The most remarkable thing about the ancient Egyptians wasn't their mysticism, or even their technology. It was their bureaucratic skills. They mobilized their entire populations to create these massive public works and monuments (without violence, the Egyptians payed their workers, they didn't use slaves). And they did it without the aid of mechanized energy sources, electronic communications, high speed transport, software, business schools, MBAs, labor unions, lobbyists, banks, credit or money.

People may argue today just how the pyramids were built from an engineering standpoint, but they are missing the big picture. Before even one stone was placed, they had to make arrangements to feed, house and supply thousands of workers with tools, equipment and transport. Not only did they need to administer the building sites themselves, they had to run the quarries were the stone was cut, the building and manning of the ships needed to to haul them, the construction of worker housing, ramps and causeways and harbors, in short, the entire behind-the-scenes infrastructure needed before the work even started.

There must have been an immense hierarchy of executives, managers, and scribes to coordinate thousands of specialists, skilled technicians and artisans, not to mention endless legions of casual laborers and support personnel. It was human organization on a massive scale, and it must have been fairly benign in nature because they did it for thousands of years without any sign of a worker's revolt.

We could not carry out the management end alone today without massive technological aid, moving those big stones was the least of their accomplishments.

And to think it was all done just as a public employment/welfare project, to keep the population busy between planting and harvest times. As a professional bureaucrat myself, I am overcome with admiration for these people. They did it all without PowerPoint.