36
Christine Ziegler,
Les Pyramides D’Egypte
, Paris, 1999, p. 52.
37
Lehner, op. cit., p. 28.
39
Alexander Gurshtein, ‘The Evolution of the Zodiac in the Context of Ancient Oriental History’,
Vista in Astronomy
, Vol. 41, Part 4, 1997, p. 509.
40
Josef Dorner,
Die Absteckung und astronomische Orientierung agyptischer Pyramiden
, University of Innsbruck, 1981 (Thesis +C14169207).
41
Wainwright, ‘Seshat and the Pharaoh’,
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
, Vol. 26, 1941, pp. 30-40.
42
Wilkinson, op. cit., p. 166.
43
In his study of Egyptian myths and symbols, R.T. Rundle Clark makes no mention of Seshat (see Rundle Clark, op. cit.)
45
Krupp, op. cit., p. 212.
47
Anne-Sophie Bomhard,
The Egyptian Calendar: A Work for Eternity
, Periplus, 1998, p. 4.
48
E.A. Wallis Budge,
The Gods of the Egyptians
, Vol. I, Dover Publications, New York, 1969, p. 425.
49
This tradition of the superwoman/goddess is witnessed throughout Egyptian civilisation and right to its end, with Queen Cleopatra IV, who is said to have been proficient in nine languages and had studied astronomy, mathematics, architecture and medicine at the Great Library of Alexandria.
50
George Hart,
A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses
, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1988, p. 193.
51
Edwards, op. cit., pp. 249-50.
52
R.W. Stoley ‘Primitive Methods of Measuring Time with Special Reference to Egypt’,
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
, Vol. 17, 1931, p. 170.
53
Z. Zaba,
L’Orientation Astronomique Dans L’Ancienne Egypte et la Precession de l’Axe du Monde
, Prague, 1953, pp. 58-9.
56
Kate Spence, ‘Ancient Egyptian Chronology and the Astronomical Orientation of Pyramids’,
Nature
, Vol. 408, 2000, pp. 320-4.
57
The Times
,
The Daily Telegraph
,
The Scientific American
and
New Scientist
were among the many newspapers and journals which, on 15 and 16 November 1999, announced Kate Spence’s discovery.
58
Robert Bauval,
‘
A Brief Evaluation of Kate Spence’s article in
Nature,
vol. 408, 16 November 2000, pp. 320-4’
Discussions in Egyptology
, Vol. 48, 2000, pp. 115-26.
59
In an interview with the science editor of
The Dallas Morning News
Spence stated that ‘Khufu’s Great Pyramid is the most accurately aligned pyramid of the bunch because it happened to be built around the time when a line drawn between Kochab and Mizar crossed the pole dead-on . . .’
60
Shaw and Nicholson, op. cit., p. 42.
61
All this has been fully discussed in my book
The Orion Mystery
, op. cit.
63
Lehner, op. cit., p. 29.
64
The Orion Mystery
tells the whole story.
65
Lehner, op. cit., p. 90. Lehner’s angle of 13° for the
serdab
was recently quoted in a major television documentary featuring a plethora of eminent Egyptologists such as Dr Kate Spence (Cambridge University), Dr James Allen (Metropolitan Museum, New York), Dr Rosalie Davies (Manchester University) and Dr Zahi Hawass (Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt). The documentary was called
The Great Sphinx
, shown in the spring of 2002 and it was produced by the BBC for the Discovery Channel.
66
Jean-Phillippe Lauer,
Histoire Monumentale des Pyramides D’Egypte
, I, Le Caire, 1962.
68
Edwards,
The Pyramids of Egypt
, 1993, Penguin ed., p. 41. Jacques Vandier, however, gives an angle of 17° to the vertical (see Jacques Vandier,
Manuel D’Archaéologie Egyptienne
, Tome I, Paris, 1952, pp. 936-7).
69
In July 2002 I had the opportunity to go to Egypt. I took with me a 15-inch Stanley spirit level as well as a Staedtler design protractor with a variomatic set-square that could be fixed on to the flat top of the spirit level. I also built another simple inclinometer using a large piece of cardboard on which were drawn angles ranging from 13° to 18°, and a plumb line attached to the focal point. I managed to get several readings from the west, east and north sides of the
serdab
. I also took readings from the slope of the lower course of the casing stones of the actual Step Pyramid that abuts against the back of the
serdab
. Judging from the readings we recorded, it was clear that the angle of inclination of the
serdab
was very close to 16°. This value is also quoted by Lauer and Edwards, I consider this value, therefore, conclusive.
70
For the year 2800 BC and an orientation of 4° 35′ east of north, StarryNight Pro. V. 4 gave 15° 37′ altitude; Skymap Pro7 gave 15° 33′. Both values are within the expected precision range to match the 16° incline of the
serdab
.
71
Edwards, op. cit., pp. 284, 286
Chapter Two: The Quest for Eternity
1
Anne-Sophie Bomhard,
The Egyptian Calendar: A Work for Eternity,
Periplus Publishing, London, 1998, p. 2.
2
I live about a mile from the Giza Necropolis. From my apartment I get a clear view of the Khufu and Khafra pyramids. The final draft of
The Egypt Code
was written here.
3
R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz,
The Temple of Karnak,
Inner Traditions, Rochester, Vermont, 2001, p. 1.
4
Jean Kerisel,
The Nile and its Masters: Past, Present, Future Source of Hope and Anger
, A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, 2001, p. 37.
5
Allan Chapman,
Gods in the Sky: Astronomy from the Ancients to the Renaissance
, Channel 4 Books, London, 2002, pp. 32-3.
6
Henri Frankfort and John A. Wilson,
Before Philosophy
, Pelican Books, 1961, p. 51. Likewise, the British Egyptologist J.M. Plumley wrote that ‘contrary to modern usage the Ancient Egyptians orientated themselves to face southwards. At their back lay the Mediterranean and the rest of the ancient world. The west was for them the right, and the east the left.’
Ancient Cosmologies
, edited by Carmen Blacker and Michael Loewe, with contributions by J.M. Plumley et al., George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1975, p. 19.
7
The Ancient Gods Speak
, op. cit., p. 254.
8
Lehner,
The Complete Pyramids
, op. cit., p. 29.
9
Chapman, op. cit., pp. 32-3.
10
Lehner, op. cit., p. 28.
11
Lucie Lamy,
Egyptian Mysteries
, Thames & Hudson, 1981, p. 48. I had proposed the same idea in 1989 that ‘a major feature of the After-world often mentioned in the Pyramid Texts is the “Winding Waterway”, which was, in all probability, seen as a celestial counterpart of the Nile’ (Bauval,
Discussions in Egyptology
, Vol. 13, 1989).
12
Herodotus,
The Histories
, Book II 18-24, p. 136.
13
Richard H. Wilkinson,
The Complete Gods and Goddess of Ancient Egypt
, op. cit., p. 45.
14
Bomhard, op. cit., in Preface.
16
W. M. Flinders Petrie,
Researches in Sinai
, John Murray, London, 1906, pp. 163-4.
17
Leo Dupuydt,
Civil Calendar and Lunar Calendar in Ancient Egypt
, Uitgeverij Peeters en Department Oosterse Studies, Leuven, 1977, p. 9.
18
Juan Belmonte, ‘Some open questions on the Egyptian Calendar: an astronomer’s view’,
Trabajos de Egyptologia
, Issue 2, 2003, p. 10. Coincidence would have it that the vector of the proper motion of Sirius made it such that almost throughout the pharaonic era the star had a yearly cycle of exactly 365.25 days, thus requiring 1,460 years (365 ÷ 0.25 = 1460) for the civil calendar to return to the heliacal rising of Sirius.
19
Censorinus,
Die Natali
, Chapter 18. See also Dupuydt, op. cit., p. 9.
20
Recent research has suggested that the names of the months may have existed in earlier times, possibly even when the calendar was inaugurated, but no textual evidence has yet confirmed this. See Belmonte, op. cit., p. 7.
22
Pyramid Texts, line 1, 773.
24
Pyramid Texts, 1, 960-1.
25
Dows Dunham & William K. Simpson,
The Mastaba of Queen Mersyankh III G7530-7540
, Department of Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1974, p. 8.
26
Five days added to the computed value of 267 days.
27
They may have got this name from Satis, the Egyptian star-goddess of the flood at Elephantine who was identified to Sirius. It was also called ‘Sihor’ by the Hebrews and ‘Sirio’ by the Romans.
28
R. Burnham Jr.,
Burnham’s Celestial Handbook
, Vol. I, Dover ed., 1978, p. 387. Sirius is the star that is brightest in the sky. The brightness of Sirius (which is a ‘sun’) in absolute terms is 23 times more so than our sun. It is also twice as massive as our sun, much hotter and its 9,400 Kelvin temperature making it look very white.
29
Burnham, op. cit., p. 387.
30
Stand in front of the Great Pyramid about an hour after sunset and look up towards the south.
31
The summer solstice may have originally marked the first day of the civil calendar. The idea was first proposed in 1894 by the astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer in
Dawn of Astronomy
. The German chronologist E. Meyer also proposed it in 1908. Recently the Spanish astronomer Juan Belmonte has revived this idea and further proposed that the summer solstice was the basis of the original calendar (Belmonte, op. cit.).
32
Otto Neugebauer & Richard Parker,
Egyptian Astronomical Texts
, Vol.1, 1964, pp. 38-43; pp. 70-3.
33
Scott,
Heremetica
, op. cit., Asclepius III
34
For a recent identification of Sah with Osiris and Orion see Kurt Locher (of the Berne Astronomical Institute) ‘New Arguments for the celestial location of the decanal belt and for the origins of the Sah-hieroglyph’, in
VI International Congress of Egyptology
, Torino, Vol. II, 1993, p. 279. See also S. Hetherington (ed.),
Encyclopaedia of Cosmology
, Garland Publishing Inc., New York 10993, p. 193.
35
Shaw & Nicholson, op. cit., p. 275.
36
Krupp,
Echoes of the Ancient Skies
, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 22.
37
R.O. Faulkner,
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts
, Oxford University Press, 1970, p. 120.
38
Nathalie Beaux, ‘Sirius Étoile et Jeune Horus’,
Hommages à Jean Leclant
, Intitute Français D’Archéologie Orientale, Bibliotheque D’Etude 106/1, 1993, p. 64, n,14.