Page 271 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Inexplicable precision

As the guards continued their patrol in a westerly direction along the
northern face of the Great Pyramid, we made our way around the
northeastern corner and along the base of the eastern face.
I had long ago fallen into the habit of orienting myself according to the
monument’s sides. The northern face was aligned, almost perfectly, to
true north, the eastern face almost perfectly to true east, the southern to
true south, and the western face to true west. The average error was only
around three minutes of arc (down to less than two minutes on the
southern face) —incredible accuracy for any building in any epoch, and
1
an inexplicable, almost supernatural feat here in Egypt 4500 years ago
when the Great Pyramid was supposed to have been built.
An error of three arc minutes represents an infinitesimal deviation from
true of less than 0.015 per cent. In the opinion of structural engineers,
with whom I had discussed the Great Pyramid, the need for such
precision was impossible to understand. From their point of view as
practical builders, the expense, difficulty and time spent achieving it
would not have been justified by the apparent results: even if the base of
the monument had been as much as two or three degrees out of true (an
error of say 1 per cent) the difference to the naked eye would still have
been too small to be noticeable. On the other hand the difference in the
magnitude of the tasks required (to achieve accuracy within three
minutes as opposed to three degrees) would have been immense.

1 The Pyramids of Egypt, p. 208.

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