The Great Pyramid at Giza stands 135.75 m (471 ft) high, a monument to the mind (and shoulders) of man. Today's civilization being what it is, the thought naturally arose to put such an imposing image to work in a television commercial for a British insurance company.

Unfortunately, the Egyptians aren't doing any better with their zoning commissions than the citizens around the Phoenix Mountains-that grand sight of the massive pyramid is marred by encroachment of the houses right up to the base of the Great Pyramids.

What to do? The commercial's producers simply moved the whole shebang to Arizona. The job of creating a replica of the Giza pyramid (in reduced scale) in the sand dunes near Yuma fell to Sunbelt Scenic, where Ron and Bob Keller, Jeff Sears and Ted Swanick did what originally took a cast of thousands in Egypt a few thousand years ago.

This time around, it took 100 gallons of special adhesive, 8,000 square feet of plastic foam, 40 gallons of pyramid-colored paint and aluminum framing. Extra help came from the art and theater departments of Arizona State University. This time, the job was done in less than a week. Of course, after the shoot this pyramid lives only in a 30-second commercial, but that also means nobody has to worry about protecting the zoning around it, either.