The Orientation of the Pyramids and the Chronology of the Old Kingdom in Egypt (original) (raw)
Related papers
2023
During the Pyramid Age, the ancient Egyptians erected some of the most iconic monuments in the world, but their method of alignment and the exact dates of construction remain in dispute. This paper presents new archaeoastronomical evidence that both explains the ostensibly erratic orientation of the Old Kingdom pyramids and offers a novel solution to the dating problem. An analysis of the alignment of pyramids built during the 3rd to 6th Dynasties reveals that they were not oriented to true north, as expected by one of the prevailing current models, but to prominent stars in the northern circumpolar region. A distinct pattern emerges when the time-dependent position of these stars is compared with the orientation of a series of pyramids whose alignments are known. The pattern explains all the available azimuth data of the pyramids from Djoser to Unas and predicts older dates of construction for these structures with an accuracy of no more than five years, up or down. In conclusion, the age of the Old Kingdom is approximately two centuries older than conventionally estimated, according to traditional textual reconstructions of Egyptian chronology. These results are consistent with previous radiocarbon data obtained from samples collected at known Old Kingdom sites thereby aligning archaeological physical with archaeoastronomical evidence. The Egyptian chronology serves as a standard reference to establish chronologies in the entire ancient Near East of the 3rd millennium BCE. Therefore, the revised chronology based on the findings presented here warrants a fresh look at the historical timelines of other ancient civilizations contemporary with Ancient Egypt.
2009
It is known since the 19 century that in the layout of the pyramid field of the pharaohs of the 4 th Egyptian dynasty at Giza, a "main axis" exists. Indeed, the south-east corners of these monuments align towards the site of the temple of Heliopolis, which was plainly visible in ancient times. It was later discovered that a similar situation occurs in the main pyramid field of the subsequent dynasty at Abu Sir. Here, the north-west corners of three chronologically successive pyramids again voluntarily align towards Heliopolis. However, the temple was in this case not visible, due to the rock outcroptoday occupied by the Cairo citadel -which blocks the view. In the present paper, a inter-disciplinary approach based on historical, topographical and archaeoastronomical analysis is developed in an attempt at understanding such peculiar features, which governed from the very beginning the planning of these wonderful monuments. A general pattern actually arises, which appears to have inspired the choice of the sites and the disposition on the ground of almost all the funerary complexes of the kings during the Old Kingdom. In particular, this pattern helps to explain the choices in the location of the funerary complexes of Niuserre in Abusir and of Unas in Saqqara.
Occam’s Egyptian Razor: The Equinox and the Alignment of the Pyramids
Volume 2 (2017), 2017
The Great Pyramid of Khufu, its neighbor, the Pyramid of Khafre and Snefru’s Red Pyramid at Dahshur are all aligned to cardinal points with about the same magnitude and direction of error . They are off by about one tenth of one degree, and they are rotated slightly counterclockwise from cardinal points. How the Egyptians managed to achieve such accuracy has long been debated and many methods have been suggested. Yet there is one straightforward method that scholars have largely ignored, perhaps because it was thought to be too simple. This is the ʽequinoctial solar gnomon methodʼ. It uses a vertical rod to track the movement of the sun on the equinox. In this paper we show that it is a practical method, and reproduces the magnitude and direction of error we see in the alignment of these, the largest pyramids of the Pyramid Age.
Did Egyptians Use the Sun to Align the Pyramids?
AERAgram Volume 15, No. 1-2, 2015
The Egyptians aligned pyramids of the fourth dynasty, including the Great Pyramid of Khufu and its neighbor, Khafre, to cardinal points with amazing accuracy. For the most part, scholars who have studied the issue have concluded that the Egyptians must have used the nighttime stars to achieve such accuracy. In this article, I put the solar method to the test. I find that the method works, and is capable of yielding results sufficiently accurate to account for the alignment of the pyramids’ casings.
"Stretching of the cord" ceremony for astronomical orientation of the Old Kingdom pyramids, 2019
Egyptian starry tales, Part I, 2019
The article proposes a multidisciplinary study that begins with an analysis of the details of the "stretching of the cord" ceremony as the main documentary evidence of the actions undertaken by ancient Egyptian architects when laying out the foundations of sacred buildings. Based on the observations made, the essence of the orientation method is formulated, which was one of the acts of the ceremony. Applied to the data on the azimuths of the Old Kingdom pyramids, this reconstructed method of orientation allows us to find a unique pattern that explains the alignments of all the measured pyramids of the Old Kingdom (from 3rd to 5th dynasty) and ultimately leads to the need to shift in the past of the Old Kingdom epoch by increasing the duration of the 9th-10th Herakleopolitan dynasties, which are recognized by all chronologists as the most problematic and uncertain. Our brief chronological study discovers that the increased duration of the Herakleopolitan reign is confirmed by the Manetho's data, the only ancient source that provides the values for the duration of this period. Further research in the field of radiocarbon dating indicates that underestimation of the age of the Old Kingdom continues to this day because of the difficulties associated with the collection of samples belonging to this period and the influence on the radiocarbonists’ researches of the expectations of currently accepted Egyptian chronology.
Archaeoastronomical Study of the Main Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: Possible Correlations with the Stars
Since long time various qualitative speculations have been proposed about the link between the three major Giza pyramids and the stars. In particular, according to a popular and controversial hypothesis (the so-called Orion Correlation Theory), a perfect coincidence would exist between the mutual positions of the three stars of the Orion Belt and those of the main Giza pyramids. In the present paper, this apparent coincidence has been subjected to some statistical verifications, in order to assess the probability that the correlation between stars and pyramids, both in relative position and in luminosity/height, can be merely due to the case. These statistical analyses have been performed by means of Monte Carlo simulations and have been coupled with previous as-tronomical/astrophysical tests of the presumed correlation, finding that the coincidence does not seem to be fortuitous and that it is compatible with the naked-eye astrometry and photometry of the Orion Belt stars. On the contrary, unlike what stated by another popular and controversial theory (the so-called Cygnus-Giza Correlation), we have found no coincidence between the mutual positions of the three pyramids and those of the three stars of the short arm of the asterism of Northern Cross, in the Cygnus constellation.
The ancient Egyptians masterfully constructed a vast array of monuments and temples along a 1,300 km stretch of the Nile River in Egypt. These temples are thought to be the final resting places for the Great Kings that ruled Egypt beginning over 5,000 years ago.
Keeping Ma’at: An astronomical approach to the orientation of the temples in ancient Egypt
Advances in Space Research, 2010
For various reasons, Archaeoastronomy has not been one of the favourite disciplines of the Egyptologists in the past. Probably because of that, important questions such as the orientation of Egyptian temples and the relevance of astronomy in this respect had never been afforded with the necessary seriousness and deepness. The Egyptian-Spanish Mission for the Archaeoastronomy of ancient Egypt has, among its various priorities, the solution of this problem. In order to achieve that, we have measured the orientation of some 330 temples in the Valley, the Delta, the Oases and the Sinai so far. The aim is to find a correct and almost definitive answer to the question of whether the ancient Egyptian sacred constructions were astronomically aligned or not. Our data seem to answer this question in the affirmative sense. Besides, they offer a very interesting new perspective in the field of landscape archaeology, a new discipline hardly worked in