I'm now in Mexico and have some people telling me that to this day, the technology to build the pyramids is not known. Also, some of the ancient writings and drawing appear to show things such as airplanes and helicopters, so therefore that is proof of ancient alien visitation.
My guess is slave labor explains much of the way that the pyramids and other huge buildings were built, but perhaps they had advanced (non-alien) construction methods as well. Thank you.
The production of the Aztec pyramids was explained in an earlier post by u/Mictlantecuhtli , but included extensive labor which was a testament to the control of labor that nobility had over the working class. Labor, Aztec Pyramids
There are articles about the Egyptian pyramids on the Bad Ancient website that you may find useful, especially because -- at least for the Egyptian side of things -- these massive monuments were built without the use of slave labour:
Both of these articles have suggestions for further reading (the first was co-written by me). With regards to the first question, on whether slaves built the pyramids:
Did the ancient Egyptians use slave labour in their building projects, including the pyramids? The short answer is no. The workforce consisted of a nucleus of specialized and skilled builders and craftsmen, permanently employed by the king, while the rest consisted of conscripted peasants. Many of them lived in villages that sprung up in the shadow of these massive structures. The village inhabitants consisted of the workers and their families and dependents.
The use of hired labourers and conscription is fairly standard for the kingdoms of the Bronze Age. It's worth noting that while slaves did exist in the Bronze Age, their numbers were far fewer -- and their status often more complicated -- than what most people are more familiar with from classical Greece and Rome. Those later societies were built on the blood, sweat, and tears of slave labour; this is not the case for the Bronze Age kingdoms.
Likewise, we have, contrary to popular opinion, a pretty good idea about how the Egyptians built their pyramids. An illuminating passage from the second article:
Moreover, adjustments made during the construction of pyramids can still be seen in some cases, where the inclination of the slope was slightly modified to be corrected on its way to the top. There are also pyramids that were abandoned during construction, such as the so-called Unfinished Northern Pyramid of Zawyet El Aryan perhaps because of problems that arose while they were being built and which could not be fixed. Such mistakes demonstrate how pyramids are very clearly the products of human hands.
If you're interested in only a single book on the topic, you should check out Mark Lehner's The Complete Pyramids (1997).