The exits of the KC shafts on the slant faces split the height and the faces into the ratio 9 to 11.
Extending downwards the two shafts would intersect under the KC (if they did not go horizontally into the chamber).
The intersection was 22c west of the central axis.
Using this as the offset of the KC from the centre, the base of 440 was split in the ratio 220-22 to 220+22.
This comes to
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
"Since the domain is a type of land-holdings, it obviously has to do with the king’s economical activities and therefore, in my opinion, its name can hardly be associated with the transformation of the king after death."
I am not sure about this, since the purpose of the domain was to maintain the dead king's cult.
The 'Horus king as a star' might relate to this purpo
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
There is really no dilemma between whether the shafts are purely geometric or whether they are links from stars - the answer is both !
Assume the QC shafts would have exited at the same horizontal level if continued, which seems to be correct.
Then they both must have the same inclination.
The shafts have some variations of the angles in their lengths which makes overall average inclination
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
I will need to re-research this further but -
I think the domain is the pyramid complex.
The Horus in these cases refers to the transformed dead king - he became a Horus and rose to a star.
It is not the star that is risen but the soul of the king.
A more precise translation of 'foremost' is needed.
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
If we place the QC at the level of the KC, keeping its location relative to the pyramid's axis, then its shafts would reach the casing almost at the same height as the KC shafts
I checked this and it is not correct. I mean the 'almost' is correct !
The angle of inclination of the QC shafts near the chamber is very close to the angle of a perpendicular to the casing
The an
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
If we then leave out the 'stretching of the cord ceremony' the next proposal in your paper is that Meskhetiu should be at the top of its cycle.
This proposal does seem a reasonable assumption.
But this is the case also with the simultaneous transit method which has a Meskhetiu star as its uppermost star.
At Djoser's Saqqara complex there is an inscription :
"Horus is t
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
I expect Pistol is right that the 'ceremony' was just that.
The king was not a surveyor. He just needed to put in the post at the first corner.
The surveyors would no doubt have already prepared the layout.
In this situation the accuracy of the stretched cord is not really relevant !
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
and nothing will change, since the cord does not perform any useful function in your reconstruction.
I am guessing that the stretched cord between the poles does make a difference.
It gives the observer at the first pole a line to the second pole.
This line can be matched with the plumb-line of the merkhet.
With no cord, and only a distant pole, which may not even be perfectly upright, th
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
Your proposal that the stretched chord, the two poles, the mallets and the actions of the king were all used only to line up two stars horizontally is not very convincing.
The name 'stretching of the chord' suggests that this action was the KEY part of establishing the direction,
And I don't think it is possible to squint between the ropes at stars the way your diagram shows it
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
You might want to edit your paper from the BASE sides to the CASING sides :
"However, the results of a careful measurement 157 of the azimuths of the base sides of the Khafre pyramid . . . "
For me the base is not the same as the casing !
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
Hello Alexander, Welcome to the Board.
Your paper is very interesting.
I liked the neat analysis that included the other pyramids.
However, the conclusion that the chronology needs to shift by 220 years is a problem.
It is possible that some of the assumptions you used were wrong.
Here is one.
With reference to your section "The puzzle of Khafre"
in order to explain the si
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
The picture shows the shallow shafts cut into the north and south walls of Khafre's tomb.
The post above proposes that the walls were already representations of part of the north and south halves of the sky.
So the shafts WERE the required depth !
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comments.
The pole with the semicircular bend midway is shown in Seti I ceiling of the two skies.
It was clearly associated there with the Ursa Major and the circumpolar stars.
Do you think this is the same as those you cited ?
Regarding the orientation of the three pyramids at Giza, I note your figure of 52.15 degrees.
I had corrected Petrie's data for tr
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
On the ground at Giza the three pyramids were laid out with an apex angle of 169 degrees and the orientation to east west for the G1 to G3 apexes of 52.5 degrees.
In the sky Orion’s Belt has an apex angle of 173 degrees and lies at 15 degrees to east-west at culmination due south in Khafre’s time.
The stars Kocab/Thuban/Mizar looking north at culmination have an apex angle of 165
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
The idea of having the two skies present in the burial chamber was continued in later dynasties.
But in these cases the two skies were painted on the northern and southern halves of the ceiling.
This was a lot more efficient than constructing star shafts !
The Senenmut ceiling showed the northern sky with the circumpolar stars at the centre.
The southern half showed Orion at the centre. (Both
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
Robert Bauval concluded "In the light of the previous results, one can conclude that the OCT is compatible with what expected for the stars of the Orion Belt on the basis of naked-eye astrometry and photometry, as well as of the stellar evolution theory. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the above cited correlation can be fortuitous"
The weakness of the Orion Correlation Theory is tha
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
You wrote : "The difference (d) between the Gantenbrink mean South Queen Chamber shaft slope and the altitude of the Sun at the time I was born is (based on Stellarium): d = 0.008 degrees "
I like the idea of the alignment with the sun coinciding with your birth - or have I understood it wrongly ?!
I can offer an explanation for the features of the Queen's Chamber.
The B
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
The follow-up question to this is - how did Khafre interpret the same Heb Sed idea in his pyramid. I offer the following speculative plan that Khafre seems to have adopted.
Khafre, for his pyramid at Giza (G2), chose not to have long shafts from the two skies like Khufu, nor to have two ceilings of stars like Djoser and other kings.
But he did want a system for allowing the Heb Sed to be
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
>
> It is true that the South KC shaft is easy to
> design, and that it actually points to the central
> Orion belt star(Alnilam). I agree that this was
> planned, but we need to ask ourselves why they
> chose to point to a star that relates to a pyramid
> that was not yet erected(Khafre's).
You are thinking here about the OCT.
The shafts of the Great Pyr
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
With regards to the two open shafts in the Kings Chamber, it is worth noting that their overall slopes were mathematically adjusted, ie 1 on 1 and 7 on 11.
However even with this, their directions were still in line with the two asterisms of three stars as in the diagram - rather than with individual stars.
So, in this way the errors you mention are not valid.
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
The Heb Sed - with Reference to Dr Dave’s New Book
I would like to comment on some ideas in the chapter ‘Before the Great Pyramid’ and the interpretation of them in the later ‘Description of the Great Pyramid’.
On page 20 we read :
“Reliefs representing the Heb Sed rituals were most likely prominent in most, if not all, of the pyramids of the Old Kingdom.”
On page 30 regarding the Step
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
Thanks Hermione,
The data came from this one :
Bent pyramid, Part 1 -
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
The ‘Chimney’ – with Reference to Dr Dave’s New Book
I have read most of the book now and have a number of comments.
Although the title is The Great Pyramid by Franck Monnier and David Lightbody I would like to comment first about his hypothesis concerning the so called chimney in the Bent Pyramid.
On page 43 concerning the Bent Pyramid and its‘chimney’ he wrote :
“Overall it seems from t
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
Quote from Lehner 'The Complete Pyramids' :
"The pyramid was built in stages, progressing from an initial square mastaba to the final six step pyramid. . . . When the builders began to transform the mastaba into the first pyramid they built a crude core of roughly shaped stones with a fine limestone casing and a layer of packing in between. This technique had been used also for
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
Yes, but it is not quite the 'end of story'.
There were tombs and monuments BEFORE the first pyramid.
The pyramid complex added extra functions to the tomb.
For example Khasekhemy, the King before Djoser, had at Abydos a tomb AND a separate enclosure, as had several more kings before him.
The enclosure in the necropolis was a specialised facility for regular Sed Festivals a
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
"But, in my opinion, imperishable stars have nothing to do with aligning a pyramids base to the cardinal points."
The PT's have nothing about this issue directly, but they repeatedly say where the risen king's destination is in the sky.
It is to the Enneads that are close to the celestial pole.
Below are some supporting PT's.
Other translated words that prob
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
My glib references to the mention of Heliopolis within the PT's (in an earlier post) was intended to show the much higher importance of Atum to the deceased king verses any imperishable star, after all Heliopolis is the nexus of pyramids and the kings ascension with Atum is paramount.
Yes indeed !
The counterpart of On in the Sky was the Ennead of gods near the celestial pole.
In the
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
In other PT's the location of the Imperishable Stars is more specific :
Utt 441
May you go to those northern gods the Imperishable Stars
Utt 503
I am back to back with those gods in the north of the sky, the Imperishable Stars
Utt 519
You shall set me to be a magistrate among the spirits, the Imperishable Stars in the north of the sky.
So it would seem that Imperishable star
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
The Nell and Ruggles paper comes to the conclusion that the stars were the most likely method of aligning the pyramids.
They cite the survey 'postholes' as important evidence of this.
You might like to read the conclusion at the end.
Regarding the shafts of the Great Pyramid, I don't believe they are part of the orientation of the sides of the pyramid and should not confuse t
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt
The following diagram and explanation support the idea.
It illustrates the correspondence between the squared circle motion of the K-M line around the pole in the sky and the pyramid on the ground (plan view).
The K-M line is vertical in two positions as it rotates once per day. Here Mizar is at the top.
Around 2480BC the location of the pole on the K-M line was exactly in the ratio of 1
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GChase
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Ancient Egypt