Is the world's oldest pyramid in Kazakhstan?

This week, some Western media outlets went giddy with excitement about the prospect of a pyramid being found in Kazakhstan that is older than the Egyptian ones.

"World's first pyramid... in KAZAKHSTAN," exclaimed the headline of London's Daily Mail on the new find.

"Archaeologists Discover Ancient Pyramid In Kazakhstan OLDER Than Egyptian Structures," read Yahoo News' headline.

The story that had caused this buzz was started when Karaganda State University archaeologist Viktor Novozhenov spoke to writer Live Science's Owen Jarus about the excavation of an ancient mausoleum in Khazakhstan.

According to the interview, the structure is roughly two meters tall and around 15 by 14 meters long. 

The archaeologist added that the structure is "made from stone, earth and fortified by slabs in the outer side".

Although the precise date of the "pyramid's" construction is unknown, Novozhenov said that it was likely built during the late Bronze Age.

If this estimate is correct, it would make the structure around 3,000 years old - still 1,000 years after the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser in Egypt's Saqqara Necropolis.

So even in Novozhenov's own estimations the construction being unearthed in Kazakhstan is not the world's oldest.

With five walls that get progressively higher, the Kazakh pyramid is not too far off in its design from the Pyramid of Djoser - which is considerably larger in size.

According to Novozhenov, the Kazakh mausoleum was robbed by looters. Prior to this, it would have held the remains of important clan leaders, not pharohs as some media outlets claimed.

Thus, while the discovery and work of Novozhenov and his colleagues is fascinating in its own right, the mausoleum in Kazakhstan is nothing to send Egyptians into a panic about.