Jimmy Higgins

That Egypt special was on Discovery last night and some guy thought that the pyramids were built around 10,500 bce. This of course is well before anyone previous thought it possible. "Evidence" backing it up was that Orion, home or symbol of their god, was at the horizon at that year symbolizing the beginning. I really didn't get the conclusion from the show, but I was wondering if it is acceptable today that the pyramids were built at the time that is accepted today, but were done so purposely to match up with 10,500 bce to kinda match up with the birth of their god.

Marduk

I saw that one too. The guys name is Bauval, he wrote the "Orion Mystery" If you draw an imaginary line through one of the northern shafts comming out of the Cheops Pyramid it points to a star in the belt of Orion (if you use a starmap program, moving the position of the stars back to where they were in 2500 BCE the year most people believe the Pyramid was built) So far no problem, he also points out that the three pyramids at Giza are built in a pattern similar to the three stars in the belt of Orion, two big ones and a third smaller one slightly askew, fine, I'm sure the ancient Egyptians were aware of the big constellation over their heads and built their most important monuments to match their most important god at the time, Osiris. Where Bauvall and others get in trouble is when they try to claim the pyramid was built the earlier time this alignment happened, 10,500 years ago. There is more than enough proof the whole Pyramid complex, with the possible exception of the sphinx, was built 4500 years ago.
There is a great effort to tie all ancient Egypts myths together: The "Sep Tepi" or 'the first time', the birth of Osiris, when the gods lived on earth instead of men, the age of Egypt, the Edgar Cayce ramblings etc.
I guess it's possible that the memory of the first time Orion appeared on the horizon caused enough of a rukus that they could have built an earlier monument and then put the pyramid there later.

[ April 18, 2002: Message edited by: marduck ]</p>

hyzer

I just finished: “The Pyramids, the Mystery, Culture, and Science of Egypt’s Great Monuments” by Miroslav Verner, Grove Press, NY, 1997. I highly recommend it as a balanced history of all known Egyptian pyramids. Verner is the director of the Czech Institute of Egyptology (for 17 years), professor at Charles University in Prague, guest professor at universities of Vienna and Hamburg and since 1976 has led the excavations by Czech archaeologists at Abusir.

The Great Pyramid does not date to 10,500 B.C.E. according to scholars such as Verner. Among other evidence, the Great Pyramid at Giza has been dated by Egyptologists to 2,500 B.C.E. by deciphering the hieroglyphics on interior (hidden) stones including Khufu’s cartouche from builder’s graffito found in the relieving chambers over the so called King’s Chamber (Verner, page 456).

“. . . . Egyptologists also maintain that the royal pyramids in Giza . . . were built in such a way that the line connecting their southeast corners was aimed at Heliopolis. Similarly, the pyramids in the Abusir necropolis were built so that the line connecting their northwest corners is aimed at Heliopolis. Seen from Heliopolis, the pyramids in Giza as well as those in Abusir thus appear to stand one behind the other” (Verner, page 457).

What makes the most sense – the builders aligned TWO pyramid complexes with one of their contemporary cities? Or ONE complex with stars deemed to be in the most meaningful alignment 8,000 years PRIOR to the BEST interpretation of their date of construction?

In discussing the “discoveries” of Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert, “The Orion Mystery: Unlocking the Secrets of the Pyramids” (London, 1994) and in G. Hancock and Bauval’s “The Message of the Sphinx: A Quest for the Hidden Legacy of Mankind” (NY, 1996), Verner says “Is there any point in arguing against such claims? They amount to deliberate manipulations of various facts and dates that are often taken out of context, partly true and partly false, sometimes consistent with each other and sometimes not. What can we say about the methods employed by authors who can tell us the original height of the Great Pyramid down to a ten-thousandth of a foot – 481.3949 feet – and in the same breath say that the length of the pyramid’s sides was about 755 feet?” (Verner, page 457).

case

As if its bad enough we have to debate creationists...