Robert Bauval is the originator of the idea that the layout of the Giza pyramids echoes the stars in the belt of Orion (in his book ** The Orion Mystery**). His work ties neatly in with work in the 1960s by others that the “ventilation shafts” actually point to important stars (including some in Orion’d belt). For some reason, Bauval has had a lot of resistance to these ideas, and I think it’s undeserved. If you read his book, it’s clear that part of his reason for holding these beliefs is religious – Bauval adheres to the teachings of Edgar Cayce. Nevertheless, he holds his religious impulses in check, and makes his arguments without recourse to them.
But then Bauval went on to co-author a couple of books with Graham Hancock that, I think, go off the deep end. I draw the line at world-girdling civilizations tens of thousands of years old. The books with Hancock are, to me, very literally unbelievable.
On other matters pyramidic, read “Giza, the Truth” (I haven’t yet), or Bauval’s own Secret Chamber. I take Bauval’s work with caution, but he’s best when he’s on his own, as here.
I have the right credentials for talking about this, I think. I, too, have authored a book on mythology and astronomical phenomena, and am not an academic (at least not in this area), so I can sympathize with Bauval. In fact, I’ve sent him my e-mailed approval of his first book, which he thanked me for. So I’m not guided by academic pressures nor the need to sell books (this doesn’t affect my book).
My take: I think that the Giza pyramids wre built to mimic the belt stars of Orion, but that they were built according to the generally accepted timetable. I honestly don’t know why they were built, although there’s nothing to convince me that that they weren’t intended as tombs. This would not be incompatible with the alignments, and in fact they make much more sense when you accept that the link to the “imperishable stars” suggests a yearning for eternal life. I seriously doubt any claims of great age for either the pyramids or the sphinx (I dobn’t know enough about the geology to comment on the weathering evidence for the age of the Sphinx). I find Gantenbrinck’s work with his robot in the shafts very interesting, and wish to see it pursued. I get the impression that it has not been laergely because of blundering and politics, alrthough I don’t know whose blundeering it is – it may very well be gantenbrinck’s himself. The supposed “secret chamber” in the pyramid syhaft is intriguing, but I think that gantenbrinck, Hancock, Bauval, and others have inflated ideas about its size and contents. I suspect it’s a tiny box of a room, if anything, and that it’s either empty or has one or two small and enigmatic items in it.
The reasoning is that slaves would not be motivated to do the kind of work that they did. They would be forced to work, but they wouldn’t have worked with the zeal, attention to detail, and efficiency shown in the building of the pyramids.