The Secret Behind the Pyramids' Perfect Alignment Exposed

There are several mysteries that wrap the Great Pyramids of Giza such as how they were built without modern technology. But one particular secret captivated Glen Dash, an archaeologist and engineer. He wanted to know how the Egyptians were able to align the pyramids perfectly with a margin of error that is rotated slightly counter-clockwise from the cardinal points. Several theories on how this was done exist however, Dash has a much simpler method which he thinks could explain the phenomenon.

His recent research suggests that the Egyptians roughly 4,500 years ago could have used the autumnal equinox to achieve perfect alignment.

The equinox is regarded as the moment twice a year when the plane of Earth's equator passes through the centre of the Sun's disc, and the length of day and night are pretty much equal.

Previously equinox measurements had been overlooked as a possible alignment method, as it was assumed it wouldn't provide enough accuracy.

But Dash's latest work show that there's a way this could have worked - using a rod known as a gnomon.

(Image credit: Isabella Juskova/Unsplash)

Comments (0)

You can not comprehend the size of the milky way. I even doubt that a human can understand much more than 1 km or maybe 10, but that:s it. Even though you may vizualize it by increasing scales, í consider these vizualisations not helpful, as you only show the scale between two objects that both are beyond comprehension. But you always encouter this kind of problems when trying to vizualize something as large as a galaxy. However, i really like the effect of switching off the milky way, that is a really cool effect, very impressive and really shows how large the void behind the curtain of the milky way really is. .

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

Last I checked, the limit of the observable universe is about 54 billion light years. That's about 4.6E24 miles, an incomprehensible distance. Our own galaxy, by comparison, is "only" about 125,000 light-years in diameter, or about 1.5E14 miles. Sounds really big on its own, and, by our scale, it is, but in the whole of the universe, it is less than a fly-speck. Talk about feeling insignificant.