Hi Alex,

I quickly sketched up the present situation on the shafts, which is my understanding garnered from the ongoing discussions here. It might be a little difficult to follow because of complexity and screen monitor size limitations but I am sure interested parties here will understand it.

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The faint grey lines (marked 'G') show Gantenbrink's ideal scheme. Line 'P' is 200 cubits wide (ie. effectively Petrie's scheme. I have not shown the differences in level of KC shaft exits because of the scale of the diagram).

From what has been reported on this thread it seems Gantenbrink admits that he doesn't know what the angles of the QC shafts are, even suggesting they could be symmetrical (no thanks to Hawass and his Djedi 'team'). As to shaft origins does one take them from the end of the horizontal section (44 cubits above base) or from the 'focal point' below the QC (about 36 cubits above base)? I have chosen the latter. As to the virtual exit points one can do no better under the circumstances than to use Legon's scheme (height below apex 148.5 cubits = 297/2) which is essentially an extension of Gantenbrink's geometry - at least it provides a useful reference level.

Coming to the KC shafts, much has been written about sections having different angles, or certain 'break points'. I don't know where they are but have shown arbitrary points (a, b, c, and d - the latter one in red only because of a glitch in the photoshop type tool). I realize many people don't have drawing facilities but if someone could provide figures I can make new drawings to show the real break points, the better to reflect our consensus view.

Finally, the lines in red represent star altitudes in 2560 BC, which I take as 'conventional dating' (thanks to Chris for precise figures). In comparing these with the shafts the fit is sufficiently good enough for me to conclude that the fundamental purpose of the shafts is stellar , and it is quite obvious that the two southern shafts point to the belt of Orion and Sirius - the two fundamental stars/gods in the Egyptian mythology. Perhaps I should make a drawing of star altitudes in 2780 BC for comparison? The trouble here is are we talking about the belt (usually promoting the star Alnilam) or the star Alnitak - representing the very pyramid containing the shafts. At any rate I see no compulsion at the moment to choose between geometry and astronomy.

Kanga has made some interesting remarks on the intended lengths of the shafts. I played about with this 25 years ago and came up with this -

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- It was interesting that some years later marks were found behind a blocking stone which some have claimed represent the number 121. Whether this is so or not the published lengths of the shafts are somewhat vague - where do the measurements start from? If this at least could be worked out we would have the means of estabishing QC shaft termination coordinates and this might allow us to reconstruct such a theoretical scheme. To this end could we not use cubits, instead of inches and metres, to present our data? Failure to do this is why Petrie never seems to have dreamt of the rich geometrical scheme explaining Khufu architecture, and which I have promoted ad nauseum on this forum.

Oh well, they say 'god is great' but it seems to me that our village policeman is greater.

Robin