on the
Great Pyramid of Giza Alnilam on the
pyramid of Khafre Mintaka on the
pyramid of Menkaure Bauval is specifically known for the
Orion Correlation Theory (OCT), which proposes a relationship between the
fourth dynasty Egyptian pyramids of the
Giza Plateau and the alignment of certain stars in the
constellation of
Orion. However, 20 years before Bauval's book
The Orion Mystery suggested that the Giza Pyramids were aligned to Orion's belt, James J. Hurtak pointed out such a correlation in 1973 (published in 1977). One night in 1983, while working in
Saudi Arabia, he took his family and a friend's family up into the sand dunes of the
Arabian Desert for a camping expedition. His friend pointed out the constellation of
Orion, and mentioned that
Alnitak, the most easterly of the stars making up Orion's belt, was offset slightly from the others. Bauval then made a connection between the layout of the three main stars in Orion's belt and the layout of the three main pyramids in the
Giza necropolis. The Orion Correlation Theory has been described as a form of
pseudoarchaeology. Among the idea's critics have been two astronomers:
Ed Krupp of
Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and
Anthony Fairall, astronomy professor at the
University of Cape Town, South Africa. Krupp and Fairall independently investigated the angle between the alignment of Orion's Belt to North during the era cited by Bauval (which differs from the angle in the 3rd millennium BCE, because of the
precession of the equinoxes), and found that the angle was somewhat different from the 'perfect match' claimed by Bauval and Hancock: 47 to 50 degrees, compared to the 38-degree angle formed by the pyramids. Krupp also pointed out that the slightly bent line formed by the three pyramids was deviated towards the North, whereas the slight "kink" in the line of Orion's Belt was deformed to the South, meaning that a direct correlation would require one or the other to be inverted. Indeed, this is what was done in the original book by Bauval and Gilbert (
The Orion Mystery), which compared images of the pyramids and Orion without revealing that the pyramids' map had been inverted. Krupp and Fairall find other problems with the claims, including the point that if the Sphinx is meant to represent the constellation of
Leo, then it should be on the opposite side of the Nile (the 'Milky Way') from the pyramids ('Orion'), that the
vernal equinox around 10,500 BCE was in
Virgo and not Leo, and that the constellations of the
Zodiac originate from Mesopotamia and were unknown in Egypt at the time. ==
Atlantis Reborn documentary==