Hi Robin,

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What is 'the author's explanation for the discrepancy'?

When you gave the link to the article in the start post, you wrote: “I don't agree with the author's explanation for the discrepancy but he does make some important points. He acknowledges that Gantenbrink's survey of KC south was meticulous and full details are presented here”. I became interested to know the reasons why you disagree with the explanation of the author of this article.

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Has it been definitely confirmed that Petrie made a mistake in his estimation of the course number in which the KC south shaft emerges on the casing?

I have not heard that Petrie's estimation of the course number is wrong. Do you have any information about this?

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The strongest candidates for target stars are those which figure in the mythology so it is hardly surprising that the southern shafts point to Sirius and Orion's belt (assuming a conventional date is assigned to Khufu). Perhaps not precisely but difficult to dismiss.

Without doubt, better targets for the two southern shafts than Sirius and Orion's belt are hard to imagine.

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But why Thuban? You mention that Thuban was closest to the pole in 2781(?)BC. At that time it undoubtedly had great religious significance which might have been retained even after it had moved away from the pole.

Indeed, why Thuban? If we calculate the average inclination of the KCN shaft based on the data of your last drawing from the first post of the topic, then the resulting value will be 32.6 degrees. Whether Thuban was at this altitude during the historically expected time of the construction of the Khufu pyramid?

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Could it be that Kochab was chosen as a target simply because, at the conventional date, its altitude serendipitiously matched the altitude of Sirius?

This explanation is too simple. If we accept it, it turns out that the choice of stellar targets in some cases was based on simple coincidences.
In my opinion, the choice of stellar targets for the shafts was not astronomically, but religiously justified, and therefore it is possible to check the correctness of our assumptions based on the general purpose of the chambers and shafts.
If we look at the situation in general, we have two chambers KC and QC and two pairs of shafts with all shafts pointing to different targets. This at least indicates that such a system of chambers and shafts was originally planned, as it is difficult to imagine that the builders not only decided to move the burial chamber higher but also changed both stellar targets.
If the purpose of the KC with a sarcophagus is clear (and the two KC shafts point to: a) the Orion's belt; b) the pole star as central star among the imperishable stars in the circumpolar region; both of these targets in the northern and southern semispheres of the sky, according to the Pyramid Texts, were desirable targets for the soul of the deceased king), then what is the purpose of the QC, if we discard the hypotheses about changing of the plans as untenable? Could it be a serdab?

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By the way, any progress on the radiocarbon testing?

There is no progress on Egypt, but I have found that radiocarbon dating of samples from the southern Levant, (the end of the Early Bronze III phase in Levant is contemporary with the 6th dynasty), also indicates two centuries earlier age of the cultural layers. You can read about this here and here.

Alex.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2020 05:22AM by keeperzz.