What explains the weathering of the body and the enclosure walls?
Most likely: salt crystallisation, clay swelling and wet-sand burial, with flooding and wind on exposed parts, produced…Ahead on the evidence, not yet confirmed. It needs two reviews to be accepted.
Where it stands
Five answers have been proposed. Salt crystallisation, clay swelling and wet-sand burial, with flooding and wind on exposed parts, produced… leads, with evidence 3 for, 1 against: supported by its tests. Four are still possible. Of the one narrower question under it, none is answered yet.
Answers 5
History
- Chowdhury et al.: bed-by-bed porosity and durability measurements show the Member II beds that recede most are the weakest and…For: Salt crystallisation, clay swelling and wet-sand burial, with flooding and wind on exposed parts, produced…
- Lehner: lehner records the original carved surface preserved beneath the oldest cladding, which is the surface this…Against: There is little true erosion; the rough body is the construction core, cut back and faced with a veneer that…
- Lehner: lehner argues the comparison tombs are cut in different strata and that the fissures predate quarrying.Against: Long periods of rainfall and runoff, in a wetter climate before the dynastic period, cut the rounded profile…
- Harrell: cairo now receives 2.5 to 3.5 cm of rain a year, often in intense storms, so runoff in the dynastic period is…For: Runoff from the plateau eroded the enclosure in the Early Dynastic period, until Khufu's quarries diverted…
- Harrell: lehner's estimate puts the Old Kingdom floodplain at 13 to 15 m and floods at perhaps 17 m, below the…Against: Salt crystallisation, clay swelling and wet-sand burial, with flooding and wind on exposed parts, produced…
- Harrell: the enclosure floor lies at 19.9 to 20.2 m above sea level, within reach of exceptional Nile floods (20.3 m…For: Salt crystallisation, clay swelling and wet-sand burial, with flooding and wind on exposed parts, produced…
- Gauri et al.: gauri's group found that the soft beds of Member II recede faster whatever the agent, so differential…Against: Long periods of rainfall and runoff, in a wetter climate before the dynastic period, cut the rounded profile…
- Reader puts forward: runoff from the plateau eroded the enclosure in the Early Dynastic period, until Khufu's quarries diverted…
- Reader: reader's geomorphological study maps the plateau catchment above the Sphinx and finds the heaviest…For: Runoff from the plateau eroded the enclosure in the Early Dynastic period, until Khufu's quarries diverted…
- Hadingham: modern flaking and the need for repeated repairs show active salt weathering on the exposed body.For: Salt crystallisation, clay swelling and wet-sand burial, with flooding and wind on exposed parts, produced…
- Schneiker puts forward: there is little true erosion; the rough body is the construction core, cut back and faced with a veneer that…
- Schneiker: a 2025 GSA poster abstract proposes that the weathered appearance is the exposed rough core of a veneered…For: There is little true erosion; the rough body is the construction core, cut back and faced with a veneer that…
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