Conventional dating puts the Great Sphinx at roughly 4,500 years old, Fourth Dynasty Old Kingdom. This video uses that as a baseline and tests it: pick and chisel marks blur as limestone weathers, and Egypt has been desert for about the last 4,000-4,500 years. Old Kingdom quarries of that age still show crisp tool marks, while the Sphinx enclosure walls are described as rounded and tool-free. The presenter's claim: the walls predate the Old Kingdom. 🗿
Video argues Sphinx enclosure walls eroded beyond Old Kingdom age
EgyptDating
Key facts
- The conventional date given for the Great Sphinx is about 4,500 years, i.e. the Old Kingdom (4th Dynasty), and the video treats this as the baseline to be tested.
- Chisel and pick marks become obscured as limestone weathers; the rate of limestone weathering depends mainly on rainfall amount and the pH of that rainfall, more acidic rain dissolving limestone faster.
- Old Kingdom limestone quarries of the same supposed age as the Sphinx still show clearly distinguishable pick and chisel marks, while the walls of the Sphinx enclosure are described as rounded, undulating and free of visible tool marks.
- Egypt has been a desert for roughly the last 4,000-4,500 years, a low-erosion environment in which water is the main agent of rock weathering.
- The video argues that the enclosure walls must therefore be older than Old Kingdom and that the rounded, fissured profile records sheet floods flowing horizontally over the ground surface; this is the presenter's claim, not an established finding.
- Multiple restoration campaigns have altered parts of the Sphinx, so the presenter argues the surrounding quarry walls, not the monument itself, preserve the best evidence.
- To produce such erosion the video proposes either far more water than the present climate allows, or a much longer span of time than the Old Kingdom.
Sources
Great Sphinx of Gizaen.wikipedia.org
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