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The authors of a forthcoming book investigating the only remaining wonder of the ancient world throw doubt on conventional thinking that it was the Ancient Egyptians that built the Pyramids at Giza around 2,500 BC. Instead Gerry Cannon and Malcolm Hutton claim that the Sphinx in front of the pyramids must have been carved out of natural rock and long before any sand covered the area, meaning that at one time, long ago the area must have been fertile. Mr Cannon told Express.co.uk: “The Sphinx had to have been carved when there was no sand there. You can’t carve a rock when it’s under sand.

Getty A historian has cast doubt that the pyramids at Giza were built by the ancient Egyptians

“When it was not under sand was about 12,000 years ago and the Egyptians weren’t there.” This would mean, according to the pair's research, the pyramids and sphinxes were built at least 12,500 years ago which could have been before the start of the Ice Age. Conventional thinking about when the Pyramids of Giza were built date construction to between 2,560 to 2540 BC, a difference of around 10,000 years.

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The Egyptians couldn’t have done it, they didn’t have the tools Historian Gerry Cannon

The significant time difference would mean that the artefacts were not built by the Ancient Egyptians, according to Mr Cannon. Mr Cannon, although not completely convinced, believes it could have been by the hands of the people of the advanced civilisation of Atlantis that was ultimately consumed by flooding. He said: “The theories are, and I can believe them, that there was some advanced civilisation - and I can’t say they are 100 per cent right - that came to this planet tens of thousands of years ago.

Getty The Great Pyramid at Giza may have been built by people from Atlantis, a historian has claimed

“I’ve done some research and there’s a direct line from the pyramids to a submerged continent with a sea mount and on the sea mount there are two pinnacles that look like pyramids. “It’s possible, and I don’t say 100 per cent, that it’s Atlantis - when Atlantis sunk they went to another place, probably Egypt and they had the technology to build those pyramids. There’s no one else that could have done it, we don’t have the technology. “Nobody knows who was there 12,000 years ago. The three smaller pyramids at Giza probably were built by the Eygptians as they could be built by man but it’s impossible that the three bigger ones were, simply from the size of them - they’ve got 2,250,000 blocks in them and each block weighs about 250 tonnes, we couldn’t even move it with all the equipment we have today so it had to have been done by a civilisation that was more advanced than any of us.

Getty Did people from the lost civilisation of Atlantis build the Pyramids at Giza?