A photo of two people seemingly having sex on top of the globally famous Great Pyramid went viral over the weekend, launching both international outrage and an investigation by Egyptian authorities.
The photo, however, is fake.
It was taken by Danish photographer Andreas Hvid, who did scale the Great Pyramid of Giza outside of Cairo, Egypt in November with a model. He took a video of their stunt, blurring out the model’s face. The video ends with the anonymous woman taking off her top. Other photos show the two posing as if they were having sex.
The images and video immediately sparked outrage. People pointed out that not only is the stunt immensely disrespectful—it’s illegal. As Newsweek reports, Egypt’s antiquities minister Khaled al-Anani said scaling the pyramids is “strictly forbidden,” and the images from Hvid were a “violation of public morality.”
Below is the video; the photo in question is here.
The footage is still being investigated for its authenticity, but Hvid admitted the photo of him having sex on the pyramid isn’t real. They were, per the Guardian, just posing.
Why someone would illegally scale a 460-foot, 4,500-year-old national treasure to pretend to have sex is the most puzzling part of the whole ordeal, and Hvid provided little insight on that aside from describing the "euphoric" feeling he had on top of the pyramid. “We did not have sex and we never had it,” he said.
In response to the video and photos on both Instagram and Facebook, locals are asking the government to ban tourists, and people from across the globe expressed rage toward Hvid’s stunt.
The Danish photographer told tabloid Ekstrabladethe’d been dreaming of climbing the giant structure "for many years,” but was saddened by the negative reaction. “I'm sad that so many people have become so angry,” he said, cluelessly. “But I have also received a positive response from a lot of Egyptians—something I think is worth remembering.”
So far, Hvid and the model have not face any consequences for the stunt, as authorities continue to investigate.
