Empirical Earth · How We Know — History & the Cosmos

Thuban, the pyramids and the Dendera zodiac — precession written in stone

The claim

“The pyramids aimed at Thuban, but Polaris is the pole star now — so the alignments are bunk (or the sky was rebuilt).”

What is measured

Thuban marked north when the pyramids were built; Polaris marks it now; Vega will in ~12,000 years. The Great Pyramid’s alignment is a 4,500-year-old benchmark of that drift, precession in stone. A fixed dome over a flat disc has no axis to wobble and no bulge to be torqued, so it cannot move the pole at all.

What would show this is wrong

the north celestial pole being fixed (it is measured to move ~50″ a year, about 1° per human lifetime), Thuban’s computed track never having passed near the pole (it did, and matches Old Kingdom orientations), or the Great Pyramid aligning to today’s pole rather than its own era’s, all the opposite of what is found.

Sources

  1. Precession & the changing pole star. The north celestial pole traces a small circle over ~25,772 years, so the pole star changes: Thuban was nearest about 2700 BCE, Polaris is nearest now, a link
  2. Thuban as the Old Kingdom pole star. Through axial precession, Thuban (α Draconis) was the naked-eye star closest to the north pole from ~3942 BCE to ~1793 BCE, closest around 2830 BCE, befo link
  3. The Great Pyramid’s alignment & astronomical dating. Kate Spence’s analysis: the Great Pyramid’s casing is aligned to the cardinal directions to better than four arcminutes, and the simultan link
  4. The star shafts — mainstream reading and caveats. Badawy and Trimble (1964) proposed the King’s Chamber shafts pointed to Orion’s Belt (south) and the circumpolar region near Alpha Draconis link
  5. The Dendera Zodiac. A circular Egyptian planisphere from a chapel ceiling in the Temple of Hathor, dated to about 50 BCE by Cauville and Aubourg from the planetary configuration it shows; no link
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