DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15#0168
THE PROBLEM OF THE PYRAMIDS. 155
of the latter, at the date when the descending and
ascending passages thus commanded both these
stars. Within fifty years or so on either side of
this date, the pyramid must, I should think, have
been built. The later date when Alpha Draconis
was at the right distance from the pole, 2170 B.C.,1
is absolutely rejected by Egyptologists—not one
being ready to admit that the date of the Pyramid
King can have been anywhere near so late.
Thus far all has been tolerably plain sailing.
Of the astronomical use and purpose (not quite
Ihe same thing, be it noticed) of the Great Gallery,
there can be small room for doubt, when we find
(1) every feature in all the passages and in the
Great Gallery correspond with the requirements of
the- theory, and (2) many features explicable in no
other way.
1 Some may be disposed to reject a change which they may
imagine displaces the Pleiades from the position which Professor
Piazzi Smyth assigned to that interesting group at the date when
he supposed the pyramid was built. But there never was the least
real significance in that position. If the mistaken idea entertained
by many, and repeated by Flammarion, Haliburton, and others,
that the Pleiades at their meridian shone down the Great Gallery at
the very time when the pole-star of 2170 B.c. shone down the
descending gallery, had been correct, there might have been some
reason to be struck by the coincidence. But it should hardly be
necessary to tell the reader, what every astronomer knows, that
the Pleiades never did or could shine down the Great Gallery,
and in the year 2170 B.c. were thirty-eight degrees (!) north of that
position.
of the latter, at the date when the descending and
ascending passages thus commanded both these
stars. Within fifty years or so on either side of
this date, the pyramid must, I should think, have
been built. The later date when Alpha Draconis
was at the right distance from the pole, 2170 B.C.,1
is absolutely rejected by Egyptologists—not one
being ready to admit that the date of the Pyramid
King can have been anywhere near so late.
Thus far all has been tolerably plain sailing.
Of the astronomical use and purpose (not quite
Ihe same thing, be it noticed) of the Great Gallery,
there can be small room for doubt, when we find
(1) every feature in all the passages and in the
Great Gallery correspond with the requirements of
the- theory, and (2) many features explicable in no
other way.
1 Some may be disposed to reject a change which they may
imagine displaces the Pleiades from the position which Professor
Piazzi Smyth assigned to that interesting group at the date when
he supposed the pyramid was built. But there never was the least
real significance in that position. If the mistaken idea entertained
by many, and repeated by Flammarion, Haliburton, and others,
that the Pleiades at their meridian shone down the Great Gallery at
the very time when the pole-star of 2170 B.c. shone down the
descending gallery, had been correct, there might have been some
reason to be struck by the coincidence. But it should hardly be
necessary to tell the reader, what every astronomer knows, that
the Pleiades never did or could shine down the Great Gallery,
and in the year 2170 B.c. were thirty-eight degrees (!) north of that
position.