The Egypt Code Read Online Free PDF Page A

being 4°35 ′ east of true north ’. 40 Dorner - and other Egyptologists - tend to attribute this rather large deviation from true north to either carelessness or inefficiency on the part of the ancient surveyors. On closer scrutiny, however, this explanation does not hold water. It was well known, for example, that the Egyptians of the Pyramid Age were more than capable of orienting pyramids to much higher levels of accuracy than this. The Giza pyramids are, of course, a prime example of this, with alignments within the 20 arc minute level of accuracy. The Great Pyramid, in point of fact, is accurate within an astounding 3 arc minutes from true north (0.05°), which is almost 100 times more accurate than the 275 arc minutes (4° 35′) for the Step Pyramid! Yet there is no good reason to suppose that the surveyors of the Step Pyramid were either less efficient or did not have the same sighting devices and methodologies that their immediate successors had. Indeed, mastabas that were built before the Step Pyramid were aligned well within the 1° level of accuracy. Furthermore, any practising surveyor will confirm that an error might be considered if the deviation was no more than 1°, but a deviation of 4° 35′ is far too large to be assumed a mere mistake. Even the most inexperienced surveyor using the most rudimentary of sighting instruments would not make such a slip-up, unless he deliberately wanted to. There are only two realistic explanations for this large deviation: either the surveyors were not interested in true north, or, more likely in my view, they were aiming at something else in the sky that was at 4° 35 ′ east from true north . My gut feeling was that the second explanation was probably the right one. Experience had shown time and time again that nothing the pyramid builders did was left to chance.
     
    It was at this point that I could have kicked myself for not remembering earlier a very important and very ancient ceremony related to the astronomical orientation of pyramids and temples. With mounting excitement I realised that the missing piece of this puzzle might well be in the hands of a very unusual and very well-groomed lady surveyor.
     

Reconstruction
     
    Using the powerful astronomy programme StarryNight Pro v.4 (and Skymap Pro7 as a back-up) I punched in the latitude of the Step Pyramid: 29° 49′ N and 31° 15′ E. I then entered the date of 2650 BC. Within a few seconds I was looking at the ancient sky above the ‘newly built’ Step Pyramid. I then looked at the northern part of the sky and placed the cursor at azimuth 4° 35′ and then at 16° above the horizon line. I was now looking at the spot at which the ka statue in the serdab was gazing so intently. I then activated the sky at ×300 speed and waited. After several observations of the lower transits of the Plough, I was fairly sure that the star in question was Al Kaid, the ‘hoof’ star of meskhetiu , the bull’s thigh. 70 Trying a variety of dates within the +/- 150 years ranges, I was also relatively certain that the observation had been made near the date of 2800 BC. I now ‘froze’ the sky at this date and the precise moment Al Kaid aligned with the serdab , and directed my screen view to the east. There it was, shining brighter than anything else in the horizon: the star of Horus was Sirius!
     
    I suddenly remembered that the architect Imhotep, who had been responsible for the design of the Step Pyramid complex and, presumably, its astronomical alignments, had also been a high priest of Heliopolis. It was well known that Heliopolis was where regular observations of Sirius had been made since the beginning of Egyptian civilisation and that it was because of the timely rising of this star that the calendar had been invented at Heliopolis in around 2800 BC - the same date that was now highlighted on my computer screen. And although Heliopolis, it is true, was dedicated to the sun-god Ra, nonetheless, according to