In the heart of the Egyptian desert, on the Giza plateau, the Great Pyramid of Cheopsan unquestionable symbol of the pharaonic civilization and inscribed by traditional Egyptology as a monumental work erected about 4,600 years ago during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu, is at the center of a debate that has transcended university classrooms and ignited the pulse of archaeologists around the world.
The shakeup comes from a preliminary report presented last month by Italian engineer Alberto Doninifrom the University of Bologna, who proposes a radically different dating for the construction of the stone colossus.
According to their work, based on an approach called Relative Erosion Method (REM)wear patterns in the blocks at the base of the pyramid would indicate that this structure could be between 20,000 and 40,000 years older than what had been accepted until now, which would potentially place it in the Stone Age, long before the appearance of complex societies in the Nile Valley.
The Relative Erosion Method starts from a seemingly simple idea. Limestone exposed to the environment wears down over time under the action of rain, wind, sun and other climatic agents. Donini compared the erosion observed on surfaces that were protected by limestone veneer blocks for millennia with those always exposed, measuring differences in wear to infer a time scale of exposure. Their calculations, which average estimates of twelve points around the base, suggest a central date around 22,900 BC, with a “statistical probability” of 68.2% that the monument was erected sometime between approximately 8,900 BC and 36,800 BC
Paradigmatic crisis. While these figures completely challenge scientific consensus, Donini’s proposal has been met with skepticism within the archaeological and Egyptological community. Conventional dating methods, based on historical records, carbon-14 dating of associated organic materials, archaeological contextualization, and vast stratigraphy linking the construction to the Egyptian Fourth Dynasty, firmly place the building in the first half of the third millennium BC.
Donini’s study, even without peer review and in a preliminary format, does not incorporate direct evidence such as texts from the period, work stamps or independent archaeological dating that support the hypothesis of a complex civilization in the Paleolithic capable of erecting monuments of such magnitude. Stone erosion, as critics of the report point out, is a process influenced by innumerable variables: climate changes, intermittent exposure under sand and variation in microenvironments, which make it difficult to establish a constant rate of wear over thousands of years.
The proposal has generated a wave of global media coverage and ignited discussions not only in specialized circles, but also among broad audiences interested in the origins of human civilizations. The hypothesis that Khufu could have reused or renovated an earlier structure, rather than having built it from scratch, refers to decades of alternative speculations about humanity’s remote past, with echoes in ancient theories about lost civilizations or unknown cultures, emerging earlier than was admitted in conventional archaeology.
The current debate is not the first to question firmly established data. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, various marginal proposals, from the hypothesis of water erosion of the Sphinx that some geologists extend to other structures, to astronomical correlations suggested by theories such as that of Orion’s Waist, have attempted to reinterpret the history of the Giza complex with unorthodox approaches.
Empirical evaluation. What distinguishes Donini’s theory is that it does not appeal to mythologies or esoteric correlations, but to an observable physical measurement, although its methodological interpretation remains in question. Although traditional archaeological and epigraphic evidence unequivocally places the construction of the Great Pyramid in the context of the fourth Egyptian dynasty, and there are contemporary records such as Merer’s diary that document logistics and stone shipments to Giza, the new proposal invites us to reconsider how we evaluate the rate of wear and the implications of geomorphological dating applied to megalithic monuments.
Until this line of research is subjected to broader analyses, multidisciplinary evaluations, and rigorous academic scrutiny, the traditional chronology that has withstood decades of debate will continue to be the dominant reference. Yet the very opening of this new dialogue underscores that even the most iconic wonders of human history continue to raise profound questions about our past, the development of complex societies, and the methods by which we reconstruct our time on this planet.
