What If the Egyptian Pyramids Were Hiding This Secret?

For thousands of years, the Egyptian pyramids have inspired questions about how they were built and what secrets might still be hidden inside them. This hilarious animated short imagines an answer nobody was expecting.

Set in Cairo in 1920, the story follows an archaeologist who makes an extraordinary discovery near the pyramids. What he finds could completely change everything we thought we knew about these ancient monuments — assuming his camel doesn’t ruin things first.

One Archaeologist, One Discovery and One Very Hungry Camel

The Egyptian Pyramids is a short French animated film that manages to tell its entire story without spoken dialogue. The setup is wonderfully simple: an archaeologist working near the pyramids uncovers a mysterious object and realizes he may have stumbled onto something incredible.

His discovery appears to reveal an outrageous secret about the pyramids themselves. The film has fun with one of history’s greatest mysteries, turning an archaeological breakthrough into an increasingly absurd situation.

Then there’s the camel. While the archaeologist is understandably obsessed with his discovery, his companion has considerably simpler priorities — and that creates the short film’s funniest moments.

The animation was created by Corentin Charron, Lise Corriol, Olivier Lafay and Nicolas Mrikhi and produced at Supinfocom Arles for MuCEM. At only a few minutes long, it gets straight to the idea, delivers its visual jokes and leaves you with a very different explanation for the mysteries of ancient Egypt.

Why We Loved This Video

This is exactly what a great animated short should do: introduce an idea immediately, make you curious about where it’s going and deliver a payoff without wasting a minute.

We especially love the combination of ancient mystery and completely ridiculous comedy. The lack of dialogue also means the visual storytelling does all the work, making the film easy to enjoy regardless of language.

And once the camel becomes involved, you know that one of archaeology’s greatest discoveries probably isn’t going to go according to plan.