The Pyramids and the Two Skies

Below are the fundamentals of an idea that takes its cue from Imhotep and applies it to the pyramids after Djoser’s. It leads to some new and interesting interpretations.

The pyramid complex at Saqqara designed by Imhotep for King Djoser was a revolutionary building in many ways. The Hed Seb theme was used above and below ground. The link between the Heb Sed and the afterlife was that the dead king intended to continue his influence in a heavenly realm.

While a living heb sed re-inforced the control over the two lands, the heavenly one was about influence over the two skies. There are two tombs, one north and one south. Each chamber has a starry ceiling.

The proposal is that afterlife hed sed related to the preservation of Maat in Egypt; the dead King was required to assist in regulating the seasons on earth from his place in the stars.

The key markers of time and the seasons were the Circumpolar Stars and the Sirius/Orion region. In death the king joined the gods and was expected to have influence, for the benefit of the subjects on earth and to preserve the divine nature of kingship.

The Saqqara complex represented the circle of the horizon, earth below, sky above made into a square with North, South, East and West. The clues are there; the squaring of the circle and the seasonal markers were encoded into the amazing structure of the enclosing wall.

It seems likely that the two tombs represented the northern sky region and the southern sky region respectively, with the Heb Sed area between them. The earthly Upper and Lower Egypt were represented by the Temple of the North and The Temple of the South, which, although made of stone, were fashioned to look like living materials, eg reeds and lilies. The serdab at the north tomb looked to the northern sky area.

The relationship between the two skies is seen again much later on the ceiling of the tomb of Senenmut, 18th dynasty, whereby the north and south skies were illustrated for use in calendar monitoring. It is safe to assume that this purpose was important for other kings’ tombs between Djoser and Senenmut too !

Each king was able to plan his own tomb and design it to have the required features. Djoser had Imhotep implement lots of powerful ideas.

Coming soon after Djoser, Snefure became the most prolific pyramid builder. We know that Sneferu started the stepped pyramid at Meidum and probably another nearby at Seila. Then he moved to Dashur and built a pair there, the Bent and the Red, finally coming back to Meidum to fill it in and make a perfect smooth shape. For this reason we should consider them as a ‘three’.
It is possible that he only planned the ‘three’ after building Meidum in case he died early. So there was a practical side to the changes.

One more point. A line from Meidum to Djoser’s Step pyramid splits the space between the Red and the Bent which straddle this line. This is likely to be the reason they were built far into the desert away from the river with all the necessary inconvenience. So it seems Sneferu wanted this link with Saqqara – and presumably adopt the important theme of North and South skies.

The Meidum pyramid was dedicated to Horus, a god normally associated with the Southern sky. The temple was located on the east side unlike earlier pyramids, so it may indicate a star rising in the east.

The Bent and Red thus must represent the northern sky. The prime candidates were Mizar and Kocab - one star from the Ursa Major (Big Dipper) and one from the Ursa Minor (Little Dipper.) These two bright stars lay either side of the Celestial Pole, and significantly are claimed as the very stars on which these pyramids are aligned (according to the Simultaneous Transit Theory by Dr Spence).

It should be noted that the Bent was like two pyramids in one, with two slopes, and Mizar is a double star with Alcor visible to those with sharp eyesight.

The Bent and the Red are aligned at about minus11 degrees to north. If Mizar and Kocab were in this position, the whole of Orion would have been just over the horizon in the south east. A helical rising like this was a seasonal marker that preceeded the Nile flood.

The design of the Great Pyramid achieved the same requirement over the the two skies in a different way to Djoser and Sneferu. All was combined into one pyramid and enclosing wall with an open shaft from the burial chamber to each of the star groups, one to Sirius/Orion and one to the Mizar/Kocab line. By this means the required gods could be influenced as was expected of the dead King.

According to this idea the Great Pyramid was complete, self sufficient, and did not need to be part of any threesome ! By ingenious internal mathematics the circle of the horizon (akhet) had been squared to become north, south, east and west as Imhotep had done before in a different way.

In order that Khafre and his son Menkaure could achieve the north and south sky influence it seems they may have chosen a new way - to build a group of three which mimicked BOTH the targetted stars in the sky. These stars were the three Belt stars of Orion and simultaneously the three stars Mizar, Thuban, and Kocab. This dually represented the Northern and Southern skies. To concentrate on only the southern sky (orion) has missed the evidence of the other pyramids. Also the star shafts of the Great Pyramid may not have been part of this ‘three’ design.

There is some geometric evidence that the second and third pyramids at Giza were planned together. This raises the possibility that Khafre may have intended to build two himself to complete the triple, but in the end built only one massive one.

It is as if each king wanted to outdo the previous ones, each design a different interpretation of the two skies. The effect of three pyramids together at Giza was a strikingly visual one, that demonstrated the link with the two skies and the divine power of the kingship.

Interestingly Menkaure’s double star representation of Mizar may have been achieved in a different way to the Bent by making the 16 lower courses of red granite around the pyramid, while the upper part was white Tura limestone.

(A note about the Simultaneous transit theory which assumes that the pyramids are aligned accurately to the Kocab and Mizar axis. The theory applies for those pyramids that use these two stars as part of their ‘two skies’ design – Meidum, Bent Red, three at Giza, but not Djoser’s which is not star specific and not Djedefre’s. )

While this outlines the basic idea of ‘The Pyramids and the Two Skies’, there are quite a number of related facts and theories lending support to it, which I hope to write up fully one day.

Graham Chase