The mystery of the Great pyramid : traditions concerning it and its connection with the Egyptian Book of the dead : with numerous illustrations

CHAPTER VI

AsTRONOMICAL CONCEPTIONS IN THE PYRAMID AND IN THE RITUAL

In its geographical position—3o° N. latitude, and 31° E. longitude—the Great Pyramid stands exactly at the centre of the land surface of the earth, a fact first noted by Professor Piazzi Smyth, then Astronomer Royal for Scotland, during his survey of the Pyramid in the winter of 1864-5. That is to say, the land area lying to east of it equals the land area to the west ; while there is more land surface along both its meridian and its latitude than on any other meridian and latitude, and at the same time its opposite, or nether, meridian, passes through the maximum amount of water surface. The meridian of the Great Pyramid, therefore, is the natural zero of longitude for the whole globe, and the most suitable for reckoning from by all nations. This aspect of the Great Pyramid has been endorsed by the well-known astronomer, the Abbe Moreux, Director of the Bourges Observatory, who says of it: “ The meridian of the pyramid—the line running north and south, passing through its apex—is the ideal meridian ; it is that which crosses the greatest amount of land and the smallest amount of sea; and if we calculate the area of habitable territories, it will be found to divide them into two equal halves.”

Now we find in the Ritual a reference to this unique position of the Great Pyramid, for in the longer version of chap. Ixiv, line 7, Osiris is addressed by the postulant

as: “ Lord of the Shrine which standeth in the middle of the earth.”