I recently picked up a copy of:
"Barrow, Pyramid and Tomb: Ancient Burial Customs in Egypt, the Mediterranean and the British Isles" by Leslie V Grinsell from 1975.
In the section relating to the pyramids at the necropolis of Giza, and in particular in the pyramid of Khufu, he explains what the star shafts are for:
"The chamber is lined and flat-roofed with large granite slabs. Above the ceiling are five relieving chambers, all with flat granite roofs excepting the top chamber which has a pitched limestone roof. These relieving chambers contain inscription in red-ochre stating that work had reached that stage in the seventeenth year of the reign of Kheops.
From the walls of the sarcophagus chamber there extend to north and south narrow shafts; the north shaft at 31* to the Imperishable Circumpolar Stars, and the south shaft at 44*5' to Orion, both to facilitate the pharaoh's ascent to those parts of the sky (Badawi 1964; Trimble 1964)."
[My Bold] Interestingly he uses the slightly different and older inclination figure that Trimble originally used, before it was corrected as Chris Tedder described in a post below.
The conclusion is good, and Grinsell, who was Curator of Archaeology and History at the City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol, describes his book as "....resulted from some forty-five year's study of the funerary archaeology of Egypt, the Mediterranean, parts of the European continent, and the British Isles, both at first hand and through the literature"
Also, I was pleased today to visit Chris O'kane, astronomy researcher and technician at the Glasgow Science Centre, who has given several presentations there and elsewhere on the astronomy of ancient Egypt. He is pretty well clued up on the planets in Egyptian Astronomy, as well as the stars, and he thinks these have strong links to the mythology of Egyptian religion. He published an article in Ancient Egypt Magazine in October/November 2005 entitled:
O'Kane, C. 2005
Ancient Egypt Magazine.
Issue 32
"The Identity of the King and the Sun God"
"Chris O’Kane finds links between the movements of the stars and planets and ancient Egyptian mythology."
Dave L
The Journal of Ancient Egyptian Architecture JAEA:
[
egyptian-architecture.com]
[
glasgow.academia.edu]
[
egyptology-scotland.squarespace.com]
Dave's Archaeology Homepage:
[
arkysite.wordpress.com]
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2007 11:22AM by Dave L.