robin cook Wrote:
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> What determined the location of pyramid sites?
> Some appeal to suitable terrain, or proximity to
> cult centres and the like. And there is some
> evidence that different pyramid groups were
> located along the west bank of the Nile so that,
> relative to Heliopolis, they marked horizon
> alignments to setting stars -
>

This hasn't come up in my textbooks yet or been mentioned by my professors. Can you give me some sources so I can be familiar with the argument? On the surface, and given landscape features, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense... I believe (but you know, I'm not really sure) that you can't actually see the pyramids at that distance.



> But could other factors have been involved? One
> must ask why Djedefre's site was selected atop a
> rocky crag at an azimuth from Khufu of 45 degrees,
> mirroring the well known alignment between Giza
> and Heliopolis at 45 degrees.

What I had heard on a tv program was the suggestion that it was there because of landscape - it's higher ground and he could more quickly build a pyramid that was as tall or taller than Khufu's with less material and effort.


> The Giza group was built such that each pyramid
> was visible from Heliopolis - Khufu in front and
> the others 'stacked up' behind -


I also understood that they were on the West bank because Westward was the sunset and the abode of the dead.


-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at