Orion Correlation Theory (Great pyramids of Giza A Map of the Stars)

On a warm camping expedition one night in the Arabian desert in the summer of 1983, Robert Bauval and one of his close friends pointed out one of the stars of the constellation of Orion while they stood on the summit of a sand dune.Bauval noted from his friend's comment, that the last star of Orion's belt, Mintaka, was slightly offset in relation to the other two stars in the belt. Immediately, Bauval thought he found something significant. A direct ground representation of the stars of Orion's belt could be correlated to the relative positions of the pyramids on the Giza Plateau. Why would Bauval make such a connection do you ask? In the pyramidal texts of Egypt, an infatuation with the age of Osiris is often described, a distant time when Gods ruled Egypt in a remote golden age of great knowledge. The constellation of Orion was thought to be the symbolic representation by the Egyptians of the God Osiris in the night sky. With the analysis of astronomical calculations and the changing precession of the earth's sky due to the axial tilt over time using modern computer models, Bauval pushed back the time line in the computer's program until the pyramids' positions on the ground perfectly lined up with the stars of Orion's belt. The coordinates of the stars did not match until approximately 10,500 BC, a suitably early enough date for such a remote "golden age" of Egypt indeed. First published in the journal Discussions in Egyptology, Vol 14, other authors and theorists in favor of the idea have used and expanded on many parts of Bauval's theory in their books, notably Graham Hancock in Keeper of Genesis and Adrian Gilbert in The Orion Mystery.

An additional correlation with the great Sphinx of Giza was also made to the constellation of Leo within the 10,500 BC date. Coincidentally, the exact alignment of the milkway galaxy also corresponds with the position of the Nile River, like a reflexive mirror. The galaxy's appearance lends credence to this idea, due to its much higher density of star clusters and murky gaseous nature, it literally almost looks like a "river pouring from the night sky" into the Nile.

...'we have demonstrated with a substantial body of evidence that the pattern of stars that is "frozen" on the ground at Giza in the form of the three pyramids and the Sphinx represents the disposition of the constellations of Orion and Leo as they looked at the moment of sunrise on the spring equinox during the astronomical "Age of Leo". It is generally calculated to have fallen between the 10,970 and 8810 BC --- Bauval

However, for anyone following the known inaccuracies of the original measurements, it has been conclusively shown that the pyramids shown on the ground, do not precisely match up with the astronomical positions of the stars in Orion's belt, specifically Mintaka, as shown in the picture on left above. Ed Krupp of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and Anthony Fairall, astronomy professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, for example, have shown with planetarium equipment that the angular differences between the stars are in the range of 47-50 degrees, where as the pyramids on the ground show a 38 degree angle. Even so, if the structures are to make a precise match to the sky, the simulated map upon which the pyramids rest would have to be inverted. Some scientists reject the necessity of this, positing that the configuration was meant to be viewed from the North looking south onto the Giza complex, negating the need for inversion. Bauval objects to the criticism, stating that, due to his extensive experience in construction engineering, certain allowances for deviation must be taken into consideration with architecture on the ground...

.... when taking into account engineering and sighting problems - [angles of rotation] cannot be accepted without a plus/minus two to three degrees tolerance!

Other coincidental connections, such as the intentional placement of the complex by the Egyptians on the exact third plane of longitude, would confirm Krupp and Fairall's criticisms, that such a discrepancy in astronomical orientation could not be representative of a civilization capable of such superb mathematical skills in mapping astronomical alignments and precession of the equinoxes.

There is another alternative argument that is being made by Christopher F. Ash and R. Avry Wilson that retains credibility for the Orion Correlation theory however. When the three positions of the pyramids are simply shifted 175 ft to the west, the midpoint of each pyramid's edge come to rest in perfect symmetry with each star of the belt. The question then arises, to which buildings on the ground can these points be correlated with each of the stars? The answer is found directly adjacent to each pyramid in its mortuary temples.

According to popular cultural beliefs in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, the addition of "false doors" or the doors of the dead through which the "souls" or ka of the dead were to pass into the netherworld were commonly added into burial complexes, the outline of such doorways are only constructed by the builders, making it obvious that these portals are not meant for the living to pass. Incidentally, these false doors are each found in the three mortuary temples by the great pyramids. The air shafts of the pyramids also point directly, in the case of the King's chamber, to the three stars of Orion's belt in the sky, which in Egyptian mythology represented the dead form of the Pharaoh in the afterlife, Osiris. While in life the pharaoh's incarnate form was meant to represent Horus, in death Osiris. No one in the academic community disputes the importance of these religious beliefs in the Egyptian pantheon. So a certain spiritual journey is created for the dead at the giza complex, initially through the mortuary temple false doors, then into the pyramid and through the air shafts leading out into the sky, to ascend into the eternity of heaven, "frozen" within the stars.

The accuracy in position of the false doors found in the temples line up with the correlation measurements as well. Only a mismatch of 43 feet in the temple that would be required from precise placement within the 10500 BC precessional equinox is present. In astronomical terms, that lends the false doors a level of accuracy not just to the nearest degree but to less than one-arc second! All done by a civilization that supposedly did not have access to optical telescopes. Bauval stresses the enormous impossibility that such faultless accuracy could be achieved by the naked eye alone.

But what is the theory really mean anyway? What does that early epoch of 10,500 BC point to exactly? To Bauval and others, such as Graham Hancock, a well known maverick in ancient archaeology, the period is a time marker for a much earlier civilization that may have facilitated the knowledge to which the pyramids could be built. Personally I believe it is an expression of the Egyptians' own mound creation myth and a self-reflective observance of an inherited and remote prehistorical golden age that the ancient Egyptians called Zep Tepi. Further evidence of this "time marker" can be found on the Great Sphinx. Find out more about the debate of the Sphinx's age here on my website, or check out these other links.