Pyramids in tarot
The pyramids of Egypt stood for ancient wisdom and the distant East in the nineteenth century, when esoteric writers often traced the tarot itself, wrongly, to Egypt. Smith places three pyramids on the sandy horizon behind the Page and the Knight of Wands, and smaller ones appear behind the Queen's throne, and Waite mentions pyramids when describing the Knight. They give the Wands court a hot, dry, far-off setting that suits the suit's element of fire. Readers take them as travel, adventure, foreign places and enduring ambition, and sometimes as a reminder that bold beginnings aim at something that lasts.
Cards that show pyramids
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Page of Wands
Page of Wands: The pyramids
Three pointed pyramids stand behind him in the sandy distance. Waite, describing the Knight in the same scene, called them mounds or pyramids. They suggest far-off, ancient places: horizons the young messenger has not yet reached.
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Knight of Wands
Knight of Wands: The pyramids
Three pyramids stand in the sandy distance. Waite describes him passing mounds or pyramids: far horizons, travel, the lure of places a long way from home.