Sneferu ruled Egypt around 2600 BC and, according to Egyptologist Bob Brier, deserves more credit than he gets: he is the pharaoh who worked out how to build a true pyramid, after earlier attempts collapsed or had to be redesigned mid-construction. Brier guides the film through that trial-and-error process, from the failures that forced engineers to change the angle of a pyramid's slope to the finished Red Pyramid at Dahshur, and the film takes the camera inside one of Sneferu's pyramids to show the narrow passages and burial chambers built to hold a king's body for eternity. The focus stays on the practical problems of stacking millions of limestone blocks into a stable shape rather than on Sneferu's reign as a ruler, and Brier reads the false starts as evidence of a working method rather than error. By the time his son Khufu builds at Giza, the techniques on display here are already settled.