Post here.

So Egyptology and classical archaeology in general are not my strong suits (paging /u/Tiako ?). However, the iron plate part of this conspiracy to cover up nothing at all (perhaps an elaborate troll?) was something I found interesting. There is very little written about it outside of the pseudoarchaeology books. This article makes a brief reference to it. Trying to trace the original work, I found an article by Gayar and Jones called Metallurgical investigation of an iron plate found in 1837 in the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, Egypt but I have no access to it. The only thing I could find related to it was this article in a newsletter by the original authors. Regardless of where the plate came from, it undermines OP's claims about the date. If the plate is contemporaneous with the pyramid, then the pyramid has not been mis-dated at all. If it's not, it is in all likelihood younger, not older, than the pyramid. I've also seen some really garbage archaeometric studies, so the date on the plate may be meaningless anyway, but I can't get the original paper, so.... But I have to say, a conspiracy theory did at least teach me an interesting little factoid.

The part about having no idea how this was done with copper tools is also not very convincing. I remember seeing that PBS Nova special where they built a mini-pyramid, but they cheated in a number of places. This is not really damning to me, except insofar as it is shitty experimental archaeology. It's merely the result of latent chronological snobbery, as CS Lewis would call it, in these conspiracy theories and ancient aliens stuff. There are stone tool styles that only a very few modern flintknappers can make. There are also hafting techniques that I've never seen replicated well, because no one is an expert in it. (Poor hafting is also responsible for a lot of shitty experimental arch.) Craft specialties like these are often learned from a young age and constituted full-time employment. People doing the same thing now are often archaeologists and hobbyists who only have time to do it on the side. Ancient technology is often far more difficult to make and use than is commonly thought.