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Theory Tells How Egyptians Aligned Pyramids To True North

Posted by michael on from the measure-twice-cut-once dept.

blackage sends us news about how the Egyptians may have aligned their pyramids. The craziest part seems to be that their accuracy was good enough in aligning with these stars that the pyramids can be dated to within five years! Nature has a nice description of the theory.

12 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. About the sphinx by Dervak · · Score: 5

    2.The big sphinx is WAY older than we thought. some geologist proved this.

    While this isnt accepted in the main stream (yet) I find the evidence for this compelling. The facts go roughly like this:

    • The sphinx is not built, but carved from a large rock jutting up from the desert. It is made of sandstone.
    • Orthodoxy says that its head is the likeness of Pharaoh Chefren (who claims this), but it is not very similar to other portrayals of him.
    • The lion body is very badly eroded indeed, but the head no nearly as much, contrary to what one might expect. Also, the head is far too small compared to the body - the proportions are way wrong.
    • In the desert, the primary erosion agent is wind (sandblasting), which carves out horizontal grooves. The sphinx body is covered with very deep and extensive vertical grooves. Vertical grooves are formed by intense rains.
    • The last time Egypt had intense rains was at the end of the last Ice Age, some 10 000 years ago.

    So, the alternative model goes something like this:

    • Some time around the end of the last Ice Age, members of some forgotten people carve out a giant statue (of a lion?) from the great rock, for whatever purpose.
    • This statue is eroded badly in torrential rains (during hundreds or thousands of years) around the end of the last Ice Age.
    • The climate turns arid, the rains stop and vegetation disappears. Loose sand begin to collect in dunes. The statue is partly buried in sand, with the head jutting up.
    • Throughout the millenia, the head is eroded even more by wind sandblasting, until it is unrecognizable. Around the time of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the statue is uncovered from the sand.
    • Pharaoh Khefren (or some other, earlier pharaoh) takes a liking to it and decides to recast its unrecognizable head into his own likeness and take credit for the hole shebang.

    Now, the pyramids may or may not be older than the currently accepted value, but the sphinx certainly is. I wouldnt be surprised if the pyramids are far older too.

    The fact that Cheops, Chefren and Menkaure takes credit for them means nothing. Remember that it was not uncommon for a king to expropriate something someone else did as his. Also, it makes no sense that the biggest pyramid is claimed to be the oldest. If you were Pharaoh, wouldnt you want to build a bigger pyramid than your dad did? OTOH, if they merely claimed already existing structures, it makes perfect sense. First dibs...

    /Dervak

  2. Aligning with north is easy! by KjetilK · · Score: 5
    Let me first said that the Great Pyramids of Giza is the most impressive work I have ever seen (yes, I have been there). It's just incredible, and the feeling of standing at the foot, or being inside them is hard to describe. So is, BTW, the feeling you get in many of the newer temples in Egypt, for instance the Carnac temple.

    However, aligning anything with True North is easy. It has never been a riddle, whoever says so is just out to get some good press for a book or research grants.

    I describe in my How to use a Compass-pages (in a section on how to navigate without a compass), how you can find true north easily, and to extremely high accuracy by only using the sun. They could well achieve the desired accuracy with the methods described there.

    --
    Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
  3. Hiding the real truth by 91degrees · · Score: 4

    Why do scientists always have to come up with "rational explanations" when a simpler explanation is available?

    They quite clearly had outside help. Visitors helped them. They assisted in the construction of huge pyramids which they found useful as a navigation device. This also explains why the same shapes wer e found both in Egypt, and in South America.

    1. Re:Hiding the real truth by corvi42 · · Score: 5

      What are you afraid of?
      That humans might be capable of remarkable things without alien intervention?

      1) a pyramid is a very commonly understood shape - it doesn't take a genius to figure it out, little kids can spontaneously come up with pyramidal shapes when playing - there's nothing mystical or extraterrestrial about multiple cultures coming up with them independantly.

      2) If the aliens wanted navigation beacons, and are so impressively advanced technologically - why not build them themselves? Why should they convince the native human populations who would take centuries to build them, and would require the entire economic output of the largest civilizations then in existence? If the aliens had the capacity to cross the gulf of space, why should they waste so much time on having us build these irregular beacons when they themselves could easily have built much better ones in a much shorter time?

      3) Why should aliens need navigation beacons? If they managed to find their way across the immense gulf of space, what help would a few piles of rocks do them? mountains and other natural marks are much more prominent and ( *apply cluestick* ) visible from space !!!

      4) If they really needed a few human-built pyramids to navigate with - why are these structures limited to central america and the middle east? there have been tons of human civilizations capable of creating pyramids - and theoretically the aliens would want navigation beacons spread all over the world - why only these two places?

      5) The central american pyramids and the egyptian pyramids were constructed at times differing by thousands of years - why such a gulf in time? If the aliens wanted to fly about - they'd want them all over the place at the same time?

      Wacked out theories like this are a convenient explanation for the naive and the ignorant. Do a little research and you'll see just how shabbily the theory holds together - ie. it doesn't at all.

      The pyramids are marvels of human accomplishment, and you really do a disservice to the heritage we have inherited by making up fairy stories to discredit the achievements of these people.

      --

      There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
  4. Talk about a Spring-Winter Relationship by cibrPLUR · · Score: 5

    Dating pyramids is just wrong.

    --

    -cibrPLUR

  5. Talk about old news! by PhilHibbs · · Score: 5

    I submitted this story 4,400 years ago!

  6. Those clever pyramid builders. by corvi42 · · Score: 5

    I always like seeing such simple common-sense answers as these coming out. It shows that a little common sense is all that's needed to dispel the ridiculous "mysteries of the pyramids - were the egyptians in communication with aliens?" type hype.

    Aliens are a modern mythology, this is true, and we like our mythologies to explain all unknowns. But it really does a big disservice to our appreciation of what these people accomplished with their limited technology.

    I think in the end we moderns have a strong cultural prejudice, and like to believe that without the wonders of our modern world such accomplishments as the pyramids should not be possible without the aid of equally or greater technological skill - hence the desire for bringing aliens into the issue. But lets face it, the Egyptians weren't stupid, there's no evidence to suggest that human intelligence has increased over the millenia - just our technology. The Egyptians managed to create structures on a scale so grand that today we still marvel at them, its a marvel of human ingenuity - nothing to do with little grey men.

    --

    There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
  7. Magnetic Termite Mounds by ranulf · · Score: 5
    Travelling around Australia, you see lots of termite mounds in various places. In some parts, they are called "magnetic termite mounds", because they are tall, long, narrow things. And the length of the mound runs north-south (to within about 5 degrees).

    Apparently this is so the termites always have a warm side of the mound to rest in (the side will always be east or west of the mound, so it will always be heating up one of the long, tall sides, so there's always a lot of surface area).

    One thing puzzles me - how do these termites "know" how to do this?

    There are other pretty amazing things about these mounds too. They're made up entirely of waste grass, the termites eating grass and excreting this dry grass stuff, they're absolutely massive. Inside, there's a huge network of tunnel, and if you break a bit of the mound off so it's exposed, an army of termites will come out and start repairing it. Awesome!

    Apparently, you can also make a drink with water and crushed termite mound, which has some medicinal value, but I've forgotten what now.

    Go and visit Australia - there's so much there that's different from the rest of the world. I was gobsmacked!

    1. Re:Magnetic Termite Mounds by corvi42 · · Score: 5
      As for how animals know about north-south.
      In the case of these termites, it may be that they have an instinctual response to the warmth of the sun, and so naturally tend towards such construction. Simple instinctual coding like:

      if( front == warm || back == warm ){
      turn 90 degrees;
      }
      if( left == warm || right == warm ){
      build straight forward;
      }

      It is also interesting to note that very many animals seem to have an instinctual sense of north & south based on magnetism. Many cellular colonies will align themselves along the force lines of a magnet if it is left next to them. Geese have a high magnetic content in their blood and monarch butterfiles seem to use a magnetic sense to conduct their epic multi-generation migrations across continents. Various desert plants use a magnetic sensibility to detect oncoming storms and close their flowers. The list goes on and on.


      Traditionally it was held that magnetic fields have no effect on living organisms - but this is far from true. Given a constant force present in the environment it makes sense that a creature would evolve to account for it in some way. The earth has had a magnetic field since the dawn of life - it is not surprising that living creatures take advantage of it.

      --

      There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
  8. Re:I have my doubts by crulx · · Score: 5
    The reason that she feels that this is how the Egyptians aligned the pyrmids is that if they used this method, then the earlier pyramids would be out of alingment by a certain amount and the latter pyramids would be off a different amount. This is what she observed.

    So given the deviations of the pyramids directions, she has come up with a theory that fits all the data. As it seems to be the best theory for accounting how the pyramids where aligned, It will remain so either forever if it is true, or until a theory that better describes the actual methond is proven to fit the data.

    ---
    crulx

  9. Aliens are not the ONLY explenation by fons · · Score: 5
    Sceptics always laugh these theories away because they think it's all in the head of a bunch of alien-spotters.

    But there are some serious scientists working on this, and they don't believe in aliens but in an unknown civilisation previous to the one of ancient egypt.

    I saw an interesting (and serious) documentary on this a while ago (don't know if this has been posted before). I don't remember the details but here are some of the facts i do remember:

    1. Giza Pyramids in Egypt are aligned with Orion
    2. The big sphinx is WAY older than we thought. some geologist proved this.
    3. The Teotihuacan Pyramids (In SOUTH AMERICA)display about the same layout as the Giza Pyramids with regard to Orion's belt. (by the way these people didn't have the knowledge of the wheel, yet they are supposed to have build these pyramids)
    4. Various sculptures from different cultures that lived about 4.000 to 5.000 years ago in SOUTH AMERICA portray bearded people and black people. How did they get there? South Americans are genetically unable to have such beard-growth and arn't black either.
    5. Old maps show almost the exact shape of antarctica. But antarctica is covered with ice and we only know the shape of antarctica because of radar and other hi-tech stuff. So how did they do that?
    6. In China they olso have big old pyramids
    Possible answers are:
    1. There used to be a civilsation we know nothing about that existed BEFORE continent-drift began.
    2. Continent-drift started later then we think
    All very interesting stuff and worth some seious research if u ask me. (sorry for my poor english)
  10. We're talking 4500 years by Galvatron · · Score: 5
    Aren't there going to be a lot of other forces working to move the pyramids out of alignment? If I remember correctly, continental drift is about an inch per year. That would be 126 yards. Plus, the ground could have sunk irregularly, or there could have been errosion. Besides which, the pyramids used to be coated with sandstone, which has since weathered away, and I'm not sure if anyone knows how thick it was. I'm not saying that this theory couldn't be right, but saying that the movement of the stars is the only thing that we need to know to figure out what the pyramids were aligned to seems rather silly. A lot can happen in 4500 years.

    --
    "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD