{"it":{"id":"KHA-VT","kind":"site","sub":"Egypt and Nubia","name":"Valley Temple of Khafre","place":"Egypt","lat":29.975,"lon":31.138,"date":"see parent site","mat":"limestone core, Aswan granite casing","nfacts":39,"tags":["Egypt","Temples"],"sum":"The Valley Temple of Khafre at Giza is built of limestone blocks weighing more than 100 tonnes each, faced with smooth red granite brought some 800 km down the Nile from Aswan.","why":"Hundred-ton blocks from the Sphinx's own quarry, and a geologist who thinks they are older than Khafre.","src":[256],"nsrc":13,"yt":"Schoch reads rain in the weathering; Schneiker reads groundwater. What test could settle it?","rel":["GIZ-G2","EGY-006"],"hook":"Some blocks in Khafre's Valley Temple weigh up to 100 tons. Their age is still in dispute."},"S":{"256":["Wikipedia: Pyramid of Khafre","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre"]},"rec":{"id":"KHA-VT","alias":[],"ms":[{"f":"Khafre Valley Temple core blocks","a":"mass (largest, est.)","v":">200 (claimed)","u":"t","o":"","unc":"","by":"ancient-tides blog (secondary)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"ancient-tides blog (secondary)","pg":"","url":"http://ancient-tides.blogspot.com/2008/08/ancient-mystery-valley-temples.html","b":"S","bb":"secondary blog","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"dims 30x12x10 ft or 18x10x8 ft stated; NOT confirmed by AERA in this wave","id":"M2690"},{"f":"Khafre Valley Temple","a":"materials","v":"local limestone core cased in Aswan granite","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"AERA","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"AERA","pg":"","url":"https://aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/AG_18_1.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2691"},{"f":"exterior blocks","a":"mass (some blocks)","v":">100","u":"t","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"Wikipedia (Khafre); single-source estimate","id":"M2942"},{"f":"walls","a":"sheathing","v":"red granite over megalithic limestone","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2943"},{"f":"T-shaped hall pillars","a":"material","v":"solid granite (square pillars)","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2944"},{"f":"floor","a":"material","v":"alabaster (Egyptian calcite)","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2945"},{"f":"pillared hall","a":"statue sockets in floor","v":"23","u":"count","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2946"},{"f":"entrances","a":"doors into vestibule","v":"2","u":"count","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2947"},{"f":"causeway to mortuary temple","a":"length","v":"494.6","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2948"},{"f":"granite casing elements","a":"mass (estimate)","v":"100-150","u":"t","o":"","unc":"","by":"wowegypttours (tour site)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"wowegypttours (tour site)","pg":"","url":"https://www.wowegypttours.com/guide/cairo-attractions/valley-temple-of-khafre","b":"S","bb":"low-quality source","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"DISAGREES with >200 t core claim","id":"M2949"},{"f":"granite casing elements","a":"length (estimate)","v":"up to 5-6","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"wowegypttours (tour site)","yr":"","m":"as stated","c":"wowegypttours (tour site)","pg":"","url":"https://www.wowegypttours.com/guide/cairo-attractions/valley-temple-of-khafre","b":"S","bb":"low-quality source","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2950"},{"f":"granite","a":"quarry source","v":"Aswan","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Klemm & Klemm","yr":"2001","m":"as stated","c":"Klemm & Klemm","pg":"","url":"http://gizamedia.rc.fas.harvard.edu/documents/klemm-klemm_stones_gizeh.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"granite = interior lining over limestone core","id":"M2951"},{"f":"site point","a":"elevation (DEM SRTM 30 m)","v":"21","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"NASA SRTM via OpenTopoData","yr":"2026","m":"as stated","c":"NASA SRTM via OpenTopoData","pg":"","url":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/srtm30m","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3037"},{"f":"site point","a":"elevation (DEM ASTER 30 m)","v":"18","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"NASA/METI ASTER GDEM via OpenTopoData","yr":"2026","m":"as stated","c":"NASA/METI ASTER GDEM via OpenTopoData","pg":"","url":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/aster30m","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3038"},{"f":"temple","a":"plan dims","v":"44.6 x 44.5","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Encyclopedia.com (secondary)","yr":"2001","m":"as stated","c":"Encyclopedia.com (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/fourth-dynasty-architecture-and-history","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3118"},{"f":"temple","a":"artifacts found","v":"23 Khafre statues incl. Horus-falcon diorite statue (Cairo)","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Encyclopedia.com (secondary)","yr":"2001","m":"as stated","c":"Encyclopedia.com (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/fourth-dynasty-architecture-and-history","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"Mariette 1860","id":"M3119"},{"f":"canal dock","a":"excavation history","v":"dock of canal excavated by Hawass 1995","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Encyclopedia.com (secondary)","yr":"2001","m":"as stated","c":"Encyclopedia.com (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/fourth-dynasty-architecture-and-history","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3120"},{"f":"causeway","a":"length along incline (Hölscher)","v":"494.60","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","yr":"2021","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"horizontal 492.47 m","id":"M3121"},{"f":"causeway","a":"incline (Hölscher)","v":"5°17′","u":"deg","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","yr":"2021","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3122"},{"f":"causeway","a":"vertical fall (Hölscher)","v":"45.80","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","yr":"2021","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3123"},{"f":"pillared hall","a":"floor below pyramid-temple threshold (Hölscher)","v":"49.605","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","yr":"2021","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3124"},{"f":"causeway wall","a":"wall base thickness (Hölscher)","v":"3.13","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","yr":"2021","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"outer face sloped (batter), inner vertical","id":"M3125"},{"f":"ramp","a":"ramp width (Petrie)","v":"1.73-1.79","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","yr":"2021","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"68.1/68.7/70.5 in","id":"M3126"},{"f":"temple","a":"excavation history","v":"Mariette 1853 (cleared to 1880); Petrie 1880s; Hölscher 1910 east face","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","yr":"2021","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","pg":"","url":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3127"},{"f":"temple","a":"height","v":"12","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"ISIDA project (independent researchers)","yr":"2012","m":"as stated","c":"ISIDA project (independent researchers)","pg":"","url":"https://isida-project.ucoz.com/egypt_2012/giza_granit.htm","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3128"},{"f":"main hall","a":"pillar count","v":"16 granite pillars","u":"count","o":"","unc":"","by":"ISIDA project (independent researchers)","yr":"2012","m":"as stated","c":"ISIDA project (independent researchers)","pg":"","url":"https://isida-project.ucoz.com/egypt_2012/giza_granit.htm","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3129"},{"f":"interior walls","a":"inclination (tour measurement)","v":"89 (walls) / 90 (columns)","u":"deg","o":"","unc":"","by":"ISIDA project (independent researchers)","yr":"2012","m":"as stated","c":"ISIDA project (independent researchers)","pg":"","url":"https://isida-project.ucoz.com/egypt_2012/giza_granit.htm","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"hand measurement, method not stated","id":"M3130"},{"f":"bore cores (Hölscher pl. XIV)","a":"rock types sampled","v":"basalt; amphibolite (6); rose granite; diorite; red-brown sandstone","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912 plate captions (Egyptian Dawn translation)","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912 plate captions (Egyptian Dawn translation)","pg":"","url":"http://www.egyptiandawn.com/downloads/holscher_plate_captions.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"plate caption","id":"M3131"},{"f":"Torbau (valley temple)","a":"length","v":"45","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"\"45 m ist er lang\"","id":"M3205"},{"f":"Torbau","a":"height","v":"~13 (12.5-13)","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"24-25 cubits","id":"M3206"},{"f":"Torbau facade","a":"wall batter (Böschung)","v":"1:7 (1 palm per cubit) = ~82","u":"deg","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"\"läßt sich ganz genau messen\"","id":"M3207"},{"f":"Torbau core masonry","a":"largest block volume (east front)","v":"~60","u":"m3","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"Nummulitic limestone core blocks","id":"M3208"},{"f":"Torbau core masonry","a":"block mass (Hölscher estimate)","v":"~150000","u":"kg","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"volume x density, Hölscher's own estimate","id":"M3209"},{"f":"Torbau pillared hall","a":"architrave clamps","v":"copper dovetail clamps, ~20-25 kg each","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"clamp sockets later hacked out to get the copper","id":"M3210"},{"f":"Torbau entrances","a":"door bolt fittings","v":"copper bolts in drilled holes, 83 cm spacing","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3211"},{"f":"terrace","a":"ramp incline","v":"1-3","u":"deg","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"two shallow ramps on portal axes","id":"M3212"},{"f":"terrace","a":"width","v":"8","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"rock-cut terrace","id":"M3213"},{"f":"bore cores (pl. XIV)","a":"tool marks: tubular drill","v":"copper tube drill + loose abrasive; tapered cores & funnel holes; in alabaster, sandstone, granite, basalt, amphibolite","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","yr":"1912","m":"as stated","c":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","pg":"","url":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"Hölscher infers loose powder, not fixed gem bits","id":"M3214"},{"f":"W21L Dunn 2010","a":"Valley Temple diorite block accuracy","v":"\"duplicates\" Khafre coffer accuracy (no number)","u":"qualitative","o":"","unc":"not quantified","by":"Christopher Dunn","yr":"not stated","m":"not stated [Dunn 2010 p.154; quote W21LQ022]","c":"W21LS01; Dunn, Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt","pg":"Dunn 2010 p.154","url":"file:books/upload5.pdf","b":"S","bb":"advocate single source (Dunn 2010); as stated","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"staging W21LM022; advocate source (Dunn 2010)","id":"M3970"}],"lab":[],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[{"a":"orientation","r":"no published azimuth reached"},{"a":"corner_precision","r":"no published precision survey in free sources"},{"a":"levelness","r":"no published levelling survey in free sources"},{"a":"geochem_petro","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"mortar","r":"dry-stone construction or no binder analysis in free sources"},{"a":"dating","r":"no absolute date extracted"},{"a":"construction_phases","r":"no phase sequence in sources opened"},{"a":"lab_date_material","r":"no lab date with dated material in sources opened"},{"a":"hydrology_acoustics","r":"no published hydrology/acoustic measurement in sources opened"},{"a":"magnetic_radiation","r":"no published magnetic/radiation survey found (searched site name + magnetometry/radiation; Wikipedia, Google Scholar snippets)"}],"dat":[],"aa":[{"id":"AA043","a":">200 t multi-angle granite-cased blocks","who":"see anomaly_claims","main":"4th Dyn limestone core with Aswan granite lining","ms":"","st":"unresolved","n":">100 t (Wikipedia) vs >200 t (claim) vs 100-150 t (tour); no survey mass","nl":8}],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[{"id":"W21LQ022","th":"Valley Temple diorite block accuracy","loc":"Dunn 2010, p.154 (pdf 198)","q":"a single diorite block in the south eastern wall of the Valley Temple duplicates the accuracy","s":["W21LS01"],"b":"S"}],"sd":[],"sub":[],"site":{"age":"see parent site","dm":"","lab":"NO","weak":"","unesco":"","dens":"STUB"},"co":{"lat":"29.97479","lon":"31.13825","src":"Wikidata P625 (Q23977421)","agree":"agree","b":"V","note":"two independent sources (Wikidata, OSM) agree within 0.01 km","osm":"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1238523832"},"src":[{"id":null,"t":"ancient-tides blog (secondary)","u":"http://ancient-tides.blogspot.com/2008/08/ancient-mystery-valley-temples.html"},{"id":null,"t":"AERA","u":"https://aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/AG_18_1.pdf"},{"id":"S0588","t":"Wikipedia (Pyramid of Khafre)","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre"},{"id":null,"t":"wowegypttours (tour site)","u":"https://www.wowegypttours.com/guide/cairo-attractions/valley-temple-of-khafre"},{"id":null,"t":"Klemm & Klemm","u":"http://gizamedia.rc.fas.harvard.edu/documents/klemm-klemm_stones_gizeh.pdf"},{"id":null,"t":"NASA SRTM via OpenTopoData","u":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/srtm30m"},{"id":null,"t":"NASA/METI ASTER GDEM via OpenTopoData","u":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/aster30m"},{"id":null,"t":"Encyclopedia.com (secondary)","u":"https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/fourth-dynasty-architecture-and-history"},{"id":null,"t":"Hölscher 1912 & Petrie via layman guide (secondary)","u":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354628228_Khafre%27s_Temples_Giza_Part_II_The_Sphinx_Enclosure_and_Causeway_A_Laymans_Guide"},{"id":null,"t":"ISIDA project (independent researchers)","u":"https://isida-project.ucoz.com/egypt_2012/giza_granit.htm"},{"id":null,"t":"Hölscher 1912 plate captions (Egyptian Dawn translation)","u":"http://www.egyptiandawn.com/downloads/holscher_plate_captions.pdf"},{"id":null,"t":"Hölscher 1912, Das Grabdenkmal des Königs Chephren","u":"https://d1g9lvwdq3dcse.cloudfront.net/documents/holscher_chephren.pdf"},{"id":"W21LS01","t":"W21LS01; Dunn, Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt","u":"file:books/upload5.pdf"},{"id":"VKHA-VT-14","t":"AERA: Mark Lehner in Unearthed, Secret History of the Sphinx","u":"https://aeraweb.org/mark-lehner-in-unearthed-secret-history-of-the-sphinx/"},{"id":"VKHA-VT-15","t":"AERA: Khafre’s monuments as a unit","u":"https://aeraweb.org/khafres-monuments/"},{"id":"VKHA-VT-16","t":"AERAGRAM 18.1 (AERA newsletter, PDF)","u":"https://aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/aeragram18_1.pdf"},{"id":"VKHA-VT-17","t":"Robert M. Schoch: The Great Sphinx","u":"https://robertschoch.com/sphinx.html"},{"id":"VKHA-VT-18","t":"GSA Annual Meeting 2014 abstract: Weathering and the age of the Sphinx","u":"https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2014AM/webprogram/Paper241360.html"},{"id":"VKHA-VT-19","t":"Egyptian Journal of Archaeological and Restoration Studies (Sohag University), paper PDF","u":"https://ejars.sohag-univ.edu.eg/docs/26/Top%20Final/6.pdf"},{"id":"VKHA-VT-20","t":"Egypt Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: Pyramid complex of Khafre","u":"https://egymonuments.gov.eg/monuments/pyramid-complex-of-khafre-khefren/"},{"id":null,"t":"Karl Baedeker, Egypt and the Sûdân: Handbook for Travellers, 7th ed. (Leipzig, 1914), pp. 135–136. Internet Archive.","u":"https://archive.org/details/egyptsdnhand00karl"},{"id":null,"t":"W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh (London, 1883), §§ 95–99, pp. 128–134. Internet Archive.","u":"https://archive.org/details/cu31924012038927"},{"id":null,"t":"Robert M. Schoch, “Geological Evidence Pertaining to the Age of the Great Sphinx” (1999–2000; published 2002/2003 in Spedicato and Notarpietro, eds., New Scenarios on the Evolution of the Solar System).","u":"http://www.robertschoch.net/Geological%20Evidence%20Sphinx%202000.htm"},{"id":null,"t":"James A. Harrell, “The Sphinx Controversy: Another Look at the Geological Evidence,” KMT 5:2 (1994), pp. 70–74, reproduced at Hall of Ma’at.","u":"http://www.hallofmaat.com/sphinx/the-sphinx-controversy-another-look-at-the-geological-evidence-2/"},{"id":null,"t":"James Henry Breasted, A History of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest (New York, 1905), pp. 119–121. Internet Archive.","u":"https://archive.org/details/historyofegyptfr00brearich"},{"id":null,"t":"UNESCO World Heritage Centre, “Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur” (list no. 86).","u":"https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/86/"}],"sum":"High on the granite beams of the Valley Temple, where they rest on their pillars, there are empty sockets shaped like bow ties. Each once held a dovetail clamp of copper, and the German excavator Uvo Hölscher, who studied the building in 1910, reckoned each clamp weighed some 20 to 25 kilograms. Every one of them is gone. At some point after the builders left, people climbed up and hacked the copper out of the stone, because metal was worth stealing and granite was not. The building was too heavy to carry off, so they took the little that could be carried.\n\nThat is the first lesson of this place. Everything movable has been taken, rearranged or argued over. What remains is the part no one could move.\n\nThe Valley Temple of Khafre stands at the foot of the Giza plateau, just south of the Great Sphinx, at the bottom of a causeway that climbs nearly half a kilometre to the mortuary temple of the second pyramid. Hölscher measured that causeway at 494.6 metres, rising 45.8 metres on a slope of a little over five degrees. The pharaoh Khafre reigned about 2520 to 2494 BC, and the standard view is that this building was the gateway to his pyramid complex. Baedeker's 1914 guidebook calls it \"the sanctuary erected as an entrance to the causeway.\" In that reading it was the threshold between the river world and the king's eternal house.\n\nFrom outside it is a squat, nearly square block about 45 metres on a side and 12 to 13 metres high, with its outer walls leaning gently inward. Hölscher found that lean exact enough to measure as one palm in every cubit, about 82 degrees. Two great doorways once opened in the east front. Inside is a hall shaped like an upside-down T, divided by sixteen square pillars of solid red granite. W. M. Flinders Petrie, surveying Giza for his 1883 book, measured them at 41 inches square and about 13 tons each. The floor is Egyptian alabaster. Sockets for 23 statues of the king still mark it, and a sloping alabaster passage climbs to the roof.\n\nThe granite is the first wonder. It came from Aswan, some 800 kilometres up the Nile, polished smooth and laid over the walls inside and out. The second wonder is what lies behind it. Petrie found the building \"built with a core of megalithic blocks of limestone, ranging in their weight to over a hundred tons each.\" The archaeologist Mark Lehner gives the largest as up to 100 tons. Hölscher estimated one block in the east front at about 60 cubic metres and roughly 150 tonnes. Popular writers have claimed more than 200. No modern survey has weighed them, but even the cautious figure is the weight of a loaded railway wagon, lifted and set into a wall.\n\nThe building was found by its statues. In 1853 Auguste Mariette cleared it, and in a well in one of its halls, as the historian James Henry Breasted wrote, \"seven statues of Khafre were found.\" Among the temple's finds was the famous diorite statue of Khafre with the Horus falcon, now in Cairo. A German expedition dug the building almost completely in 1909 and 1910, and in 1995 Zahi Hawass excavated the dock of a canal that once brought boats to its door.\n\nHere the political layer comes into focus. A valley temple was a statement made at the point of arrival. It told every boatman, priest and official stepping off the water whose world this was, and it said it in stone hauled from the far south of the kingdom. Khafre's name was carved there and his image filled the hall. Buildings like this were also prizes for later ages. Petrie noted that six of the granite roof beams were missing, and local men told him Mariette had blasted them to pieces for the celebrations opening the Suez Canal. Kings take credit; successors take materials; and the question of who first built anything at Giza turns on whose evidence survived the taking.\n\nThe mainstream case is strong, and Petrie made it from the building itself. The causeway runs askew because it follows a natural ridge of rock, and the temple's entrance passage, built in one mass with the temple, is skewed to match. So the causeway came first and the temple was fitted to it. The only datable objects inside were statues of Khafre, and Petrie judged that \"the idea of his appropriating an earlier building is very unlikely.\" In modern times Lehner, working with the Tübingen geologist Thomas Aigner, matched layers in the temple's limestone core to layers in the bedrock of the Sphinx's own enclosure. On that reading the core blocks were quarried from the ditch around the Sphinx, carried a short way south-east and stacked into walls in a single building programme. One quarry, one king.\n\nThen the turn. The temple's date has been disputed for longer than most people realise. Petrie opened his discussion in 1883 by noting that it \"has been so positively asserted to be earlier than the fourth dynasty,\" a claim resting on a tablet that mentions a temple of the Sphinx, which he did not trust. For decades the place was called the Granite Temple or the Temple of the Sphinx, and Breasted insisted it had \"nothing to do\" with the statue beside it. A quarrel over a name became a quarrel over a date, and it has never fully closed.\n\nThe modern challenge comes from the geologist Robert M. Schoch, who began working on the problem with John Anthony West in 1990. His claim concerns exactly the joint between the two materials. The limestone core blocks, he wrote, \"were exposed to the elements and underwent considerable weathering and erosion before the granite was put into place.\" His evidence is in the backs of the granite blocks, which in places were cut in an \"irregular, undulating pattern\" to fit the worn limestone. If the granite belongs to Khafre and the core was already weathered when it went on, then the core is older. Schoch notes that the granite's link to Khafre is \"itself circumstantial,\" and he dates the earliest carving of the Sphinx's body to roughly 7000 to 5000 BC.\n\nThe replies are serious. The geologist James A. Harrell wrote in 1994 that much of the granite facing \"was reconstructed during excavations in the early part of this century,\" and suggested the softer limestone was carved to fit rough granite backs rather than the other way round. He explained the deep weathering as damage from sand soaked again and again by rain and Nile floods, and concluded that \"a pre-Old Kingdom age for these monuments is thus not required by the geological evidence.\" In 2014 Robert Schneiker told the Geological Society of America that groundwater, dew and cycles of sand can do the same damage, so weathering alone cannot date the stone.\n\nThe tools raise their own questions. Petrie found pivot holes in a granite lintel cut, as he put it, \"by a jewelled tube drill,\" with the stump of the drill core still sitting in one of them. Hölscher, studying drill cores from Khafre's monuments in granite, basalt, alabaster and other stones, concluded instead that the drills were copper tubes fed with loose abrasive powder. The engineer Christopher Dunn has written that a single diorite block in the south-eastern wall \"duplicates the accuracy\" of the granite coffer in Khafre's pyramid, though he gives no figure. These are not proofs of anything. They are reminders that how this was made is still being reconstructed from marks in the stone.\n\nSo the oldest open question at Giza may come down to a gap a few centimetres wide, the place where a polished face of Aswan granite presses against the weathered skin of a limestone giant. Schoch reads rain in that limestone. Harrell reads wet sand. Petrie read the shape of a ridge. Each reading is careful, and each depends on which surface was cut to fit the other. No source in the record reports anyone lifting a facing block to look. If someone did, and the limestone behind it turned out to be weathered in a way only a wetter sky could explain, whose temple would we be standing in?","qs":["Schoch reads rain in the weathering; Schneiker reads groundwater. What test could settle it?","If the core blocks came from the Sphinx ditch, can the temple be older than the Sphinx?","How would you move a 100 ton block, even a few hundred metres?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Pyramid_of_Khafre_and_Sphinx%2C_Giza%2C_Greater_Cairo%2C_Egypt.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pyramid_of_Khafre_and_Sphinx,_Giza,_Greater_Cairo,_Egypt.jpg","title":"Pyramid of Khafre and Sphinx, Giza, Greater Cairo, Egypt.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"M1chu","cap":"Pyramid of Khafre and Sphinx, Giza, Greater Cairo, Egypt."},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg/1280px-All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg","title":"All Gizah Pyramids.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 2.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0","by":"Ricardo Liberato","cap":"All Giza Pyramids in one shot."},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Cairo._Subterranean_temple_LCCN92501066.jpg/1280px-Cairo._Subterranean_temple_LCCN92501066.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cairo._Subterranean_temple_LCCN92501066.jpg","title":"Cairo. Subterranean temple LCCN92501066.jpg","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress","cap":"Title: Cairo. Subterranean temple Abstract/medium: 1 photoprint : albumen."},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Egypt.Giza.Sphinx.02.jpg/1280px-Egypt.Giza.Sphinx.02.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Giza.Sphinx.02.jpg","title":"Egypt.Giza.Sphinx.02.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/","by":"Most likely Hamish2k, the first uploader","cap":"Great Sphinx of Giza and the pyramid of Khafre"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/GEM%2C_December_22nd%2C_2025%2C_by_Dyolf77%2C_ZVE07664.jpg/1280px-GEM%2C_December_22nd%2C_2025%2C_by_Dyolf77%2C_ZVE07664.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GEM,_December_22nd,_2025,_by_Dyolf77,_ZVE07664.jpg","title":"GEM, December 22nd, 2025, by Dyolf77, ZVE07664.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"Habib M'henni","cap":"Images du Grand musée de l'Égypte"}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"2+","u":"t","h":"Every limestone block weighs more than 2 tons","s":[4]},{"v":"400","u":"t","h":"Largest megalith in the temple, an estimated 400 tonnes","s":[4]},{"v":"see parent site","h":"Dated to","s":[4]},{"v":"Limestone core","h":"Made of: Limestone core, Aswan granite casing","s":[4]}],"hs":{"4":["Wikipedia: Pyramid of Khafre (and sources cited there)","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Khafre"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/KHA-VT.webp","w":1280,"h":850,"o":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Pyramid_of_Khafre_and_Sphinx%2C_Giza%2C_Greater_Cairo%2C_Egypt.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled"}}