The Great Pyramid and the Stars
In our last lecture, we learned how important the Circumpolar Stars were to the Ancient Egyptians and their beliefs about the Afterlife. We now know that Ancient Egyptian astronomers aligned the pyramids to the North using these stars a reference point. This was important for the pyramids to be laid towards them as the two stars were believed to be the final resting place of the king while the pyramids were the final resting place for pharaohs on earth.
Considering how long ago the pyramids were built, they are a marvel of engineering, with startling correlations to mathematics and astronomy. For instance, the Great Pyramid of Giza’s four base corners each point towards a cardinal point to within a ¼ of a degree. While no is quite sure how they were able to do perform this feat, many theories center around the Ancient Egyptians fascination and understanding of the constellation and night sky. Dr. Kate Spence of Cambridge University made the connection that if the Circumpolar stars were used as a reference point from which all the pyramids were built, the proof would be seen in how the pyramid was situated. This is because of the precession -which is the shift/cycle of the earth’s rotational axis- which happens every 26,000 years. This is caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon on the earth. Therefore, precession changes the ‘North Star’ seen on earth. Therefore, the ‘North Star’ that the Ancient Egyptians observed and used to build their pyramids is not the same North Star that we see. By studying the placement of the pyramids with the astronomical data we have on hand, Dr. Spence was able to accurately place when all of the pyramids were built, as they correspond faithfully to the precession cycle.
As well, inside of the Great Pyramid are four shafts; two shafts begin at the Queen’s chamber and lead outside, and two shafts begin at the King’s main burial room and lead out. Originally, the shafts were thought to be shafts that provided fresh air. However, that theory is no longer favored since the dead king and queen would have had no need for a fresh air supply, and during construction, builders got fresh air from a vertical shaft which was closed at the completion of the pyramid. Taking into consideration the importance of the stars to the Ancient Egyptians, especially in relation to the afterlife, it is now believed that the shafts point the way to four important stars in Ancient Egypt: Sirius, Orion’s Belt, Kochab (a brilliant star in Ursa Minor), and Thuban (the Pole Star). Therefore, it is now believed that the shafts had no practical function, but were rather an architectural feature which perhaps symbolically connected and led the pharaoh’s way to the stars above.
