Well, one thing is certain, that the pyramid sides were never intended to be 440 cubits, unless you accept that the builders had atrocious measuring capabilities, which is not born out by other parts of the pyramid. My theory is that they started with the height of exactly 280 RC of 20.62063364 British inches and then applied a pi value of 289/92, which yields 3.1413043478260 etc. That value applied to 280 RC yields side lengths of 439.7826087 RC. That x 20.62063364= 9068.596055 inches. Actual surveyed mean side length= 9068.8. So we're looking at a difference of 1/5th of an inch. The West side is actually dead on at a length of 9068.6". So I think it's time to drop the "intended length of 440 RC" thing.

Regarding the niche, I don't know what you meant by the "displacement" of the niche. I hadn't investigated the niche dimensions yet but taking a quick look at the position of its vertical axis distance from the center of the axis of the chamber it appears to be simply 20.62063364 inches x sqrt 1.5= 25.2550153". Reported mean= 25.19". At the middle of the niche vertical axis the measurement was 25.28" so this appears to me to be the intention. sqrt 1.5 is the ratio of sqrt 3:sqrt 2 and can be arrived at through geometric means. He also reported "eccentricity from sides of chamber", whatever that means, of 25.29", so there it is again.

The height of the niche appears to be 4x sqrt 5 RC (or sqrt 80). Using a value of 20.62063364" for the RC that works out to 184.4365542". Petrie reported 183.8. If we use the niche height to calculate an RC value using the 4x sqrt 5 formula we obtain 20.54946471", so it's off by 0.071168927", about 1/14th of an inch. You know how small 1/16th of an inch is so you can picture how small an error that actually is. Or the error in the total height is about 1/3rd of an inch. Considering how rough the floor is in the niche, I would assume that the 1/3rd inch is simply due to that, being worn down some no doubt.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2013 09:38AM by Rigel_7.