The feature discussed in the previous article (January issue) was not dependent upon any particular unit of measure. This is helpful because it makes the evidence more direct.

But the units of measure used in the Pyramid are of deep interest and now we turn to examine them. A popular standard of measure in ancient Egypt was the Egyptian Royal Cubit. Since actual measuring sticks of this length are preserved from antiquity, it is easily determined that the Egyptian Royal Cubit was, to the nearest tenth inch, 20.6″ long. Is there evidence that this measure was used in the Pyramid? Yes. It appears in 12 instances of which we are aware.

1. King’s chamber = 10 x 20 RC.
2. Queen’s Chamber = 10 x 11 RC.
3. Niche in Queen’s chamber is 3 RC wide at the bottom, 1 at the top.
4. Grand Gallery ramps 1 RC wide, floor is 2, ceiling is 2.
5. The passages are 2 RC wide.
6. The Coffer is 2 RC wide.
7. The insets along the sides of the Grand Gallery are 1 RC long, 1 RC high.
8. The step in the Horizontal Passage is 1 RC tall.
9. The masonry platform on which the Pyramid stands is 1 RC thick.
10. There are 3 “girdle stones” upward in the First Ascending Passage. Their leading edges are spaced 10 RC apart, and the first is 10 RC from the last of several limestone girdle stones near the beginning of the passage.
11. The angle of the inclined passages can be constructed in a triangle with the socket base length of the Pyramid as a leg, and 1000 RC as the hypotenuse.
12. From the beginning of the Antechamber to the Granite Leaf is 1 RC.

From these instances it is clear that the Egyptian Royal Cubit was employed in the Pyramid’s construction. However, no symbolic significance to any of these measures has been brought to our attention. This leads us to suppose that symbolism was not intended to be demonstrated by Royal Cubit measures.

We next ask what evidence there may be for the use of what have been termed the “Pyramid Cubit,” and the “Pyramid Inch.” The PC is slightly over 25 inches, and the PI is 1/25th of the PC, or very nearly an English inch. Most Pyramid students who see it to be of Divine Architecture, (and some who do not) have felt that these measures do carry symbolic meaning in the pyramid. What is the evidence that they are valid units of measure?  And why is the Pyramid inch so nearly equal to the English inch?

As to the last question, the basic thought is that the “Pyramid” cubit and inch were ancient earth commensurable measures, from which the English measures derive [1].

The Pyramid Cubit is strikingly earth-commensurable. To illustrate this, consider the development of the French Meter. The Parliament of the Revolution wished to adopt a new standard of length that would be intrinsically scientific and earth-commensurable. They determined that 1/10,000,000th the distance from the north pole to the equator would serve well.

But as the earth is not truly circular, but a slightly irregular ellipsoid, it made a difference which straight path they would choose from the pole to the equator. They of course chose that line which would pass through Paris! This underscores the bias, however slight, which that system carries with it, and suggests that for an earth-commensurable unit of measure which would serve all peoples equally, the distance from the pole to the center of the earth along the polar axis would serve better. For all mankind revolves equally about that axis. And 1/10,000,000th [2] of the polar radius is the “pyramid cubit.” It therefore lays firm claim to being an earth-commensurable measure of intrinsic propriety for use as a standard.

 

 

But what evidence is there that these units are actually significant in the Pyramid? On the “Granite Leaf” of the Antechamber, on the north face of the upper of the two stones of the “Leaf,” there is a peculiar semicircular boss about 5″ wide, and 1″ thick [3]. The lack of any apparent functional use for this boss in its present position suggests that it is for a symbolic purpose. Its placement is off center horizontally one Pyramid Inch, and from the center of the boss to the far edge of the Leaf (measuring back across the center of the Leaf to the edge) is one Pyramid Cubit. Perhaps, then, the purpose of the boss was to expressly to indicate the units of measure used to convey symbolisms. (Whereas the Royal Cubit, used architecturally, bears sufficient structual testimony of its use.)

Notice that each unit (PC and PI) is shown independent of the other. For once the boss is offset from center to show the inch, the measure of the cubit depends solely upon the width of the Leaf. Since the leaf is recessed into the wall on either end, its precise width is not mandated by the width of the Antechamber, and is evidently arbitrary if not to demonstrate the length of the Pyramid Cubit.

This evidence is plausible, but it would be helpful to have a “second witness” for these units. More than this, we seem to require some striking and consistent number of these units to appear in a conspicuous way to validate the tentative conclusions drawn from the boss. For, specially with the Pyramid Inch, measures of just one such inch could be quite accidental, due to the shortness of the unit and the roughness of precision in measuring stonework.

For the Pyramid Cubit this is found in the socket base length of the Pyramid, measuring approximately 365 1/4 Pyramid Cubits. For the Pyramid Inch, note the figure below.

 

The circle which fills the Antechamber [4],  combined with the coffer, also fills the King’s Chamber. And the circumference of that circle, if rolled along the passage floor beginning where the circle touches the floor, would just reach to the wall of the King’s Chamber. We maintain that this feature bears clear evidence of thoughtful design. For whatever purpose, by whatever builder, the architect desired that circle to be noted. And the circumference of that circle is 365 1/4 Pyramid inches.

It is of more than passing interest that both units are displayed in the same quantity – 365 1/4 – and that this quantity is an important standard quantity – the number of days in a Solar year. And of all the symbolic numbers referenced in the previous article, this is the most sublime among them.

It is therefore appropriate that that particular quantity of units, above any other number we could suggest, is used to verify the Pyramid units. Why not 100, or 1000 such units? Would that be more appropriate? Essentially no, because while such round numbers are striking, they are not symbolic. They represent nothing. How much better that the chiefest symbolic number we have yet seen use in the pyramid, the number of days in a year, is the quantity selected to demonstrate the symbolic units of the Pyramid!

Anticlimactically, but to round out the discussion, we list three other appearances of the Pyramid Cubit:

(1) From the Grand Gallery north (lower) wall to the beginning of the well shaft is 1 PC.

(2) The horizontal center of the niche in the Queens’s Chamber is 1 PC from the horizontal center of the Queen’s Chamber (marked by the peak of the gabled roof).

(3) The 35th course of external masonry (which stands out to the eye, and has a significant vertical placement) is 2 PC thick.

 

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[1] Of interest in this connection is a quotation from Livio Stecchini, a lifelong researcher into the history of measure. “All the measures of length, volume, and weight of the ancient world, including those of China and India, constituded a rational and organic system, which can be reconstructed starting from a fundamental unit of length… The units used in Europe up to the adoption of the French metric system were the ancient ones or modifications of them introduced for specific reasons. The ancient system of measures continues to be used today in the form of English measures; we find the basic units of the English system, such as the pound of 453.8 grams, used in Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C. The effort to reconstruct the original and unitary system of measures was started by scholars of the Renaissance… Although the major concern of Renaissance investigators of measures was to establish the exact value of the ancient Roman foot, they were also concerned with a tradition to the effect that all measures were derived from the Egyptian ones. This is the reason why John Greaves went to measure the Great Pyramid of Giza… [his] results… were later interpreted by Newton.” (From “Notes on the Relation of Ancient Measures to the Great Pyramid,” by Livio Catullo Stecchini a lengthy appendix to Secrets of the Great Pyramid, by Peter Tompkins, pp. 304, 305)

[2] “…the International Geophysical Year 1957-58 geodetic research with orbiting vehicles… obtained a figure of 3949.89 miles for the polar radius of the earth.” (Tompkins, footnote, pg. 74) Divided by 10,000,000, this gives 25.0265″ per Pyramid Cubit, which gives 1.00106″ per Pyramid Inch.)

[3] Why does this key to the symbolic measures of the pyramid appear here? We cannot say for sure, of course, but some reflection will show it to be a reasonable location. First, it is fitting that any such key would be located upward in the Pyramid, at least near the King’s Chamber, which is the crowning point to which the internal architcture is directed. And placing it in the Antechamber rather than the King’s Chamber serves to maintain the simple dignity of the King’s Chamber. In its location in the Antechamber the boss is conspicuous, yet protected from damage by the narrow space between the beginning of the Antechamber and the Leaf.

[4] This circle in circumference is 1/100th the socket base perimeter of the Pyramid.

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