<HTML>Please don't take my questins the wrong way. I am genuinely trying to understand how you are viewing this and what your different arguments are behind your idea.
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Absolutely! No problem at all! Thank you for the interest.
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The temples are aligned on an east-west axis which strongly suggests a solar ideology was involved in their construction and placement. Are you therefore suggesting a combining of solar and stellar ideology in their citing, or purely stellar ?
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You see, my problem is that I am in no way an archeologist nor an astronomer. My brief *academic* background is History (with a concentration on post-Napoleon Europe) and Philosophy (probably also concentrated in the same time period actually). I now work as an Internet consultant (which explains why I can't post a simple picture to a message board!) LOL!
I am in no way drawing *any* conclusions at this time regarding the *meaning* and *purpose* of the alignment. All I am trying to do is take Robert Bauval's OCT back to *square one* and simply establish that the alignment is real and that it is in fact, not just a symbolic representation of orion (as Bauval has been forced to argue) but an *EXACT* mathematical duplication of Orion - so close in fact that it boggles the mind that a pre-optical telescope civilization could achieve such results.
It is my hope that, through this brief paper (which I am putting together now), we can achieve academic agreement that Robert Bauval's OCT is a real phenomena. After that, debate can begin as to the meaning of the OCT.
I think Robert has some excellent material to bring to that discussion. He has spent more than a decade researching this very issue. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to achieve consensus regarding the reality of the OCT and that has to be established first and foremost. Furthermore, I think that other academics can make a contribution to this *riddle* (again) once we get a concensus that the OCT is real.
I believe the best way to prove the reality of the OCT is through statistical analysis. Eventually, once I have all my arguments and data down on paper, I hope to find a statistitian to aproximate the odds by which the alignment might have been the result of chance (though, intuitively, I think the odds are *astronomical!*).
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It also intrigues me why all the various correlation ideas concentrate on Giza, why Giza.
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Why Giza?
Well, I made this discovery because I wanted to find an answer to some of the criticism surounding Bauval's original pyramid-centered OCT. Many had objected that the smallest pyramid was misaligned and that therefore, the OCT was probably just due to chance.
Whle I must admit to finding this objection pedantic (I had been pursuaded by Bauval's "symbolic representation" argument) something told me that the angles were *not* incorrect - it was our *presumtions* regarding the point of measurement that were in error.
I realized of course that angles will grow smaller when measured from the inside of the curve so I intended to try an alignment using the eastern edges of the pyramids, rather than the pinnacles (after all, why presume that pinnacles would be the point at which the Egyptians would astablish the alignment?). It was with this in mind that I opened a satalite image of Giza in PhotoShop.
Right away I noticed these three small box shapes nearly buried in the sand - exactly where I had intended to conbduct my measurement (only later was I told what these structures were). A chill ran through me: "Could this really be a coincidence?"
I placed orion over the pyramids as is the ussual practice and slowly pushed the belt stars eastward. Bang - bang - bang. All three stars hit perfectly over each of the three structures.
I have since conducted more exact measurements. I will post my results shortly.
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Mortuary and valley temples are in evidence before the Giza pyramids were constructed.
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Yes. I am aware. And I think my results may lead us to reexamine many of these structures as well. Mortuary temples may just turn out to have a lot more information within their architecture regarding Egyptian religion than we had previously realized.
I myself have begun to examine some of these structures and I've found *some* interesting phenomena - but it is too early for me to talk about those things and I do not want to cloud the issue.
Again, I want only to concentrate on proving that the *OCT* is real - by answering all of the outstanding objections. I make no speculation regarding it's meaning. That's the job of professionals.
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And why focus on the Giza temples, why not take into account the pyramids, the subsidiary pyramids, the quarries, the workers' cemetery and quarters, the mastaba fields, etc. Why focus on one particular aspect of intrigrated pyramid complexes ?
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Well....*presuming* (and it is an unwarrented presumtion) that all of the structures on the Giza plateau are part of some integrated astronomical puzzel, one could hardly expect to reconstruct that puzzel any other way than one piece at a time.
If there is a larger puzzel, the OCT is *one piece.* If not, the OCT is no less real.
However, my results are currently indicating that the causeways, at least, are part of the orion correllation. The stars appear to be (almost literally) pin-pointed within the Mortuary Temples by lines extending from the causeways. *But this is a preliminary observation.*
This secondary result is bound to be more controversial, so I want to take this *one piece* at a time. Let's look at the statistical evidence in favour of each proposition and evaluate it on its own merits.
* Proposition one is that the Mortuary temples are placed in relation to one another in a pattern that mimics Orion's Belt.
* Proposition two is that this relationship is *nearly perfect* (precise measurements will be required to establish how perfect).
* Proposition three is that this relationship is not a coincidence - that it was planned before the pyramids were constructed (note that the planners need not have even known that pyramids would be constructed).
These propositions are the full extent of all I wish to establish at this time. It is my hope that eventual consensus will emerge on all three points and full credit can be given to Robert Bauval for his original intuition.
ISHMAEL</HTML>
