@Gerry,

We all know that people who think the world is 6,000 years old are nuts. But, you don't have to over-compensate by making everything 10,000 years older than they really are. You're just as bad, but in the other direction.

@Jamie: you are right so it is written in the English written Wikipedia but there are missing the alternative theses which we have in the German written Wikipedia.

@ abgemacht: I do not tell any stories, I have read a lot of books and I was there also(in Gizeh). I hope you do not change the sphinx with the pyramids, the pyramids are much younger as the sphinx. The pyramids are only 4500 years old, that is right.

Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me for not checking all the alternate language versions of Wikipedia. I've done that now.

French Wikipedia says the Sphinx was built in about 2500 BC
Italian Wikipedia says the Sphinx was built in around 2500 BC
Esperanto Vikipedio doesn't appear sure when Granda sfinkso en Gizo was built.
The Dutch Wikipedia discusses the possibility of the Sphinx being 10,000 years old (not 12,000) but goes on to conclude that it was in fact built in 2448 BC, which seems a bit specific but never mind...

Never mind that is not the problem, we are in a discussion ,
10500 B.C. The sphinx was build , this is my info and I believe it because at this time the sphinx is standing face to face with the star Al Nikat, so 10500 and now we have 2013 is in addition about 12500 and from where are the erosions damage on the sphinx? This damages could not happened in the last 4500 years?
Anyway we will not solve this problem now and I respect your opinion and I hope you allowed an other opinion also.

@gerry, its not about opinion, its about science. There is no science involved in superimposing a star map on the pyramids and supposing it's modeled after Orion and then asking "but what can the sphinx be looking at?" And having to find something that predated the rest by 8000 years, and rather than saying your star map theory was incorrect, you claim that it must be correct, then fitting the sphinx's age to fit your theory.

That's psuedoscience, not science. insisting that your theory is correct, regardless of the data, and making shit up for the data that doesn't fit. That's what creationists and Global Warming alarmists do.

Archaeology is a real science using accepted dating methods. They're the ones who came up with the age. And the most significant "erosion" done to the Sphinx was when Napoleon blew its damn nose off in the first few years of the 19th century! What a Fucking French douchebag he was for that!

Philcore, I was with you right up until you veered into weird AGW denialism.

@mendax, I take every opportunity I can to compare AGW with creationism. To me they're the same. They start with a conclusion that cannot be questioned, and use hand-waving arguments to explain why the data doesn't fit the predictions.

Currently politics holds a grip on AGW, but you'll see that science will out in the end. Lucky for us, the doomsday predictions were on a timetable that we can observe in our lifetimes.

At least the creationists can't hide or manipulate results that disagree with them. Nor do they need to. To them it boils down to faith, which science can't destroy. But a Cap and trade scheme worth billions to the likes of Al Gore, well I'd real science threatens that, then it can be subdued ... For a while, at least. But if the earth doesn't warm according to their models, then it won't be long before everyone knows that not only were their models wrong, the underlying premise that one of the 2 life-sustaining gases in the atmosphere is the root of all evil, just because in addition to being created by living things breathing, it also happens to be a byproduct of evil combustion.

Here's the link again, Gerry. I encourage you to read it.

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/how-old-is-the-sphinx-colin-reader-vs-robert-schoch/

@ Invictus: thank you for the link.

"And the most significant "erosion" done to the Sphinx was when Napoleon blew its damn nose off in the first few years of the 19th century! What a Fucking French douchebag he was for that! "

Nope. Not Napoleon at all...

From http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=102;t=000612;p=0

Jason Threadslayer quotes:

In National Geographic, April 1991, page 36, Mark Lehner, an archaeologist from Chicago's Oriental Institute who created a computer reconstruction of the Sphinx, writes: "I sought clues from history and archaeology for the computer reconstruction of the Sphinx. An early 15th-century Arab historian reported that the face had been disfigured in his time. Yet to this day the damage is wrongly attributed to Napoleon's troops." Again, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 2001. Vol. 1, p. 30) also states of the perpetrator of the missing nose, "This accusation is most often leveled at Napoleon Bonaparte, who is said to have shot the nose off the Sphinx -a claim that is manifestly incorrect, not only because earlier western representations of the Sphinx depict it with its nose missing (for example, the drawing published in 1755 by Frederick Norden) but also because medieval Arabic texts attribute the damage to a Muslim fanatic in the fourteenth century CE."

I am speaking from the pluvial erosion , not from any damage from any destroyer.

I know what you are speaking of Gerry, and the article from Invictus is quite excellent and explains why the water erosion is only found on one of the walls and not the others nor the Sphinx itself.

I was just debunking the myth about Napoleon's troops blowing off the nose.

I forgot to say +1 Invictus. Excellent link to that article. I fully enjoyed reading about the history, including the fact that it actually may have had a Lions head that got recarved later.

" I take every opportunity I can to compare AGW with creationism.
To me they're the same. "

Well you're half right, in that one is propoganda designed to further political goals; and the other is science which has been assaulted by propoganda designed to further political goals...

@draug, apparently I've always bought into the Napoleon story without ever researching it. Thanks for setting me straight on that one :-)

I just watched a documentary on Netflix called "Mystery of the Sphinx". It was made in 1993 and is almost all science. In the 90 minute program there was only about 5 minutes of nonsense about the face on Mars, Atlantis, the great flood of the bible and Edward Casey. The rest was Geology and Archaeology. Not a single mention of Orion, or ancient aliens. Quite informative actually, and it presented a strong case for the sphinx being much older than 4500 years.

I'll have to do a little research on what has happened with the theory over the last 20 years.

@ortho, I agree that the people doing research on AGW are scientists, but when scientific methods are used for the purpose of furthering a political agenda, rather than actually trying to get at the truth of the subject, it is no longer science. Science is about discovering the truth, regardless of whether or not it agrees with your original theory, your political views or whether or not it might reduce your funding or even send you to prison as a heretic.

AGW starts with a premise, that humans releasing CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fosil fuels is going to cause catastrophic warming via a positive feedback loop. Either your science agrees with that premise, or you are a "denier" (heretic). That's not science.

It looks like Gerry is the new Sbyvl, everyone!

"In the 90 minute program there was only about 5 minutes of nonsense about the face on Mars, Atlantis, the great flood of the bible and Edward Casey. The rest was Geology and Archaeology."

I've never seen the movie, but if ANY time was spent on the Face on Mars, Atlantis, the Flood, or Edgar Casey then the whole film is probably pseudo-scientific garbage.

'...but when scientific methods are used for the purpose of furthering a political agenda, rather than actually trying to get at the truth of the subject, it is no longer science.'

And that is the lie and propaganda which has been created by some very specific groups in the US. Those groups haven't spread the message in europe so we generally have a very different view.

AGW is a theory, it is based on evidence, not starting with a premise. The vested interest and money exited to disagree with the science - the other way around is to claim that some political group, for unknown reasons, tried to create a theory (and scientific consensus) in the hope that it would somehow pay off.

This is pure conspiracy theory stuff. But paid for by 'fossil fuel' enthusiast who had very good reasons (well, good as in reasonable, rather than moral)

*existed to disagree with the science

It's not conspiracy theory to say the predictions they made based in computer models - not evidence - were incorrect. And that they hid the evidence that showed them to be incorrect, then changed the name of their theory to "Climate Change" then said oh well now we understand the fault in the models, here's a redo that now matches the interim data, but CO2 is still the villain, and we are still doomed.

This is not conspiracy theory, this is the last 5 years of news articles relating to AGW.

It no longer matters that people still think it's heresy to question it, because as I said earlier, the predictions made were near-term and we are seeing them proven incorrect year by year. Now their choice is to revise their premise, or continue the hand waving.

@invictus, I'm as skeptical as anyone, and as pure to scientific reasoning as anyone, and I fully expected it to be garbage. But I was impressed at the Geology argument especially. Give it a chance if you have Netflix, rather than dismissing it outright because of the 5 minutes of garbage I mentioned.

"the other way around is to claim that some political group, for unknown reasons, tried to create a theory (and scientific consensus) in the hope that it would somehow pay off."

Wrong again... The other way around is that some political group saw a fringe theory they could make money on or use to get in power and decided to *promote* it and that is what the liberals did.

"I'm as skeptical as anyone, and as pure to scientific reasoning as anyone, and I fully expected it to be garbage. But I was impressed at the Geology argument especially. Give it a chance if you have Netflix, rather than dismissing it outright because of the 5 minutes of garbage I mentioned."

I'm still a week or so away from getting Netflix. Rough move-in. Was the scientist making the claims Robert Schoch by any chance? Because he's the one whose argument about water erosion my link rips apart. As far as I know, he's the ur-source for all the scientific backing of the hypothesis.

It was him. I admit I haven't checked your link yet. I will do that though. But I'm just saying there was nothing new age or mystical about his geological explanation. He even said at the end of the show (paraphrasing) "look I don't don't know who built it, I'm not saying it was Martians or Atlantans or anything else, just dating the geology says its older than it has been purported to be"

But I'll check out your link as a follow up. Like I said the movie is 20 years old.

That's the thing about pseudoscience. It often takes a fair amount of research to find out what's wrong with it and why. Believing something like this is nothing to be ashamed of. Holding on to the belief in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary, the the other hand, is. This guy is especially hard because he seems to be a perfectly legitimate scientist who is wrong but honestly wrong. However, his hypothesis is sexy to New Agers and anybody interested in Ancient Egypt (so everyone) and that's why this widely rejected idea keeps percolating.

After reading your link, it's clear that enough people took shochs theory seriously. I also don't think they "destroyed" it so much as put their own interpretation on it and proposed alternate explanations. But they seem to agree with him that it was not made by the pharoh to whom it has been traditionally credited.

Check out the movie for yourself when you get Netflix. At least you'll understand what this site is trying to counter. But the fact that is is a site debunking ancient aliens is a little misleading, as those nutjobs were only using shochs prior research to further their nonsense. Shoch was doing real science, whether his conclusions prove to be right or wrong. He got the scientific community researching something that had previously been "settled". So good for him.