It was a common feature of 'Solar' temples around the world to be painted red. The use of red paint to denote a religious building is still observed to this day in Tibet (also on the 30th parallel). Pochan says - 'at the tomb of Pen-Meruw at Giza, the name of the Great pyramid is followed by the determinative reserved for solar temples (This is a pyramid shape, with a small 'pyramidion' on top) and 'Khefre' is one of the Egyptian names for the sun (sunrise,daytime, sunset)'.
The following extract is from Pochan, who proved conclusively that the great pyramid, or a part of it, was at some time, painted with red-ochre paint. He says: 'As I proceeded to measure the casing stones of the great pyramid, a peculiar fact attracted my attention. Some detached blocks lined up a few metres from the pyramid, which apparently had once been a part of the facing, showed a curious red-brown tint on their flat sloping side.
To what phenomenon could this tint - which the blocks' other surfaces did not have - be attributed? To time? Light? To the sand - as unferruginous as it was - that they had covered the blocks for so long? It is hardly likely, for the other surfaces would have shown beginnings of a similar transformation. Moreover, a knife blade penetrates the coloured surface with difficulty and cuts through the other surfaces easily.
Chemical tests gave me an immediate result: the facing blocks were coated with a paint having a ferrous oxide base (red ochre). Tests carried out on other parts of the sample were negative...', and he continues 'However, it was necessary to verify this fact. The second pyramid still retains part of its casing, which definitely seems to be coloured red fragments taken from the pyramids casing, when subjected to chemical tests, showed the same reaction as those taken from the facing blocks of the great pyramid'. We must also keep in mind that the Sphinx's face is also painted red. Pliny informs us that it was painted because of a cult However; formal proof that the pyramid was painted came to me in the course of a separate examination of the rather deteriorated casing stones found on the pyramids south face. E. Baraize and I ascertained that some of these blocks showed, on their uppermost horizontal surfaces, traces of red paint corresponding to the breaks between the rocks that had been placed directly above them; the coating was clearly thicker and showed fins'.
Like the Chaldean ziggurats and the pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara, the pyramids of Tajjin and Vera Cruz have seven recessed terraces. This must also have been true of the pyramid of Cuicuilco. The strangest thing is that the pyramid of Tajin was completely painted red, like the pyramid of Cheops and Kephren; its 365 steps and red colour indubitably prove that it, like Egypt's great pyramid, was a temple to the sun, its seven terraces, like those of the Chaldean ziggurats, being dedicated to the seven planets. The only English pyramid, Silbury hill also has seven steps.
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