Although it takes a very long time for the pole to make a whole circle in the sky (almost 26,000 years), even over the time period that humans have had writing, this has made a big difference in what star is seen as the north star. When the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids about 4,000 years ago, they used the stars to make the edges line up with north and south. However, they did not use the same north star that we do because Earth's North Pole pointed at a different star than it does today. 