Readers of this site should be aware that, following various private emails in which he originally gave express support for our public debate on the Daily Grail site to be reproduced unedited on this site (the objective being that all my correspondence with various authors should be brought together in one place for easy access), Robert Bauval has now informed me that he no longer wishes to participate. The reason he gives is as follows: "I have no intention of fuelling what is a blatant attempt to hype commercial ventures disquised (sic) as 'debate'."

It is not entirely clear why, in his last public email to me, he applauded me for "seeing the sense in a civil, balanced debate on these matters rather that the behind-the-scene skulduggery that goes on elsewhere in other quarters", only to inform me more recently and in private that "I also intend to publish articles in recognised journals and periodicals. These are the legitimate routes to deal with this matter and to take into account all worthy criticism and flaws in a proper and orderly way - and not in this Internet boudoir style which you nice chaps call a 'discussion site'."

Readers can draw their own conclusions about the extent to which the debates on this site are constructive and useful, or merely cheap commercialism. However, one thing will be abundantly clear to those of you who have read the foregoing "constructive" correspondence: whilst Robert chose to answer the points about the 10,500 BC dating on which, as I have admitted, some revision is required in the update to our book - and on which he clearly felt on safe ground - he resolutely refused to answer the far more fundamental criticisms I have levelled at the basic Orion Correlation theory, which are contained in my initial email to him and repeated in the second. So, for good measure and to make sure the message goes home, I will repeat them here:

First, whilst noone can argue that the third star, Mintaka, is offset from the diagonal formed by the other two, it is equally clear that the visible magnitude of this star - by pure observation with the naked eye alone - is not significantly smaller. In fact the visible magnitudes of Al Nitak, Al Nilam and Mintaka (representing supposedly the Great, Second and Third Pyramids respectively) are 2.05, 1.70 and 2.23. On this basis we would expect the Second Pyramid to be the larger than the Great Pyramid by roughly the same amount as the latter would be larger than the Third. Mintaka is not significantly smaller than the other two, and certainly not small enough to warrant the Third Pyramid having only of the order of 20 per cent of the base area of each of the other two. Furthermore, astronomers know that the magnitude of these particular stars does not change significantly over time, so this potential objection is barred.

Second, there is irrefutable evidence in the internal layouts of the Second and Third Pyramids which suggests that they were replanned to a very significant degree in terms of size and/or position after construction had already begun. What could be more devastating to a theory of a critical ground plan covering all three structures than the fact that the size and position of the later two was not incontrovertibly fixed in advance? (The evidence for this is in parts complex, but involves an appreciation of the multiple descending passages and chambers in these two structures - the arguments are explained in full in "Giza: The Truth" p. 118.)

In respect of both these arguments, let us not forget that when the ancient Egyptians, and for that matter all the other civilisations of the ancient world, wanted to be astronomically accurate they were - witness the alignment of the Giza pyramids with cardinal north. It is true that we have rejected Ed Krupp's "north means north" argument, which relies on similar reasoning, because we feel it is unduly pedantic and at best a debatable point. However in this instance it is surely disingenuous to suggest that extreme poetic licence was used in the "as above, so below" symbolism. Such major differences in and changes to the supposed mapping must surely invalidate the basic hypothesis.

We can but hope that at some point Robert Bauval will address these issues via what he apparently now regards as the only "legitimate" channels.