Erin Nell
University of Leicester, Archaeology and Ancient History, Graduate Student
- Degrees in Near Eastern Studies and Classics from UC Berkeley and Univ Arizona. Post Grad studies at Univ Leicester, UK. Current studies at Cairo University, Egypt. Ancient cu... moreDegrees in Near Eastern Studies and Classics from UC Berkeley and Univ Arizona. Post Grad studies at Univ Leicester, UK. Current studies at Cairo University, Egypt. Ancient cultures: Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Libyan. Special interests in: ancient astronomy and comparative ancient and modern religionsedit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Ever since Flinders Petrie undertook a theodolite survey on the Giza plateau in 1881 and drew attention to the extraordinary degree of precision with which the three colossal pyramids are oriented upon the four cardinal directions, there... more
Ever since Flinders Petrie undertook a theodolite survey on the Giza plateau in 1881 and drew attention to the extraordinary degree of precision with which the three colossal pyramids are oriented upon the four cardinal directions, there have been a great many suggestions as to how this was achieved and why it was of importance. Surprisingly, given the many astronomical hypotheses and speculations that have been offered in the intervening 130 years, there have been remarkably few attempts to reaffirm or improve on the basic survey data concerning the primary orientations. This paper presents the results of a week-long Total Station survey undertaken by the authors during December 2006 whose principal aim was to clarify the basic data concerning the orientation of each side of the three large pyramids and to determine, as accurately as possible, the orientations of as many as possible of the associated structures. The principal difference between this and all previous surveys is that...