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Chris:
Sir John Herschell wrote that the average of the passages on Giza was 26*47'. "At the bottom of every one of these passages, therefore, the then pole star (Thuban) must have been visible at its LOWER culmination, a circumstance that could hardly have been unintentional.."
Herschell calculated that Thuban was 3* 44' 25" away from the pole in 2150, the logditudes of all the stars being 55* 45' less than at present, (1838).
If Herschell beleived the angle of the passages on Giza were not unintentional it's because he knows the astronomical odds against such a thing happening by accident.
Bent
Chris Tedder wrote:
>
> Frank wrote,
>
> "The Egyptians surely had no concept of North or other
> cardinal directions, they did not aim their pyramid exits to
> an abstract north but most surely to the center of the region
> of the imperisheable stars. That they get North was more ore
> less coincidence (because the center ot their suggested
> motion is in the North)."
>
> The only problem with this is that they did not 'aim' the
> descending passages to the centre of the region of the
> imperishable stars.
>
> The descending passages for the Dahshur pyramids were on
> average about 28 degs and the Giza pyramids about 26degs
> angle of incline. The 'centre' in the northern sky was about
> 30 degs altitude. Why the big difference?
>
> The pyramids were laid out with incredible accuracy to the
> cardinal points so they were quite capable of 'aiming' the
> descending passages the the 'centre' if they had wanted to.
>
> Any theory has to take into account all the subtle details,
> because this is where we are going to find the solutions - in
> the small details.
>
> Chris Tedder</HTML>
