Giza pyramid complex

19th-century tourists in front of the Sphinx - view from South-East, Great Pyramid in background

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giza_Plateau

The sides of all three of the Gizeh pyramids were astronomically oriented to be north-south and east-west within a small fraction of a degree. Among recent attempts to explain such a clearly deliberate pattern are those of S. Haack, O. Neugebauer, K. Spence, D. Rawlins, K. Pickering, and J. Belmonte.

To similar precision, ancients also knew by astronomical reference that the pyramids were located on the 30° parallel of north latitude.

Although hypotheses put forward by Robert Bauval are by nature universally regarded by mainstream archaeologists and Egyptologists as a form of pseudoscience, Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert (1994) proposed that the three main pyramids at Giza form a pattern on the ground that is virtually identical to that of the three belt stars of the Orion constellation. Using computer software, they wound back the Earth's skies to ancient times, and witnessed a 'locking-in' of the mirror image between the pyramids and the stars at the same time as Orion reached a turning point at the bottom of its precessional shift up and down the meridian. This conjunction, they claimed, was exact, and it occurred precisely at the date 10,450 BC. And they claim that Orion is "West" of the Milky Way, in proportion to Giza and the Nile. Also, in 1993, Rudolph Gantenbrink, sent his robotic device titled 'Uphaut 2' which means 'opener of the ways' into the northern shaft of the Queen's Chamber in the Great Pyramid at Giza. There they discovered a secret chamber that hasn't been opened in about 4,500 years which is discussed in Bauval's and Gilbert's book "The Orion Mystery". Also discussed in this 1994 book are the tools that the Dixon brothers found when the Great Pyramid was opened in the 1870s. These tools that were found may verify that the Bronze Age and Iron Age in Egypt had actually begun centuries before anyone thought. In 2002, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass used a robot to go past that secret chamber. There he found another stone block, which is possibly a door. This event was broadcast live on the National Geographic Channel in April 2003 and discussed in an article titled "Ancient Egyptian Chambers Explored" written by Nancy Gupton for National Geographic News in April 2003.

In 2007 Bauval’s Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) was offered substantial corroboration by writer and researcher, Scott Creighton, who showed that the 2 sets of ‘Queens Pyramids’ concord with the precessional motion of the Orion Belt stars across a period of some 13,000 years. Creighton’s work demonstrates how the Queens Pyramids of Menkaure in the SW of the plateau mimic the alignment of the Orion Belt stars on the SW horizon c.10,500BC (at maximum culmination) and then rotated 90° and placed on the eastern horizon c.2,500AD (at minimum culmination) as depicted by the 3 ‘Queens Pyramids’ of Khufu. Thus the ‘Queens Pyramids’ mimic the precessional ‘pendulum swing’ of the belt stars as depicted by the three main Giza pyramids. Creighton’s work may also explain why the Pharaoh Khafre – who had five known wives – has built no Queens Pyramids beside his tomb in the centre of the plateau. As precessional markers there is only the need to mark the beginning and end points of the ‘pendulum swing’ – there is no need for intermediary precessional markers thus no ‘Queens Pyramids’ of Khafre.

Also in 2007, Creighton presented an hypothesis which demonstrates how – using the asterism of the Orion Belt stars - the actual dimensions (length and breadth) of the three main pyramids at Giza can be easily determined.

Sure, personally, I think that a lot of it is buried under silt near the Nile, but I don't think that Hawass is interested in finding that!  It would be more proof of a much older Egypt than he wants to deal with.