Page 272 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Overview of Giza from the north looking south, with the Great
Pyramid in the foreground.

Obviously, therefore, the ancient master-builders who had raised the
Pyramid at the very dawn of human civilization must have had powerful
motives for wanting to get the alignments with the cardinal directions
just right. Moreover, since they had achieved their objective with uncanny
exactness they must have been highly skilled, knowledgeable and
competent people with access to excellent surveying and setting-out
equipment. This impression was confirmed by many of the monument’s
other characteristics. For example, its sides at the base were all almost
exactly the same length, demonstrating a margin of error far smaller than
modern architects would be required to achieve today in the construction
of, say, an average-size office block. This was no office block, however. It
was the Great Pyramid of Egypt, one of the largest structures ever built by
man and one of the oldest. Its north side was 755 feet 4.9818 inches in
length; its west side was 755 feet 9.1551 inches in length; its east side
was 755 feet 10.4937 inches; its south side 756 feet 0.9739 inches. This
2
meant that there was a difference of less than 8 inches between its
shortest and longest sides: an error amounting to a tiny fraction of 1 per
cent on an average side length of over 9063 inches.
Once again, I knew from an engineering perspective that the bare

2 J. H. Cole, Survey of Egypt, paper no. 39: ‘The Determination of the Exact Size and
Orientation of the Great Pyramid of Giza’, Cairo, 1925.

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