A retired geology prof at a diner in Flagstaff told me the Giza pyramids might be way older than we think

I was eating breakfast last month and this older guy saw my National Geographic hat. He sat down and started talking about water erosion on the Sphinx enclosure. Said the rain patterns that caused that haven't existed in Egypt since like 5000 BC. He showed me photos on his phone. I always figured the mainstream timeline was solid but now I'm not so sure. Has anyone looked into this seriously or is it all pseudoscience?

3 comments

3 Comments

casey3931mo ago

Heard pretty much the same thing from a guy in Tucson who used to work for a survey company... he said the alignment of the pyramids to Orion's belt doesn't match up with the dates they give us either. He had this whole chart showing how the stars moved over thousands of years and it lined up way earlier, like 10,000 BC or something. Made me wonder how much we really know about ancient civilizations.

vera_lewis1mo ago

lol @casey393 that's exactly the kind of rabbit hole I fall into at 2am when I can't sleep. I looked up the Orion correlation thing once and my brain basically melted trying to figure out precession of the equinoxes. I'm pretty sure I still couldn't explain it to save my life. The 10,000 BC date is wild though, like imagine trying to build a pyramid with just ropes and a lot of really confused volunteers?

victor_carr253d ago

Yeah that Orion thing gets thrown around a lot but there's actually a pretty big problem with it. The pyramids were built over a long time and the stars move really slowly so it's not like you can just pick one date and say that's when they were aligned. The Orion correlation theory was popularized by this author named Robert Bauval in the 90s but most archaeologists don't buy it because the alignment isn't as perfect as people make it sound. Like if you look at the actual measurements the pyramids don't line up with the belt stars in any super precise way. The water erosion thing is more credible though thats a real debate that's been going on for decades. Some geologists like Robert Schoch have argued for it but then other geologists say the erosion could be from wind or salt or just natural weathering over time. It's one of those things where the science isn't settled and theres good arguments on both sides.