The material below was published in the "Proceedings of the Academy of DNA genealogy" exactly four years ago. It presents the paleoclimatic data that allow to assume the age of Great Sphinx more than 26 thousand years.
1. The complete chronicle of "The Flood" on our planet imprinted in the structure of marine slopes in the form of terraces, which are the result of wave-cut action of the sea. Last time "flood" we are experiencing now: after the end of the last glaciation (about 10,000 years ago), the level of water in the oceans has risen by more than 100 meters.
Penultimate "flood", according to the Quaternary geology and related sciences, was about 25,000 years ago (Lazukov and others, 1981). In the northern hemisphere it is marked by a terrace, coeval Karghinskaya left (north coast of Western Siberia) and Onega (north Russian plains) transgressions. This terrace is located at an altitude of about 25 meters in areas not experienced post-glacial dislocations (Polyakov, 1995). This means that the sea around the world at this altitude then lapped.
Thus, marine terraces are now at the height of 25 meters, mark coeval global event - an increase of about 25 thousand years ago, the ocean level by 25 meters relative to the current level.
Fig.1. Image of the Great Sphinx, combined with the scale of heights.
2. The most interesting object subjected to wave-cut erosion is the Great Sphinx of Giza. It is located in a stable area and is handmade witness to distant past. Absolute marks of its heights - from the foot up to top - are in the range of about 10.5 to 31 meters (Fig. 1). I.e. they cover the lifting height of the ocean level during the time of the Onega (Karghinskaya) transgression.
The first, who in the fifties of the last century drew attention to the water erosion of the Great Sphinx, was a French scientist, mathematician, philosopher and amateur Egyptologist Schwaller de Lubicz. Great Sphinx eroded just to a height of 25 meters - sometime his head above the chin protruded out of the water only. Therefore, the head does not show signs of water erosion (Fig. 2).
As described above, the water last time rose to this level about 25 thousand years ago. Are it turns out that the Great Sphinx, and, consequently, the entire architectural complex of Giza, constituting a single whole with it, is older 25 thousand years?
Fig.2. Erosion of the Great Sphinx. Abrupt transition from body to head clearly visible on the degree of destruction.
3. This is certainly true because these sea-level rise was not observed later. After Onega transgression to early Holocene (about 10,000 years ago) the last phase of the Valdai glaciation occurred. Huge masses of water were accumulated in glaciers. This has led to lowering of the sea level more than 100 meters. Sea level gradually returned to the current state only after the melting of glaciers, but so far has not reached the level of the Onega transgression.
Of course, for a such bold conclusion need a precondition – the erosion on the body of the Great Sphinx is undoubtedly aquatic, and no any other.
4. Robert Schoch, a professor at Boston University, a geologist, a specialist in erosion of light rocks investigated the sphinx in April 1991. Exploring the obvious traces of water effects on the body of the Sphinx, he put forward an alternative hypothesis, contrary to the traditional chronology. According to him, the cause of the destruction of the Sphinx are the rains of wet period 7 - 5 millennia BC (Schoch, 2002). But why does the head of the Great Sphinx was not eroded by the same rains left without explanation.
(to be continued)