Hi Dave,


I recommend the book - its an excellent general reference book on AE, although in some parts its a bit outdated as it was first published back in the early 80's, when I bought the book.


It was partly through reading this book that my interest was kindled in AE, especially the OK. The slopes of the pyramids are given with absurd accuracy and I wondered how anyone could possibly have measured the ruins of the pyramids and come up with the angles of the slopes accurate to the nearest arcsec - for example the pyramid of Niuserra, 51 degs 50' 35".

I then realized the angles of inclines in the Atlas of AE, were based on simple ratios: 3:2; 4:3; 5:4; 6:5; 14:11, hence the absurdly accurate angles of incline. These ratios are probably based on Lauer's ideas, but it was after seeing this sequence of ratios, that I realized there might be some underlying pattern to the variety of pyramid slopes used in the OK - they were not just random angles - mathematical / geometric principles may have been behind the designs, which of course incurred the wrath of the 'pyramid is just a pile of stones' brigade.

Once I found out about AE seqed ratios, a more likely sequence emerged, but the reasons for the choice of seqeds remained a mystery, until I examined the natural world the AE lived in and came up with some intriguing possibilities for the choice of some early seqeds.

CT