Archaeologica.org

Morning Min, sad news eh. The pyramids, I believe, were cased in limestone, a somwhat variable material but not exactly durable, Sandstone, which I believe is what most of the Sphinx is of is also fairly soft.
But the argument that that the weathering is from wind blown sand simply won't stand up. Whereas water could erode either material in horizontal or vertical ways I cannot see sand weathering anything in vertical strips, that has to be water!
According to climatoligists the last time Egypt saw that much water was at the end of the last ice age.
I leave you to make your own deductions, the rocks never lie!

It's amazing how many people have spent a whole load of time studying issues such as this. (They need a life!)

http://www.cheops-pyramide.ch/khufu-pyr ... .html#tura

The Tura quarries (or Maasara quarries) lie south of Cairo on the eastern shore of the Nile, about 13-17km from Giza. These quarries yield limestones of a very high quality - white, very fine-grained, not very porous and somewhat harder than the limestone from Giza. Tura limestone can easily be cut and formed but when being exposed to air it hardens after a certain time.

True Min, but hardens does not mean very hard. Much of the erosion on the Spinx is vertical, I acept that may be as a result of fissuring or areas of softer stone, but I'm damned if I can make it as a result of scouring by wind blown sand, that would logically result in horizontal scouring.
Just for once I seem to be supported by others more knowledgable than myself as the opinion of geologists etc is that the erosion was caused by water, and other experts place that at the end of the last ice age.

I agree about the Sphinx, I think Schoch nailed it and caused Zahi Hawass no end of problems by doing so.

The Giza Pyramids still bother me though. Over at Koko's I did a photo array of a bunch of pyramids. I wonder if I can import it to here?

Seems like a worthy project.

Ooh...look at this...I don't have to copy and paste it.

One word of explanation. This thread was supposed to be an actual archaeological discussion between primarily Arch and myself. The hope was that his bible would not interfere in a discussion of the pyramids but, as always with Arch, it didn't quite work out that way. Still, he was able to stay on point for a while.


http://captporridge.com/bb/index.php?to ... 3#msg19073

That all seems logical Min, but unfortunately dates for Egypt are cast in stone in established archaelogical minds.
I liked the TV programme that had Hawass climbing up into the relieving chambers of the Great Pyramid to show us the workers inscriptions that he said proved that Snefru was the builder.
If it had been build much later he would probably have found an inscription that read, Kilroy was here!

LOL. Yeah...one thing about that graffiti was that it refers to Khnum Khufu or "the god Khnum protects us" or something like that.

It's a bit like finding a sign for the Lincoln Tunnel and concluding that Abe Lincoln built it.

It's a bit like finding a sign for the Lincoln Tunnel and concluding that Abe Lincoln built it.

Exactly like that Min.