The funerary monument is located in the Cairngorms National Park

The enigmatic pyramid built on top of a hill in the heart of Scotland

When one thinks of pyramids, the normal thing is that relations with countries with Ancient Egypt or with the cultures of pre-Columbian Latin America.

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One of the places where you least expect to find one on top of a hill and in the middle of a forest in the depths of Scotland. You can see it in the Aberdeenshire region, in the northeast of Scotland

The Balmoral pyramid seen from the forest surrounds it (Photo: Rab Lawrence).

This pyramid stands on the vast estate of Balmoral Castle, a private residence of the British royal family built in the 14th century, and is part of the Cairngorms National Park, the largest nature park in the UK. The pyramid can be visited by stopping the car next to the car park next to Crathie Tourist Information Centre on the A93 road through the town of Ballater. It is reached after a 30-minute walk south.

The Balmoral Pyramid seen from the south. It has no access (Photo: Rab Lawrence).

No pharaoh of Egypt went to Scotland to build a tomb in a cooler place than the North African country. The enigma of this pyramid is solved by seeing the inscription on its southwestern face The tombstone is dated August 21, 1862, and reads as follows: "To the beloved memory of Albert, the great and good Prince Consort, erected by his broken hearted widow, Victoria R."

The memorial stone for Prince Albert on the southwestern face of the Balmoral Pyramid (Photo: Rab Lawrence).

The Victoria who signs the tombstone is none other than Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (1819-1901) , who ordered the construction of this pyramid in honor of her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, after his death on December 14, 1861. The choice of this shape for a funerary monument in Scotland is undoubtedly due to the Egyptomania that swept through the United Kingdom during the time Victorian culture, manifesting itself in areas such as tourism, decoration and also architecture, and of course in a boom in archeology related to that ancient civilization.

Another of the burial mounds of the Balmoral Castle estate (Photo: Rab Lawrence).

The curious Balmoral pyramid is not the only monument on the castle grounds. There are a total of 11 burial mounds in the area, and not just burial mounds. Several of them were built to commemorate weddings of members of the British royal family, and the two most recent, erected in 2012 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne. Most of the mounds have a typically Celtic appearance and are smaller in size. The Balmoral Pyramid is the only one of these burial mounds that has this shape, and also the largest one, with a height of about 12 meters.

About the Balmoral pyramid there are various legends, such as the one that states that there are secret tunnels under it. It does not seem very likely that this is the case, and perhaps those stories are due to a simple analogy with the Egyptian pyramids, but stranger things have been seen...

You can see here a video of Exploring with Fighters with excellent shots of Balmoral Pyramid filmed from a drone:

Dan Munro published this interesting video that takes a tour of the burial mounds in the area, and also showing a monument there to British fallen in the First World War (a monument decorated with swastikas, which at that time was only a symbol of good luck used by aviators from various countries):

In case one day you want to go there, here is the location of the pyramid on Google Maps:

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Main image: Exploring with Fighters.

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