Lobo: "working it out on paper is far different then working it out on the ground."



Same is true for construction drawings - it only takes a few days weeks to plan and draw the pyramid, but decades to actually build it.


Extending the 45 deg diagonal of a square over a kilometer can be accomplished with sighting rods and a measuring cord.
- construct a square oriented to the cardinal points on the ground and set up two sighting rods at each end of the NE / SW diagonal


- from the NE corner rod, sight over the SW corner rod to extend the diagonal SW.


- once the line has been established and marked at suitable intervals with vertical rods, the 2000 cubit (~1048 m) distance can be measured using measuring cords pulled tight between the rods. A line between the centre of the east side of G1 and the centre of the west side of G3, is not horizontal, as the base of G3 is about 12 m higher than G1, so the measuring cords will be stretched along a slight incline, but the difference between the incline measure and a horizontal measure is only about 18 - 19 cm, which is negligible at this scale, and the surveyors could have compensated for this.


The original distance between the centre of the east side of G1 and the centre of the west side of G3 is not known, but it can be estimated from Petrie's survey data at about 1047.6 m, and based on a cubit of ~0.5238 m, which is well within the range of possible lengths of the cubit used at Giza, the distance is 2000 cubits.


AE surveyors were capable of creating a near perfect large square, 440 x 440 cubits (~230.364 m x ~230.364 m), on the ground for the base of G1, and in Dyn 5 a large, 1000 x 440 cubit, sacred enclosure was actually specified in a text, so they were obviously used to dealing with long distances for their sacred architecture - Netjerikhet's Dyn 3 funerary enclosure is over 1000 cubits long.


Its not known for certain if the 2000 cubit, 45 deg Giza diagonal held any any significance for the AE, or even if the AE were aware of its existence, but circumstantial evidence supports the idea it was intentional.


Some of the evidence is outlined here: [okadct.googlepages.com]


CT