DW Says Study Dates Pyramid of Khufu to Late Paleolithic, Citing Alberto Donini’s REM Calculations

A DW report says a preliminary study has rekindled controversy by proposing that the Pyramid of Khufu could be tens of thousands of years older than traditional Egyptology maintains.

“The Great Pyramid of Giza is indisputably ancient”

DW

The study’s Relative Erosion Method (REM) was presented by Italian engineer Alberto Donini of the University of Bologna in January 2026, and DW says his calculations point to a construction date at the end of the Paleolithic around 22,916 BCE.

DW

DW also says Donini applied the method to twelve distinct points on the Great Pyramid’s base, where portions of the original pavement still survive after the facing stones were removed about 675 years ago following the great earthquake of 1303 CE.

In DW’s account, the estimates range from as little as 5,708 years to figures reaching 54,000 years, and the arithmetic mean yields an age of 24,916 years before the present.

DW quotes Donini saying, "I consider that the calculated results are only indicative of the order of magnitude of the construction period, not of a precise date," as he emphasizes uncertainty in the method.

In a separate entertainment-focused account, elDiario.es describes a study by Simon Andreas Scheuring in npj Heritage Science that proposes the Great Pyramid of Giza was raised through an internal system operating as a counterweight machine.

elDiario.es says Scheuring’s model reinterprets the Great Gallery and the Ascending Passage as inclined channels where counterweights descended, and it describes the Antechamber as the “nerve center” of the system before the King’s Chamber.

elDiario.es

The report adds that the stones would have moved with greater precision without the need for “gigantic structures on the exterior of the monument,” and it links the system to physical evidence like grooves, polished surfaces, and wear marks.

elDiario.es further states that muon tomography explorations have detected cavities that fit the presence of hidden passages, and it says friction marks or grooves could be traces of the passage of ropes and counterweights.

The article concludes that if the theory is confirmed, the monument would stop being understood only as a monumental tomb and be seen as an engineering tool capable of lifting its own components.

The Times of India shifts the entertainment framing from Egyptology debates to global rankings of pyramids, arguing that the “biggest” pyramid depends on the criteria used.

“In considering the perfect monuments of the ancient world, the mind instantly takes flight to the sun-baked deserts of Egypt”

The Times of India

It says the Great Pyramid of Cholula, with the Nahuatl name Tlachihualtepetl meaning “man-made mountain,” is the top titleholder when ranking by total structural volume, and it cites an official statement of Guinness World Records about how definitions affect the term “biggest.”

The report says the Great Pyramid of Cholula is located in Puebla, Mexico, covers a base area of 450 by 450 meters, and was constructed in successive stages over nearly a thousand years by different Mesoamerican cultures.

It also states that the Great Pyramid of Giza originally stood 146.6 meters tall and was built in the Old Kingdom era using an estimated 2.3 million stone blocks, while the Mexican giant would “utterly dominate” in volume with almost twice the volume.

The Times of India adds that when Spanish forces arrived, they built a church right on top of the summit, unaware they were “nesting on the world's largest monument.”