Hello Chris,

Many thanks for the feedback.

This 3:4:5/Pythagoras business appears to be a bit of a grey area even amongst mathematicians of note - which makes me feel a little better about it all

I have just re-read Gillings handful of brief comments on the subject (Mathematics in the Time of the Pharaohs R. J. Gillings 1972) and he doesn't come across as being at all sure about it either.

What I cannot go along with here is this view that "...the Egyptians were mathematically inept,..."
You only have to spend a few minutes browsing Gilling's (or whoever) book to fully realise that the authors of the Rhind, Moscow et al papyri/leather were most certainly no slouches when it came to some aspects of mathematics.

For what it is worth, my gut-feeling is that the occurrences of pi (as 22/7) and the 3:4:5 triangle in the superstructures of some pyramids (er, not both ratios at the same time, of course) are down to the seked - making the appearance of the ratios coincidental.
You only have to simply increase or decrease the run by 1 digit to shift from one ratio to the other.
28 digits rise to 22 digits run gives ratio 22/7, and 28 digits rise to 21 digits run gives ratio 3:4:5 (I'm expressing the seked in digits for emphasis)

When it came to cutting the facing blocks (Robins and Shute), I don't doubt that seked 5 1/4 (triangle 3:4:5) was easier to achieve than seked 5 1/2 (22/7), and this could well explain the more frequent occurrences of the former against the latter.

Regards,

MJ