Dear Ian,

This is in reply to your open letter recently posted on TDG Website and which concerns the so-called 10,500 BC angle of Orion's belt.

First let me assure you that I do not think you are being pedantic at all. You have raised a valid issue in good faith, and I respect this. Any such doubts must be carefully aired and considered especially since the debate concerns the very origins of civilisation. I have nothing against this. On the contrary. But I am totally against the way Horizon presented these arguments for the reasons I gave in my article on this matter which you have read on TDG. I am also not in favour of turning such debates into personal slinging matches.

The major error you make in your approach to this problem is that not only you measure directly off the computer screen, but also that you rely simply on the Skyglobe software to verify the angle. I must confess that originally, I too simply did that in the early days of The Orion Mystery. Well, the short of the matter is that you simply cannot do that for the following reasons.

First Skyglobe, as you should know, does not take into account the proper motion of the stars (nor any other factor such as nutation, aberration, refraction) but merely accounts for the circular motion of precession. As an example, if you check carefully, you will see that the altitude of Al Nitak (the lower star of Orion's belt) in 10,500 BC as measured at the meridian is given by Skyglobe as being about 11.5 degrees. The 'true' value is nearer to 9 degrees, making Skyglobe value out by some 2.5 degrees. Now in terms of the altitude (but not angular deviation) of Orion's belt that's a lot. It is five times the size of the full moon. If you check in The Orion Mystery, I myself made this reading 'error' straight out of Skyglobe, which I then corrected in Keeper Of Genesis. How do we know that 'error' ? The latter value is arrived at by using the so-called Rigorous Method for precessional calculation based on spherical trigonometry and taking into account certain refined mathematical constants that Skyglobe does not have.

Secondly, and more importantly, is that you simply cannot measure "off the screen" using a protractor. This alone is bound to produce all sorts of 'errors' related to the curvature of your monitor screen, the difficulty in reading the angle with a crude protractor, the refraction of the light through the screen glass and so forth. Actually when I do the same exercise using my screen, the angle I get for Orion's belt in 10,500BC is closer to 40 degrees! At any rate this, quite clearly, is definitely not acceptable when dealing with such refined and complex precessional calculations. Any astronomer will simply laugh at the naivety of this approach. The hard reality of the matter is that you have to go through the Rigorous Precessional calculations and, once you have the declinations and RA values for Orion's belt in c. 10,500 BC, then go through the complex spherical trigonometry to work out the angle of the Belt with the N-S axis of the sky at culmination (the meridian). To cut all this jargon, let me say that I have asked Dr. Professor Mary Bruck (astronomer and lecturer at Edinburgh University now retired) to check out Dr. Fairall's calculations. She confirms that the angle formed by Orion's belt (passing through the first two 'largest' stars i.e. Al Nitak and Al Nilam) at culmination in 10,500 BC was between 47 and 50 (40 to 43 degrees measured from the horizontal i.e. the horizon), the variation being dependent on whether or not nutation was allowed for in the calculations. This means that the variance between the average of these angles with that angle made by the two largest Pyramids --which is close to 45 degrees-- is between 2 and 5 degrees. Remember, however, that no one, unfortunately, can be 100 percent certain of these calculated values since, after all, they are theoretical (albeit using the best mathematical constants available) and not actually observed and measured. But assuming that they are true to reality, then what does it all really mean ? Like I pointed out in one of my replies to this question to Mark and which was published on TDG, the apparent size (or length) of Orion's belt is about 3 degrees in angular size (about the length of an A4 sheet of paper). Even if we take the higher variance of 5 degrees in angle, this means that the 'error' in question is in the order of a minute 1.5 percent margin! (i.e. 5 divided by 360 degrees). If we take the lower variance of 2 degrees, then we get an even much lower 'error' of less than 0.55 percent margin! This, if you try and measure it "off the screen", something of the length of an A4 sheet hardly produces a perceptible change to the unaided eye. Try it out. Take an A4 size sheet of paper and twist it 2 to 5 degrees left or right --that is if you can be that accurate-- and you will see that the variance is almost unnoticeable. It is like aiming for the bull's eye on a dart board, but hitting the black blob slightly off-centre. In short the hit is as good as damnit.

Now I presume that the ancient Egyptians could only measure "off the screen" i.e. the actual sky being, in this case, the screen, by observing Orion's belt as it passed over the meridian. Well then, so if we, today, by similar measuring "off the screen" of our computer monitor get as much as 5 degrees variance, then the ancients did pretty well ! In short, when we account for the naked eye crude method of such "off the screen" measurements, then we have to agree that what they achieved is a remarkably good level of error tolerance. Now your argument that this error tolerance means that it proves there was no deliberate intention on their part to make a correlation with these stars and the Pyramids (especially when we accept the strong emphasis in the Pyramid Texts of the connection of the Pyramid builders with Osiris-Orion and the alignment of the shaft of the Great Pyramid to Orion's belt) is, in my view being pedantic. It would be like the Papal Inquisition saying to Leonardo Da Vinci that he did not intend a deliberate depiction of the Mona Lisa Gioconda because, after examining closely the crown of her nose and that shown in the portrait, there was a small variance in alignment!

The trouble with such arguments that you raise is that they employ a stubborn empirical approach to what is, after all, a symbolic correlation. Of course the Pyramids are not really stars. Of course the 'soul' of the king did not fly to Orion. Of course the Nile is not really the Milky Way. Of course the Sphinx is not really Leo. But this is missing the point. The point, quite simply, is that the sky was imagined be a cosmic 'home' for the departed kings, a sort of cosmic Egypt such that some of the natural features of the land, coupled with the artificial features of Pyramids, Sphinx and causeways, could be made to symbolise this 'as above so below' idea. If you can't understand this, you have no business trying to appreciate the motives of the ancient pyramid builders. You should stick to double-entry book-keeping or such similar occupation.

But let us stick, anyway, to your empirical approach to this matter for a while. Actually you are, in fact, missing the essential aspect of the 10,500 BC argument, and this is that Orion's belt strikes the meridian axis of the sky at its lowest "First Time" point (i.e. at its lowest altitude in the precessional cycle) with an RA (right ascension) of very close to 18 hours (actually 17 hours 58 minutes should we want to split hairs on this). This means that the Vernal Point (spring equinox point) would simultaneously have been seen on the rise in the eastern horizon, and thus the sun rise at the moment when Orion's belt struck the meridian would have been in direct alignment with the Great Sphinx. In consideration that the zodiacal constellation which also rose with the Vernal Point at that epoch was that of Leo, then this "double lock" or "double sky-ground symbolism" makes it, in my books at least, a very unlikely coincidence. My conclusion stands. The Giza necropolis appears to be an astronomical-architectural cryptogram which spells out the "First Time" and, in the reckoning of our modern day calendar, prints out on the ground by its alignments the date 10,500 BC. This is an astronomical fact. Now of course the real coincidence with all this is that, yes, this curious date was mysteriously predicted back in 1932 by Edgar Cayce. But I cannot help this; no more than you, I guess, cannot help thinking that because of this my motives for defending the 10,500 BC date are occult and (at least according to Picknett and Prince) somehow a sinister plot to promote the Edgar Cayce Foundation. Nothing could be further from the truth (read Secret Chamber). There will always be those who see 'conspiracies' everywhere. I am hoping that perhaps this reply will cause such rumours to abate. But something tells me it won't. And the reason is, I suggest, more 'occult' than Edgar Cayce. For let me ask you something: don't tell me that it hasn't crossed your mind that all this 'debating' with 'open letters' you so wish to generate with Hancock and myself on the Internet is a also a very good way of generating, more to the point, some Pyramid Selling? But of course it hasn't! How pedantic of me to even suggest that.

Best Regards,

Robert G. Bauval