of (old) discovery, 2) few decade pause for plants to grow all over it, 3) expedition/excavaion/reconstruction. The reconstruction is more than you think, - here are two 1878 Teotihuacan paintings by José María Velasco (1840–1912):

If you are disappointed with the above, here are 1870 litographs:

CHINA

Have you ever heard of Chinese pyramids miraculously discovered by American pilot in 1947? Of course there are some 1667 notes from a jesuit and some "awareness" of them since 1910s. China was colonized by everybody and their uncle for only 100 years by that time. Pyramids went unnoticed here as well. They are not as popular as Mesoamerican or Egyptian ones, - they look bad, - either unfinished or intentionally damanged by Japanese or communists, and now that they have been "discovered" it's too late to fix that.