"Utt 457:
The fields are content, the irrigation ditehes are flooded for this King today. There has been given to him his power thereby, there has been given to him his might thereby
Raise yourself, O King, receive your water, gather together your bones, stand on your feet, being a spirit at the head of the spirits."
If this is talking about water around the king, it sounds to me
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
The blocking stones in the antechamber may have been used to regulate the level of water in the KC that came in through the shafts from the abyss.
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
If Herodotus comment is interpreted as water flowing in from the shafts and making an island inside the GP (would this be the KC coffer?), and we combine this with the idea that Giza did not get very much rain after 5,000 bc, doesn't this support an earlier date for construction of the GP?
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
Spence actually uses two stars lined up vertically around the pole to get her orientations. If the difference from secular polar motion is 41.76 arc seconds then I think it would change her date for the orienting of the pyramid by about three years.
Petrie gives the orientations of the pyramids here:
I think spence is using the east side of the great pyramid as the datum s
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
As I understand it, the stellar based alignment method proposed by Spence would have produced a perfect orientation with the NS axis of rotation of the earth in 2467 bc. Her stellar alignment method would result in an orientation error for the pyramids of approximately one arc minute for every five years, in both timeline directions from 2467 bc. Spence gives a date of 2478 bc for the laying of
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Spence gives a timeline for the laying of the foundations of the pyramids based on precession and based on the orientation of the pyramids in relation to the current location of the north pole on the crust of the earth. If James wants to add secular polar motion to her calculations then her baseline is relevant.
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
As I understand it, secular polar motion has only been recently measured as approximately .3 seconds per century. This would amount to 3 seconds per 1000 years or 15 seconds per 5000 years in a location, such as Giza, of maximum displacement. As I understand it, there is some dispute about whether the 100 years of observed motion is adequate to extrapolate secular polar motion for
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi Kanga,
It looks like point H is also where the Khafre causeway crosses over the midline of the GP as extended to the south.
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi Kat,
Some of the Aries age ram headed sphinxes at Luxor had figures in front:
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi Jon,
It looks like there is a large statue of a standing person between the paws of the sphinx.
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi all,
Here is a draft of a geometric construction for the Giza siteplan. The construction produces the second pyramid with precisely it's surveyed size and location in relation to the great pyramid. The third pyramid is very close to it's surveyed size and position, very slightly idealized. The diagonal line marking the SE corner of the third pyramid was suggested by some of Robi
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
As I understand it, part of the astronomical ceiling in the tomb of Senenmut depicts a lunar calendar. Here is an article with pictures and descriptions:
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Here is an image from James Jacobs' website that sort of looks like the three pyramds at Giza, over the waves. This might be appropriate since this pre-Columbian stelae was found at Izapa, near the pacific coast on the border between Mexico and Guatemala:
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi Chris and Gary,
I think the idea is that the GP angle is 51 degrees, although it is closer to 52 degrees, but the GP angle is under 52 degrees and the G1-G3 apex angle is over 52 degrees. Given the NS distance between the apexes, the apex of G3 would have to be 12 cubits further to the west for the G1-G3 apex angle to be the same as the GP angle.
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Here is another google earth zoom image of the Ur ziggurat:
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi all,
Just noticed that you can zoom in on the Obelisk at Heliopolis with Google earth. I put the curser on the base of the oblisk for the coordinates:
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
"Yes, the oblique references have been there for a long time. It just appears no one uses the tangent of sides to express the slope."
There has been a good bit written about atan 4/pi and the exact angle it produces. Some discussions of this are in the archives of this message board. Here is one article I like that was discussed at some length on this message board. I
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
Here is a copy of a diagram that appears in "The View over Atlantis" (1969) by John Michell:
While the presence of the pi proportion in the great pyramid was apparently noticed earlier in modern times (19th century) than the phi proportion, the comment by Herodotus in terms of the phi proportion of the great pyramid, that the square of the height is equal to the slan
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
"even Easter Island, the last speck found, will be on a great circle with the pyramid and a bunch of other sites! Not that that would necessarily mean anything anyway."
As I mentioned earlier, Easter Island is indeed on the same great circle from the great pyramid that also crosses over Ollantaytambo.
Like the significant distance from Giza to Ollantaytambo (30% of
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Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
>No, on the geocentric angle of a spheroid. It just happens that the sites are on opposite sides of the equatorial bulge, an inflation to account for if measuring unequal angular surface distances.
Fair enough, and I realize that there can be very slight differences between the angular meausure of the percentage of an earth based circumference as opposed to the actual measure
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
Thanks for the correction. I do not agree that the 30% of the circumference statement is off by 3.73 miles even though that would be very close over a distance of 30% of the circumference of the earth. I am not sure if you are using an equatorial circumference or a polar circumference or somewhere in between for this calculation but I used the circumference of the great circle in q
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
PS
Here is one of several online sources for the coordinates for Ollantaytambo. If you know better, let me know:
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
I guess we are not on the same page. Try this page:
Plug in 29:59N 31:08E for Giza and 13:15S 72:16W for Ollantaytambo and see if you do not get 7468 miles and an azimuth of 265 degrees from Giza. Since 270 degrees is due west, 265 degrees is 5 degrees south of due west. 7468 miles is 30% of the circumference of the earth (24,893 x .3 = 7468). You will get these same results
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
The coordinates of the megalithic city of Ollantaytambo in the sacred valley of highland Peru are 13 deg 15' south and 72 deg 16' west. The great circle distance from Giza to Ollantaytambo is 7,468 miles, or 30% of the circumference of the earth. The azimuth from Giza to Ollantaytambo is 265 degrees, or 5 degrees south of due west. Given the azimuth of 322 degrees for th
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
I posted some info about a possible Giza - Newgrange connection a couple of years ago. Rather than the 38 deg west of north that you give, I thought the 52 deg north of west was more interesting, given the proximity to the slope of the great pyramid itself. Here is the webpage I put up at the time. (Note: I did not use exact coordinates for either site but nonetheless, I think the
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James and Chris,
I am not sure how helpful this will be, but Petrie gives the distance in feet and the bearing from the top of the south pyramid at Dashur to the top of the step pyramid to the top of the second pyramid at Giza, which he used a waypoints for his survey of the Fayum Road. Given the coordinates for the top of Khufu and given the known distance and bearing between the top of K
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi James,
Mark Lehner gives the exact coordinates for the apex of the great pyramid at Giza here:
In "The Atlas of Ancient Egypt", Baines and Malek give the coordinates, accurate to the degree and minute, for pretty much all of the siginificant monuments of ancient Egypt.
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi Dave,
Here is a link from the same site that Don found that has the index to Ken's old PT pages. Quite a bit of the text and images came up for me when I clicked on the various pages:
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi Chris,
"Five lines radiating out from the centre to the vertices of a regular 5-sided polygon is a useful aid when drawing the classic AE 5-pointed star. Do you know of a method of. drawing this using just simple geometry - like you did for the pentagram star?"
The construction I posted earlier produces an AE five pointed star just as well:
Mark points K and L and then d
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History
Hi all,
I believe there is textual evidence that the ancient Egyptians were familiar with the geometric compass since one of their hieroglyphs is one:
The image above is from page 10 of Champollion's grammar book.
A perfect pentagram is easily constructed with a straightedge and compass:
Draw a line and mark points A and B. Construct square ABCD. Construct circle with rad
by
Jim Alison
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Ancient History