Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt

accepted that the shafts were, in fact, associated with stars—and that specifically the King’s Chamber southern shaft was
oriented to Orion’s belt and the Queen’s Chamber southern shaft was oriented to Sirius during the fourth-dynasty era
completion of the pyramid.
Yet the pyramid complex contains another major shaft that is oriented along the meridian: the subterranean passage
that cuts in a straight line from the original entrance of the pyramid, down through the bottom courses of masonry on the
north side of the pyramid, then deep under ground into the bedrock to the subterranean chamber beneath the center of the
pyramid. This other major meridianal shaft of the pyramid has never been successfully associated with a star. The
subterranean passage is 1.2 meters (about 4 feet) high and 1.04 meters (3.4 feet) wide and runs 105 meters (344 feet)
down into the bedrock. It is surprisingly uniform and straight, descending at an angle of 26.52 degrees. 2 Given the
latitude of the Great Pyramid, the subterranean passage points to a declination of 86.54 degrees in the sky, 3.46 degrees
directly south of the celestial pole. It is precisely aligned over its entire length, “without deviating more than a centimeter
in angle or orientation,” as Mark Lehner puts it. 3 The meticulous pyramid surveyor Sir Flinders Petrie notes for 2 /5 of its
length an even greater precision, requiring “readings to 1 /100 inch or to 1" [one arc second] on the longer distances.” 4 It
is one of the most astonishingly precise features of the whole Great Pyramid complex, which itself is a wonder of
precision—and it points to the sky, for what could be more of an intended orientation than a star? The passage is cut so
consistently straight, and other aspects of the Great Pyramid, such as its cardinal orientation, are so accurate that it is
likely that whoever cut the subterranean passage probably did not intend it to align with the celestial North Pole, because
if that were indeed the target, it surely would have been hit more accurately.
To what, then, could the subterranean passage have been oriented? Given Nabta’s megalith alignments toward Vega,
we decided to test Vega against the Giza subterranean passage. Employing the most recent measures for Vega’s proper
motion 5 into the long-term calculations for its motion in the sky, we see that Vega achieved its highest declination of
86.54 degrees around 12,070 BCE. Vega matched the subterranean passage not simply at some passing date, but exactly
when the star was at its northern culmination, the closest it comes to the celestial pole in its twenty-six-thousand-year
precession cycle. In addition, the precision with which Vega seems to have matched the center of the shaft is surprising.
Given the height and length of the shaft, its viewing angle actually includes a range of declination angles from 86.22
degrees to 86.87 degrees, centered on 86.54 degrees, and Vega appears to have hit it directly in the middle, *69 exactly at
culmination. Therefore, if these calculations and measures for Vega prove to be accurate, †70 Vega began shining down to
the bottom of the subterranean passage around 12,320 BCE, when Vega’s declination rose above 86.22 degrees, and
around 12,070 BCE, Vega shone down the center of the shaft until ca. 11,820 BCE, when Vega sank below 86.22
degrees declination again and no longer shone to the bottom of the shaft. ‡71
These Vega subterranean passage dates are consistent with the general Zep Tepi we can estimate from the fact that
Orion’s belt matches the layout of the three pyramids on the Giza plateau. §72
It is important that Sirius culminated at about the same time. In The Egypt Code, Bauval notes that around Zep Tepi,
Sirius would have been just visible on the horizon, as seen from the Giza plateau. In light of this new information of the
bright pole star, Vega, shining down the subterranean passage when it was at precessional culmination, we can now look
in even more detail at the astrophysics of the Sirius connection. Again, employing the latest measures for Sirius’s proper
motion, 6 as we did for Vega, we see that Sirius reached its southern culmination around 12,280 BCE at a declination of
-60.43 degrees. That declination is noteworthy because the declination of the geometric horizon at Giza looking south is
-60.02 degrees, and the visual horizon is thus -60.5 degrees, 7 essentially identical to the southern culmination of Sirius.
The Giza plateau, then, is the place on Earth (the only latitude) where Sirius, at the southernmost point of its twenty-sixthousand-year
precession cycle, just barely eclipsed the earth.
Visual Horizon versus Geometric Horizon
The visual horizon is about 0.5 degrees lower than the geometric horizon, because the light from a star is bent when it
passes through Earth’s atmosphere. It is thus possible to see starlight from slightly below the geometric horizon. The
precise amount of refraction depends on atmospheric temperature and humidity, but, generally, it averages a bit more
than 0.5 degree.