A man who wants to build a 50m tall pyramid in Malaysia as a symbol of peace and ecology plans to start with a more modest version in Yorkshire

Steve Ward, a fencing contractor in Leeds, wants to build the pyramids in the way he believes the Egyptians would have constructed theirs 4,500 years ago.

There is a surprising amount of interest in pyramids and some disagreement about how the ancient Egyptians managed to use such large blocks of stone in the construction of them.

Steve Ward’s aim is to show how it could have been done using only methods available to the ancient Egyptians. At the same time he wants worldwide contributions to his project for it to be a symbol of peaceful and ecological collaboration.

It is a project that has caught the imagination of Mark Steele of Arups and pyramid expert Vincent Brown in Australia, among others. Hanson has offered him a site in a disused quarry in Yorkshire to build his UK pyramid and Kevin Mone of stone company Mone Bros has started the ball rolling on stone donations with a 13.5tonne block of Bramley Fall stone from Blackhill Quarry.

Steve wants the pyramids to contain time capsules, and sculptor Simon Tyson has obliged by carving a hefty vessel in Tadcaster, a stone used on York Minster, that looks suitably like something from Indiana Jones.

You can find out more about the pyramid project at www.earthpyramid.org.