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by dmos62 28 days ago
The pyramids aren't actually datable, because it's rock. Maybe if you were to find something with carbon that's provably from the time of construction, that could be used, but I don't think that happened. The popular datings for the older pyramids are educated guesses.

Edit: the Sphynx dating is even more controversial, because it seems to have rain erosion on it.

5 comments

Within the rock construction are wood beams, mortar and charcoal that are all datable.
I stand corrected.
There's also optically stimulated luminescence which can tell you when a rock was buried! I don't know that it's ever been used on a pyramid, but it exists.
> aren't actually datable, because it's rock

To add to the methods shared by others, one way I think is really cool is optically stimulated luminescence.

  So, a grain of quartz destined someday to become the perfect OSL sample will 
  begin its journey by emptying its electron traps. This typically happens 
  through steady sunlight exposure, in a process called bleaching. Bleaching 
  resets the OSL clock. In this example scenario, the grain is fully bleached 
  by the sun as the wind blows it across the landscape, until it finally 
  settles and additional wind-blown material buries it.
  
  Once it is cut off from light, the OSL clock begins running. The sediment now 
  surrounding the quartz will include tiny amounts of radioactive isotopes, 
  exposing the quartz to a steady flow of ionizing radiation. The quartz 
  captures electrons from this radiation; the radiation flow is called the dose 
  rate. This is like the steady ticking of a clock. The quartz begins trapping 
  electrons, and because it is cut off from light, the trapped electrons will 
  continue building up at a fairly steady, measurable rate.
https://desert.com/osl/
The construction work camps for the pyramids have been dug. There is also wood, an organic matter in the Kings chamber and mortar inside the pyramid, which can be dated.
To the degree that is a scientific argument, the scientific research and scholarship underpinning it is a subset of the scientific research and scholarship underpinning the dates the contemporary Egyptology community ascribes to the pyramids.

Egyptologists can access science and have access to cultural artifacts and those artifacts include writing and that writing can be read and what can be read includes dates.

Thanks for the explanation.
Carbon ain't the only substance that's datable.