Hello Hermione,
I wrote, ‘I followed the link you provided but it only takes me back to the start of this thread,
You reply, ‘It probably won't work unless you're in threaded view.’
So I discovered this morning – too late to amend that part of my post to you.
I wrote, ‘To say there is no appearance of 22/7 in the plan of Khufu's pyramid … is incorrect because actually there are two well-known examples of it; one in the superstructure
You reply, ‘An imaginary geometric planar projection of the superstructure, at any rate.
Well, yes, that’s one way of seeing it.
I continued, ‘and one in the King's Chamber.’
You do not address this.
May I ask why?
I wrote, ‘The questions are:
Are they there by accident or by design?
If they are by design, then are they related to the ratio of a diameter to a circumference we know as pi?
… whether or not this use of 3 1/7 or 22/7 has any connection to the diameter-to-circumference ratio we know as pi and approximate as 3 1/7 or 22/7 currently remains unresolved.
You reply, ‘So, by this argument, the ratio 22/7 is implicit in the GP, but the AE didn't necessarily know that this was actually the diameter-circumference ratio.
I find it hard to believe that the builders of the pyramids were not aware of the ratio of diameter to circumference, but – given the total lack of textual evidence for it - I cannot deny the possibility that they did not know about it.
You continue, ‘But why bother incorporating such a ratio, then ... ?
Why bother giving the Grand Gallery 7 corbellings?
Why make a floor plan length = twice width?
Why divide a wall into 5 equal height courses?
Why cut a line into a passage wall 22 royal cubits above the base?
Why bother with any design method at all?
I have theory that explains
what Khufu’s architect did and precisely
how he did it.
What it does not and cannot do is explain
why he did what he did the way that he did it.
For the why of it all (and this applies to any hypothesis or theory on the design and planning of Khufu’s pyramid) we first need the original plans…
You write, ‘Especially as there's no other evidence that the AE knew about the diameter-circumference ratio in the mid-3rd millennium.’
As I mentioned in my previous posts to this, I think it highly possible that the appearance of 22/7 in the dimensions of Khufu’s pyramid (of which I have found 40+) is directly related to the seked 5½ used for the Pyramid’s superstructure.
A question we need to ask here is: what prompted the choice of this seked for this pyramid?
The popular answer is that Khufu was copying the pyramid at Meidum, which was probably built by his father, Sneferu.
But why Meidum?
Why not one of his father’s two pyramids at Dahshur?
I think the most likely answer is that Khufu wanted to build the largest pyramid possible and he and or his architect saw that the seked used for Meidum was the most stable and therefore the best choice for the project in mind.
It is very tempting for me to argue that seked 5½ was chosen by Khufu’s architect because he saw the mathematical connection between this seked and the diameter to circumference ratio as 22/7.
However, without contemporary textual evidence of the 4th Dyn Egyptians knowing the diameter to circumference ratio as 22/7, I don’t feel I can justify doing that.
Regards,
MJ