I've heard that Cleopatra lived closer to now then the times when the pyramids were built,mso would you have known how they were built? Do any current Egyptians claimed the skill was passed down through their family? I realize that I wouldn't know how to build a skyscraper if transported in time, so was it something like common people not knowing how to build it, that led to the exact "how they were built" being lost?
Cross posted from ELI5.
You're right on with the skyscraper comment. When people say we don't know how they built the pyramids, it's not because we're dumbfounded as to how they did it. It's not a free response question we're staring at blankly, it's a multiple choice question with three possible responses and research supporting each.
There's no secret about it- it's just something people stopped doing, so no one needed to know the exact construction method. Pyramids went out of style ~2400 BC, though there was bit of a revival 400 years after that. The underground tombs, such as those in the Valley of the Kings, were secluded and more protected.
The skills required to build the pyramids were not lost, it is just that pyramids fell out of favour. Pyramids were basically giant "Please Rob Me" signs, somewhat counterproductive to the idea of a burial chamber stocked with the things the king would need for the afterlife. Thus the transition to the Valley of the Kings and hidden tombs, which were hoped to be less easily plundered. Obviously, that was not much more effective, but we would have never found the tomb of Tutankhamun undisturbed had he been buried in a pyramid.
So your question is more akin to "does anyone in modern England have a family heritage for the skill of building stone castles?" Both stopped being constructed for practical reasons, not because the skill suddenly disappeared.