[pmayrgundter]

I haven't heard this claim about the Pyramids, but there's a debate about the Sphinx.

IIUC the original dating from Egyptologists relied on a comparative chronology with the known dynasties and their symbolism. This was called into doubt by a geologist[1] who noted that the erosion on the sides of the Sphinx excavation pit would have needed much longer to form, esp given that Egypt has been dry for the past 10k years.

So perhaps there is a reevaluation of the origin of the Pyramids as well?

[1]https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~ashworth/webpages/g491/2001pres...

[AlotOfReading]

We have the capability to directly date the stones to determine when these structures were laid down. That's been done for most of the major Egyptian sites and the results agree with traditional archeological analysis.

[pmayrgundter]

Not sure I see this in the wiki page[1]. Citations appreciated!

This seems to be the case for the nearby temples, which are traditionally associated with the Sphinx, but not of the Sphinx itself. The temples were laid down with stone probably quarried from the trenches near the Sphinx. And yes, they've been dated to 2k+ BCE.

But that's where Schoch and Lehner disagree. Schoch says that the stone of the Sphinx is significantly older (noting that it was encased in similar stone to the temples).

What seems to be most significant is that Lehner doesn't treat it as solved from the dating of the stone, but relies on the lack of a sufficiently advanced civilization to explain the much earlier date, and this was enlightened with the discovery of Göbekli.

This is noted elsewhere in sibling comments as well and seems to be where the debate stopped.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesi...

[AlotOfReading]

It's mentioned as luminescence dating on the wiki page.

Honestly, I'm not sure why gobekli tepe gets brought up so much. It's thousands of miles away, in a completely different cultural area, and it's not even the earliest site with similar construction in its area.

[ncmncm]

People did get around.

[ncmncm]

We do not have that ability. We can only ever establish a lower bound on age, and sometimes relative sequence. It is quite easy to confound measurements such that they indicate a younger than actual age, but not older.

Menkaure's pyramid and the Valley Temple come out 500 years older than official numbers, by a nominal reading.