I think Petrie should have noticed that the gable height is not 38 inches at a glance.

It is quite easy to see a difference between 38 inches and 62 inches especially for a surveyor.

Petrie should have considered whether the wall height was wrong or the gable height was wrong, but chose to assume both were correct by supposing measurement from a point beneath the floor which is bizarre bearing in mind that the person who surveys second should be looking for blunders or typographical errors.

The person who surveys second has a huge advantage because if a measurement is close to the measurement of the first survey then the chance of a blunder is remote, so it is easy to proceed at a fast pace.

Any difference should have been investigated thoroughly, as was the practice of Smyth who found a number of blunders in the measurements of others and then detailed the dates on which measurements and repeat measurements had been taken, and how he had taken the measurements.

Petrie went on to explain how the wall height of 244.6 inches (206.4 inches + 38 inches) fitted in with an overall scheme of dimensions with the height equal to the side length of a square with an area of 140 square cubits. Now obviously wrong.

From memory Petrie's calculation of the height of the Satellite Pyramid of the Bent Pyramid was twice as high as it should have been.

Many years ago I made a special journey to London to check if a significant error in a table of Petrie's second edition of 'the pyramids and temples of Giza' was the same in the first edition. It was the same error, and the correct length was in the text..

I then went further to get hold of some of Petrie's original notes. His hand writing was incredibly bad. Smyth's handwriting was good, and his style excellent

Petrie had a model of how to set out survey data in the manner of Smyth vol. 2, but failed to do so, which makes Petrie's publication easy to misinterpret. Petrie was content just to write that Smyth vol. 2 is required for a description of the interior of the Great Pyramid. It was certainly required in 1883.

The length of the Ascending Passage of the Great Pyramid shows the difference between Smyth and Petrie. I managed a reconciliation of measurements with very close agreement but Petrie was convinced Smyth had made errors by allowing his measuring rods to slip down the passageway resulting in longer measurements than reality.

Waggy's guides to the pyramids seem to me to be a big improvement for the layperson, so clear and easy to understand, potentially saving many people dozens of hours of research.

It is most fortunate for me that this guide has appeared at the outset of my research on Khafre's pyramid. The design holds a simple secret which has been overlooked as far as I know

I only have the M & R drawings and notes for Khufu's pyramid, not Khafre's pyramid, but I think Waggy's guide will now suffice.

Fortunately, Waggy doesn't cloud his guide with his own theories.

There are a lot of surprises hidden in Petrie's work. I plotted all the offsets from his mean axis of 26 degrees 16 minutes for the Grand Gallery of the Great Pyramid and found that the slope from the survey measurements is 26 degrees 22 minutes with the point at the foot of the gallery several inches above the floor because he had surveyed it in conjunction with the Ascending Passage.

Some of Petrie's statements are absurd such as a strong inference that the design width of Khafre's chamber should not be regarded as 9 and 1/2 cubits.

''but the breadth, 195.8, seems inexplicable, as 9 and 1/2 cubits is not a likely quantity''

9.5 x 20.62 inches per cubit = 195.9 inches

Petrie seems to dismiss facts that don't fit his theories and to spot 'facts' that do fit his theories without question, such as the height to the peak of 244.4 inches for a gable height of 38 inches.

He even presented facts overlooked by others that went against his views, seemingly oblivious to what he had done:

Petrie made much of the fact that there is no sign of a length equal to 1 inch in the Great Pyramid, then produced very precise measurements showing that both the east wall and the west wall of the Queen's Chamber lean in by 1 inch very precisely so.

This is relevant here because the height of the Queen's Chamber to the footing of the floor is 246.2 inches at the east wall with a lean in of 14 arc minutes, so 1.002 inches / 246.2 inches is 14 arc minutes, and his own very precise measurements show that the displacement of the niche from the centre of the chamber is precisely 25 x lean-in, so Smyth's mythical cubit of 25 pyramid inches.

In fairness Smyth did not spot this, as far I know, having scan read his fifth edition of 'Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid', but who can stand to read Petrie's 1883 edition without becoming weary?

It is a pity that someone does not try to repeat Petrie's survey of Khafre's Pyramid, or rather improve on it.

Perhaps the worst example of Petrie's determination to cloud an issue was the presentation of his survey results of the sarcophagus of the Great Pyramid in which he reported mean planes that could not possibly have been on the drawing board because these were theoretical dimensions which took into account concavities, so even if these concavities had been ground out to achieve a particular volume (perhaps checked with sand) then it would be necessary to discover the volume from the rectilinear dimensions defined by the edges so as to appreciate the difference.

I am able to show that Smyth measured more precisely than Petrie (with respect to a model neither contemplated) based on ratios.

Ratios rule out the effect of any slight error in the supposed length of the cubit. If the model and the sarcophagus are regarded as perfect then Greaves and Vyse were good surveyors, Petrie very good and Smyth very good indeed. But Petrie's survey has to re-evaluated.

I can't find a model in inches even though all measured in inches. Symbolic dimensions are based on the cubit.

What's the point of this rant?

In my opinion too much reliance has been placed on Petrie's opinions and measurements but often there is no other option.

Petrie's surveys of the ante chamber of the Red Pyramid and Khafre's pyramid are disappointing

I am aware that my theory may fail the test of a re-survey, but if it is a good enough theory then it may inspire a new survey, and I should want my theory to fail the test of a re-survey if it is incorrect.

I think Don has a chance of spotting the model, but would have to be very inventive to find a connection to the planets in which the planets would then appear to reflect natural geometry.

The secret of Khafre's pyramid is in ratios of dimensions, just like the sarcophagus in Khufu's pyramid, and both are related to the volume of the pyramid in a way not usually considered by the modern mind.

Mark



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2021 03:14PM by Mark Heaton.