4,600 Years Old or Much Older: What Does the Rock Say?

Less than 700 years ago those casing stones were still on the Great Pyramid. Think about what that means. If you were crossing the desert in the 1300s and you looked out toward Giza, what you would have seen was not the stepped, weathered structure that tourists photograph today. You would have seen a smooth, seamless white surface, enormous, rising out of the sand like something that had no business being there. That is gone now, stripped away, and what was exposed underneath is where things get interesting.

The conventional dating puts construction somewhere between 4,500 and 4,600 years ago, Old Kingdom Egypt, and that has been the accepted position for a long time. But the erosion patterns on those now-exposed inner stones are raising some uncomfortable questions about whether that date holds up. Erosion takes time, and the character of what you see on those surfaces is difficult to square with a 4,500 year timeline. It is the same question that has been asked about the Sphinx enclosure, and the methodology is identical. You go to the geology, you look at what the rock is actually telling you, and you ask whether the standard historical account is consistent with what you are seeing. In this case, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting the answer to that question is no.