Hi Alex
I don't think that the method I proposed is a bisector method because the whole point of tracing a star just inside the circumference of a tube is because the bisector method is impractical, as we both agree, but I am not sure how precise my method would be in practice. If a star follows round the edge of the circumference of the selected tube for say 6 hours then the tube is pointing close to due north, and tubes of reducing bore could have been tried night after night with refinement of the orientation of the base of the proposed device to keep the star in view.
That's a minor point now that you advocate a most obvious way of determining the maximum elongation west or east which seems valid to me having considered the same idea in relation to the simultaneous transit model of Spence, but not your hypothesis.
I don't have a fixed point of view so it would be easy for me to be convinced by your graph. I have, however, seen other graphs where I was at first delighted then disappointed by a feeling that the data used was selective.
My view of the Great Pyramid has only become blinkered because nobody has proposed your hypothesis before you as far as I know, or at least not with such a convincing graph, although it will have a short half life it is not robust.
My solar method is actually something of a last resort assuming the pyramid was started say 2590 BC rather than say 2790 BC. It had not seemed unlikely to me that the era of huge pyramids was motivated, in part, by the ever diminishing circles of Alpha Draconis around the pole of the night sky.
I think my picture of the equinox in the design of the Great Pyramid is valid, but my translation of that model to the base square of the pyramid does not have a tenable solution, and my search for such a solution is at end in the light of your work, or potentially the pitch black work of ancient surveyors across many generations.
The radiocarbon work seeks to justify itself based on statistics that are beyond me, but the simple facts you raise concern me because so few samples have been dated, and perhaps not the best samples.
I.E.S. Edwards, who wrote the paper I mentioned, was Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum. You may want to check that the entire sample was not consumed in the radiocarbon analysis. If not, then why don't you suggest to Oxford that the sample in the British Museum should be re-checked to see if it is in line with their graph.
Or would they prefer another laboratory to discredit their work if it turns out that their work was unreasonable in suggesting that Egyptian Chronology of the Old Kingdom was so well supported by radiocarbon data?
I think the response from Oxford could be positive if you seek collaboration.
Quote from Annex E of my monograph on the Grand Gallery:
Star theories are not straightforward because the axis of the earth wobbles in a cycle of over 25,000 years, known as the precession of the equinoxes. Professor Piazzi Smyth consulted Dr Brunnow, Astronomer Royal for Ireland, for precise data on Alpha Draconis, the pole star. The answer came back that Alpha Draconis was 0 degrees 3 minutes 25 seconds from the pole in 2790 BC compared to 3 degrees 41 minutes 50 seconds in 3443 BC and 3 degrees 41 minutes 42 seconds in 2136 BC.
If Dr Brunnow was correct, perhaps the Great Pyramid should be dated as c.2790 BC plus or minus 100 years, to account for its almost perfect alignment due North?
End of my quote
Mark