<HTML>I have recently been asked to evaluate an hypothesis that the belt stars of Orion (at 2500 BCE) correlate to the positions of the mortuary temples attached to the pyramids.
In the absence of a pre-defined requirement for precision of fit (a necessity for any analysis), I have used the following constraints:
* Position: 10 ft. This actually seems a tad lax, given that a precision of better than 1 ft is frequently attained on ground features in the Giza complex.
* Angles: 30 arcmin (0.5 deg). Whilst some AE alignments, especially to cardinal points, are accurate to the order of 5 arcmin, I suspect that this is more fortuitousness than a routine precision. However, a precision of 30 arcmin is trivial to reproduce with, e.g. jointed rods.
I began by using Petrie's survey data and created an outline of the pyramid positions. To this I scaled the scanned images of pyramids and mortuary temples that I was sent and drew an overlay of the MT outlines and internal detail so that the whole (without the scans) was more easily scalable [1].
Because of my uncertainty about the accuracy of scanned images, and through a desire to check that my drawing from Petrie's data was accurate, I checked the whole drawing against Lehner's wireframe plan from the GMP. The exact (to the resolution limits) correspondence between my drawing and Lehner's implies confidence that both are accurate (unless some of Lehner's work is derived from Petrie's survey data AND Petrie made an error that Lehner and I have both reproduced – I suggest that this is unlikely). [2]
I created a scalable overlay of the positional relationship of the zeta, epsilon and delta Orionis for -2499 (2500 BCE) (see <a href="[
www.aegis1.demon.co.uk]; here</a>) with the position of epsilon both N and S of the zeta-delta axis (in order to check for N->N and N->S mapping of the sky to the ground). The position of the stars on this overlay was marked by circles with a scale radius of 10 ft.
I tested for correspondence of the ground features with the sky by moving the 'belt overlay' over the drawing and scaling and rotating it so that zeta and delta lay on corresponding points of the ground features relating to Menkaure's and Khufu's pyramid respectively, then seeing if the circles corresponding to the two possible positions of epsilon encompassed the corresponding point on the corresponding ground feature relating to Khafre's pyramid. I then repeated this with the overlay rotated through 180 deg, i.e. zeta relating to Khufu [3]. I tested the following points on the ground features:
* Pyramid apices
* Pyramid corners
* MT entrances
* MT centres
For none of these did the epsilon circle fall on the corresponding point on the ground feature relating to Khafre's pyramid [4]. I am therefore unable to confirm the hypothesis.
I have found this exercise to be somewhat time-consumptive and, given the negative outcome, I do not wish to spend more time on what appears to me to be a dead end. However, I hope that my description of my method is sufficiently detailed for others to be able to replicate, check, and criticise it should they so wish.
Stephen F Tonkin FRAS
[1] I have not found a way to group imported images with drawings in TurboCAD, thus I was not able to re-scale the scans with the drawing, thus the need for a drawn overlay of the MT outlines and internal detail.
[2] The aerial photographs that I was sent, and which seem to be used extensively by OCT proponents, are not conformal. The pyramid apices in this photograph are not central to the pyramid 'square', indicating that the photograph was not taken from directly overhead; this is the major source of the non-conformality.
[3] I know that this is not the proposed OCT relationship, but it seemed worth checking.
[4] In general, the degree of 'miss' is even worse for -10499 (10,500 BCE).</HTML>
