The True Story Behind the Secret Pyramid on King Charles's Balmoral Estate

• We often think of pyramids as the stuff of Ancient Egypt, but the structures actually can be found throughout the world.

• There are 11 such structures on now-King Charles's Balmoral Estate in Scotland, which was handed down from Queen Victoria.

• One of the 11 "cairns" is a memorial to Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, who originally purchased the property as a gift to her.

Whenever the subject of pyramids arises (you know how you're always talking with your friends about pyramids, right?), it's understandable that one's mind jumps to Egypt. But pyramids have sprung up all across the globe over the centuries and millennia. Sometimes called ziggurats or cairns, depending on the specific region, culture, and design style, these structures can be found in Mexico, Guatemala, Sudan, Iraq, and even the U.S. and U.K.

Yes, that's right. There are pyramids in the U.K., and they're the property of the Royal Family, no less. And believe it or not, this one time, the Royal Family claiming ownership of something with ties to other cultures is not the product of brutal and wanton imperialism.

At least, not directly so, in that "museum full of stolen artifacts" way. Probably more in the "Well, that's how they got the money to pay for it" way. But let's not think about that now. Honestly, this story's enough of a bummer without factoring that in.

So how exactly did pyramids wind up on the Royal Family's famed Scottish property, the Balmoral estate? To explain that, we first need to talk about how the Royals came into possession of Balmoral.

LADBible looked into the origin, and as it turns out, it all starts with Prince Albert. The Royal, not the tobacco brand. Or whatever else you're thinking about.

As they put it regarding the purchase of Balmoral, "Prince Albert adorably bought the 50,000-acre estate as a gift for his beloved wife Queen Victoria in 1852." You know, adorable if you don't think about where the money to buy that property came from (alright, last time we brought that up, we promise).

On the property are 11 cairns, the Gaelic term for pyramid-like structures. Most were built "to commemorate the marriages of Queen Victoria's and Prince Albert's nine children."

But the largest of these cairns, Prince Albert's Cairn, was erected in 1862 to commemorate a far sadder milestone. In 1861, Prince Albert died at the age of only 42. At the time, his cause of death was determined to be typhoid fever, though modern scholars debate that determination.

Queen Victoria commanded that a 41-foot by 41-foot cairn be erected to honor her late husband and had it inscribed with the following:

Meanwhile, here in the United States, we have a pyramid that houses a Bass Pro Shop, So... there's that.

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