Djedefre’s Other Angle

Djedefre built his pyramid on the hills of Abu Roash which lay at about 45 degrees from Giza.

On the plateau there Djedefre had some ability to vary the location of the pyramid.
He chose to use a line at -45 degrees from The Great Pyramid.

At Giza, the 2000c line at +45 degrees was confirmed by both Petrie’s data and more recently by Glen Dash’s Giza Survey.




Chris Tedder, posting earlier this year, pointed out that the line from Djedefre’s pyramid west edge at 52.25 degrees to west-east passed through the west edge of G3 (which was not yet built) down to Djoser’s Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara. I checked this and it is exact. Let’s not dismiss this as co-incidence !

Now all this needs unravelling ! Having given the facts a lot of thought, there seems to be only one solution :

1) Djedefre needed to know where G3 would be. He set down the two 45 degree lines from the Great Pyramid. The actual angle was 45 degrees and 3 minutes, or if you like 45.05 degrees. This also matched the line from G1 to Abu Roash for Djedefre. This 3 minutes azimuth difference was the one expected for Djedefre. Khufu’s was -3 minutes, Khafre’s was +6 minutes.

2) He then must have placed a post or other marker at the end of the 2000c 45 degree line, which would later become the mid-west edge of G3. With this post he was able to position his pyramid at Abu Roash at a bearing of 52.25 degrees through G3’s western edge straight to Djoser’s complex.

Already you will have realised the Djedefre must have seen a plan for Giza. It would have centred on the 2000c 45 degree line which served as a spine for the three main pyramids to be built there..
So too, Khufu may well have known about the plan. Mark Lehner commented that Khufu placed his pyramid at the edge of the Giza plateau, instead of the middle, for a reason. That reason was presumably the plan for Khufu's family necropolis at Giza.

A few more facts :

Djedefre’s pyramid size was very close to the predetermined size of Menkaure’s. As a result of this the apexes of Djedefre and Menkaure were also on a parallel bearing of 52.25 degrees. This line also extended accurately to Djoser’s complex.




The line G3 apex to G1 apex, was eventually built at the same angle of 52.25 degrees as in the diagram above. The reason for this may be a kind of symmetry of the blue lines. But for me this is not a strong enough reason for it. An alternative explanation will be presented in Part 6.

This angle had the effect of determining the base dimension of G3. A simple bit of geometry will give the size of Menkaure’s pyramid base. (P1 is the apex of G1, and P3 is the apex of G3)




Menkaure half base = sq root (2000/2) – 440/2 – sq root(2000/2)/tan 52.25
= 100.5 cubits
Full base of pyramid is 100.5 x 2 = 201 cubits

What this means is that Menkaure had no choice about the location and size of his pyramid.
There was now a kind of pairing between G3 and Djedefre’s pyramid – both had their apex and base size determined by two lines, one at 45 degrees and one at 52.25 degrees.

It also meant that Djedefre’s pyramid was linked to the Giza plan. Whether he was originally part of it, or whether he just linked to it using the angles, we cannot tell.

A Question

Why these two angles at Giza, you may ask ?

My answer : it was to do with the Heb Sed. The 45 degrees was the north east direction to The Great Ennead of On. The 52.25 degrees was in a south east direction to Saqqara - the Heb Sed complex of Djoser.