Giza pyramid complex

[Josie Linde]

The Giza Necropolis stands on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. This complex of ancient monuments is located some eight kilometres (5 mi) inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, some 25 kilometres (12.5 mi) southwest of Cairo city centre. The pyramids are the only remaining monuments of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

[Josie Linde]

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

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

[Josie Linde]

This Ancient Egyptian necropolis consists of the Pyramid of Khufu (known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Chephren) a few hundred metres to the south-west, and the relatively modest-size Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus) a few hundred metres further south-west, along with a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as "queens" pyramids, causeways and valley pyramids. The Great Sphinx lies on the east side of the complex, facing east. Current consensus among Egyptologists is that the head of the Great Sphinx is that of Khafre. Associated with these royal monuments are the tombs of high officials and much later burials and monuments (from the New Kingdom onwards), signifying the reverence to those buried in the necropolis.

Of the three, only Menkaure's Pyramid is seen today without any of its original polished limestone casing, with Khafre's Pyramid retaining a prominent display of casing stones at its apex, while Khufu's Pyramid maintains a more limited collection at its base. It is interesting to note that Khafre's Pyramid appears larger than the adjacent Khufu Pyramid by virtue of its more elevated location, and the steeper angle of inclination of its construction – it is, in fact, smaller in both height and volume. The most active phase of construction here was in the 25th century BC. The ancient remains of the Giza necropolis have attracted visitors and tourists since classical antiquity, when these Old Kingdom monuments were already over 2,000 years old. It was popularised in Hellenistic times when the Great Pyramid was listed by Antipater of Sidon as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Today it is the only one of the ancient Wonders still in existence.

Due largely to 19th-century images, the pyramids of Giza are generally thought of by foreigners as lying in a remote, desert location, even though they are located in what is now part of the most populous city in Africa. Consequently, urban development reaches right up to the perimeter of the antiquities site, to the extent that in the 1990s, Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants opened across the road. The ancient sites in the Memphis area, including those at Giza, together with those at Saqqara, Dahshur, Abu Ruwaysh, and Abusir, were collectively declared a World Heritage Site in 1979

[Josie Linde]

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.

[Wanderer]

For all of what we know I find it interesting that Hawass himself when asked relpied that he figures in all of Eqypt only 30% had been found and uncovered....

[Josie Linde]

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.