Appreciation post: The Giza plateau feels different when you actually walk it

I went to Egypt last spring and spent a whole day just wandering around the Giza complex. Everyone talks about the pyramids from a distance but up close you notice all these smaller tombs and mastabas that tourists just walk past. There's this ongoing debate in archaeology about whether the Sphinx and the pyramids were built in one continuous phase or if there were big gaps between them. Standing there I could see how the erosion patterns on the Sphinx enclosure wall don't match the pyramid blocks at all. Some researchers say that means the Sphinx is way older than we think, maybe predynastic, while others argue it's just different stone quality. What got me was how the whole layout feels planned but also patched together over centuries. Where do you land on the Sphinx age debate, is it really that much older or are we reading too much into the weathering?

2 comments

2 Comments

wilson.jana10d ago

Sphinx weathering looks too old to be from the same period as the pyramids.

fiona13010d ago

Honestly walked around Giza last year too and noticed the same thing about those smaller tombs. The erosion on the Sphinx enclosure is really different from the pyramid blocks, it stands out like crazy. I'm leaning towards the Sphinx being older, maybe predynastic, because the weathering patterns are too distinct to just be different stone. But I get why some people push back on it, the timeline gets messy if you start moving things around that much.