Life — July 12, 1928 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Pyramid-Building Satire This "Pyramid Diddling" cartoon satirizes Egyptian tomb construction excess. The top panel shows seated Egyptian officials reviewing architectural plans while workers display various building materials and designs. The central narrative mocks a Pharaoh ("His Royal Pomposity") obsessed with building an ever-larger pyramid despite his builder's protests about conformity and practicality. The humor targets bureaucratic absurdity: the builder complains the pyramid must follow standard specifications, but the Pharaoh demands it be "twice that material means" larger. The satirist ridicules both the ruler's vanity-driven extravagance and the builder's helpless frustration with impossible demands. The broader target appears to be contemporary government waste and official stubbornness—using ancient Egypt as a comedic parallel to mock wasteful public projects regardless of practical objections.