Graham Hancock on egypt: what the evidence says · JRE #2136
SUBJECT: EGYPT
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
And this monument is aligned to within three sixtieths of a single degree of true north. Why do I pick three sixtieths? Because degrees are divided into 60 minutes. So we're talking about three arc minutes, a tiny fraction of a single degree of error in the Great Pyramid.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Modern surveys confirm the Great Pyramid of Khufu is aligned to the cardinal directions with an error of roughly three to four arc minutes. Flinders Petrie's 1880s theodolite survey put the north side at about 3.3 arc minutes west of true north, and later work compiling the Lehner and Goodman survey data found the monument aligned to better than four arc minutes, or one-fifteenth of one degree. Hancock's figure of about three arc minutes sits at the tighter end of these published values and is consistent with the mainstream record, so the specific number is accurate. The interpretation Hancock draws from this precision (that it implies a lost advanced civilization) is separate from and not supported by the survey data, which archaeologists attribute to Fourth Dynasty Egyptian surveying methods such as solar or stellar sighting.
Evidence sources 03 / EXHIBITS
Who Benefits
Hancock uses the Great Pyramid's precision alignment to argue for a lost advanced civilization, the central thesis of his commercial books and his Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse.