Lawrence posted:
 "The closest I came was some childhood
drawings of a super-strong building, vaguely Egyptian in style with a
spherical interior, designed to contain the blast from experimental
explosives."

Good thing you didn't try out the design: a sphere won't contain a chick,
much less explosives.  For a short while it was thought that a spherical bank
safe was ideal since dynamite was hard to strap to it, the shape deflected
the blast, and the sphere was intrinsictly strong from without.

They worked for dynamite, but not for its unstable constituant Nitro, a few
drops of which, dribbled thru the door joint, cracked it like an egg.  The
safes were known as "cannonball safes" from their shape. They quickly went
out of favor, and now function well only as historic artifacts in preserved
banks, etc.

Never saw one with an egyption exterior however.

RPA