The message of the Sphinx: a quest for the hidden legacy of mankind by Graham Hancock; Robert Bauval Page B
Authors: Graham Hancock; Robert Bauval
Tags: General, Social Science, Juvenile Nonfiction, History, Sociology, Body, Ancient, middle east, Anthropology, History: World, Egypt, Antiquities, Archaeology, ancient Egypt, Body & Spirit: General, spirit: thought & practice, Mind, Great Pyramid (Egypt), Great Pyramid (Egypt) - Miscellanea, Egypt - Antiquities - Miscellanea, Great Sphinx (Egypt) - Miscellanea, Great Sphinx (Egypt), spirit: mysticism & self-awareness, Miscellanea
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the equinoxes (here and everywhere else around the globe) is that the sun always rises due east providing a sure and accurate geodetic reference to one of the cardinal directions.
It is towards this reference point, with high precision, that the gaze of the Sphinx is set—not by accident, but by design, and as part of a vast, archaic astronomical plan of uncanny accuracy and intelligence.
Observatory
Thousands of years ago, under the clear skies of a younger world, Egypt’s Giza plateau must have been the ultimate observatory. From the high ground half a mile to the west of the Sphinx on which the three principal Pyramids stand, there would have been a faultless 360-degree view around an enormous circular horizon—a prospect that would have invited observations of the rising and setting points of the sun throughout the year, and also of the rising and setting points of the stars. It is certain, furthermore, whatever the other functions of the necropolis, that it was indeed used for practical and precise observational astronomy of the kind developed by navigators to pinpoint the positions of ships on the open ocean. Like the ability to keep strictly to a chosen course, the fabulous accuracy with which the principal monuments of Giza are aligned to true north, south, east and west could not have been achieved by any other science. [111]
Details of these alignments have already been given in Chapter 3. It is therefore sufficient here to remind ourselves that the Great Pyramid stands at a point on the earth’s surface exactly one third of the way between the equator and the north pole (i.e. astride latitude 30) and that its ‘meridional’ (i.e. north-south) axis is aligned to within three-sixtieths of a single degree of true north-south. It is a small but significant point that this alignment is more accurate than that of the Meridian Building at the Greenwich Observatory in London—which is offset by an error of nine-sixtieths of a degree. In our opinion, such precision constitutes a ‘fact’ which archaeologists and Egyptologists have never seriously considered, i.e. that the Great Pyramid, with its 13-acre footprint and six million tons of mass, could only have been surveyed and set out by master astronomers. [112]
16. The trajectory of the sun on the summer solstice, with its culmination point (highest altitude) being attained at meridian transit.
17. The trajectory of the sun on the equinox.
18. The trajectory of the sun on the winter solstice.
It is our conviction that this ‘astronomical factor’ deserves to be given much greater prominence than it has hitherto been accorded by Egyptologists. Moreover, thanks to the recent development of sophisticated star-mapping computer programs, it is possible for us to simulate the skies over Giza in any epoch during the past 30,000 years and thus to recreate the celestial environment in which the Pyramid builders worked.
Standing as it were beneath those ancient skies, initiated by microchip into the cosmic secret of the changing positions of the stars, certain features of the key monuments—features that are of no significance from the purely archaeological or Egyptological perspective—begin to take on a peculiar meaning.
Targeting Stars
Let us begin with the four mysterious shafts emanating from the King’s and Queen’s Chambers of the Great Pyramid, the engineering aspects of which we considered at the end of the previous chapter. As we have seen, two of these shafts are aligned perfectly to due north and the other two perfectly to due south. They thus target, at varying altitudes, what astronomers refer to as the ‘meridian’—an imaginary line ‘dividing the sky’ that is best envisaged as a hoop connecting the north and south poles and passing directly over the observer’s head. It is as they cross this imaginary line (‘transit the meridian’) that the stars (and also the sun, moon and planets) are said to ‘culminate’—that is, reach
It is towards this reference point, with high precision, that the gaze of the Sphinx is set—not by accident, but by design, and as part of a vast, archaic astronomical plan of uncanny accuracy and intelligence.
Observatory
Thousands of years ago, under the clear skies of a younger world, Egypt’s Giza plateau must have been the ultimate observatory. From the high ground half a mile to the west of the Sphinx on which the three principal Pyramids stand, there would have been a faultless 360-degree view around an enormous circular horizon—a prospect that would have invited observations of the rising and setting points of the sun throughout the year, and also of the rising and setting points of the stars. It is certain, furthermore, whatever the other functions of the necropolis, that it was indeed used for practical and precise observational astronomy of the kind developed by navigators to pinpoint the positions of ships on the open ocean. Like the ability to keep strictly to a chosen course, the fabulous accuracy with which the principal monuments of Giza are aligned to true north, south, east and west could not have been achieved by any other science. [111]
Details of these alignments have already been given in Chapter 3. It is therefore sufficient here to remind ourselves that the Great Pyramid stands at a point on the earth’s surface exactly one third of the way between the equator and the north pole (i.e. astride latitude 30) and that its ‘meridional’ (i.e. north-south) axis is aligned to within three-sixtieths of a single degree of true north-south. It is a small but significant point that this alignment is more accurate than that of the Meridian Building at the Greenwich Observatory in London—which is offset by an error of nine-sixtieths of a degree. In our opinion, such precision constitutes a ‘fact’ which archaeologists and Egyptologists have never seriously considered, i.e. that the Great Pyramid, with its 13-acre footprint and six million tons of mass, could only have been surveyed and set out by master astronomers. [112]
16. The trajectory of the sun on the summer solstice, with its culmination point (highest altitude) being attained at meridian transit.
17. The trajectory of the sun on the equinox.
18. The trajectory of the sun on the winter solstice.
It is our conviction that this ‘astronomical factor’ deserves to be given much greater prominence than it has hitherto been accorded by Egyptologists. Moreover, thanks to the recent development of sophisticated star-mapping computer programs, it is possible for us to simulate the skies over Giza in any epoch during the past 30,000 years and thus to recreate the celestial environment in which the Pyramid builders worked.
Standing as it were beneath those ancient skies, initiated by microchip into the cosmic secret of the changing positions of the stars, certain features of the key monuments—features that are of no significance from the purely archaeological or Egyptological perspective—begin to take on a peculiar meaning.
Targeting Stars
Let us begin with the four mysterious shafts emanating from the King’s and Queen’s Chambers of the Great Pyramid, the engineering aspects of which we considered at the end of the previous chapter. As we have seen, two of these shafts are aligned perfectly to due north and the other two perfectly to due south. They thus target, at varying altitudes, what astronomers refer to as the ‘meridian’—an imaginary line ‘dividing the sky’ that is best envisaged as a hoop connecting the north and south poles and passing directly over the observer’s head. It is as they cross this imaginary line (‘transit the meridian’) that the stars (and also the sun, moon and planets) are said to ‘culminate’—that is, reach
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