Based on Alberto’s findings, there’s a chance it’s from the previous civilization
Donini's erosion-based model is genuinely interesting, but one statistical study that hasn't been peer-reviewed or replicated doesn't overturn a consensus built on radiocarbon dating, inscriptions, workers' villages, logistical records, and a clear architectural lineage from smaller, simpler structures to Giza.
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spio.comWhat Donini actually found
Alberto Donini compared erosion on stones once protected by the pyramid's limestone casing with erosion on exposed stones, then ran the data through a statistical model. That model estimated a 68% chance that the Great Pyramid dates to between 9000 BCE and 37,000 BCE, with an average of around 23,000 BCE. If true, that would put its construction well before the Younger Dryas, placing it squarely in the territory of a pre-Ice Age civilization.
Why the mainstream hasn't moved
The problem is method, not imagination. The study runs counter to decades of archaeological evidence. Countless studies and teams have determined that the pyramids fit neatly into the known evolution of Egyptian architecture, supported by pottery, inscriptions, and radiocarbon dating of organic materials. All of that evidence points to roughly the same conclusion: the Great Pyramid was built around 2,600 BCE.
Erosion rates are affected by many variables: sand coverage, the angle of prevailing winds, microclimate differences across the structure, and the history of the casing stones themselves. Using erosion as a primary dating tool, without anchoring it to a well-established erosion rate for that specific environment, gives a model wide enough to span tens of thousands of years, which is exactly what Donini's range of 9000 to 37,000 BCE shows.
The "previous civilization" question
This thread runs deeper than Donini. Real civilizations leave traces: stone tools, figurines, bones, signs of family structures and migration journeys, remains of meals, seeds and footprints. If a sophisticated society built the pyramids 20,000 years ago, we'd expect to find something from their everyday life nearby, tools, waste, burials. So far, nothing of that kind predates the Old Kingdom at Giza.
Sites like Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, radiocarbon-dated to approximately 11,600 years ago, do show that hunter-gatherers without pottery or metallurgy were capable of quarrying and erecting 20-ton stone pillars, which is remarkable and genuinely challenges how we think about early human capability. But remarkable doesn't equal pyramids, and Göbekli Tepe's builders left exactly the kind of debris and organic material that confirms a real date.
The pyramid builders remain ancient Egyptians, until a body of evidence says otherwise.
Follow-ups
How do the pyramids in Sudan compare?
Sudan's pyramids are younger than Egypt's, built roughly 2,000 years after Giza, and yet Sudan actually has more of them, making it the country with the greatest number of pyramids on Earth.
Sudan's pyramids are younger than Egypt's, built roughly 2,000 years after Giza, and yet Sudan actually has more of them, making it the country with the greatest number of pyramids on Earth.
spio.comWho built them and when
The pyramids were built by the Kingdom of Kush, an ancient civilization that ruled Nubia, the upper Nile Valley in what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt, for more than a thousand years. The area was home to three successive Kushite kingdoms: the first centered on Kerma (roughly 2500 to 1500 BCE), the second on Napata (1000 to 300 BCE), and the third on Meroë (300 BCE to 300 CE).
While the Giza pyramids were built around 2600 to 2500 BCE, the Nubian pyramids didn't start emerging until about the 7th century BCE. That's a gap of roughly 2,000 years. The Kushite building tradition lasted nearly a thousand years, long after Egypt had stopped raising pyramids altogether.
More pyramids, smaller structures
The highest number of pyramids is actually found in Sudan, which boasts between 220 and 255 compared to Egypt's total of around 118. Most people don't know this. Meroë alone contains roughly 100 pyramids, making it the largest single concentration.
The shape is noticeably different from anything at Giza. The Nubian pyramids are smaller, 20 to 90 feet on a side compared with the Great Pyramid's 756 feet, with much steeper sides, and most were built 2,000 years after those at Giza. Their inclination is approximately 70 degrees, whereas Egyptian pyramids have angles of 40 to 50 degrees.
Purpose and design
Nubian pyramids, unlike ancient Egyptian pyramids, were built as headstones rather than tombs. The ruler's remains would be interred under the pyramid, not inside it. They were also more democratic than Egypt's: in Sudan, nobles who could afford it were buried in pyramids too, not only kings.
The connection to Egypt
Nearly 2,000 years after the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu built his Great Pyramid, the armies of Nubia invaded and occupied Egypt. It was 730 BCE, and by then the Egyptian pharaohs had long since abandoned the practice of erecting massive tombs, partly because it had nearly bankrupted them. But the pyramids clearly fascinated the Nubian kings. They ruled Egypt during the 25th Dynasty until they were ejected in 656 BCE, but Egypt's influence on their cultural practices was long-lasting, and the inhabitants of Nubia found a way to imitate Egypt's monuments.
Where they stand now
The Meroë site is a UNESCO World Heritage location, designated in 2011, and is the most photographed of the Sudanese pyramid fields. They are well documented and archaeologically well understood, which puts them in the same category as the Egyptian pyramids: genuinely ancient, built by a known civilization, with a clear historical record. No mystery of a prior civilization is needed to explain them.
The Younger Dryas was a rapid, severe cold snap that struck the Northern Hemisphere roughly 12,900 years ago and lasted about 1,200 years, interrupting what had been a warming trend at the end of the last Ice Age.
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