"Giza Pyramids; the Vanishing Point"

The Giza Complex incorporates a vanishing point in its design.

This site, "Giza Pyramids; the Vanishing Point " exists because I feel the evidence presented is compelling and exciting enough to make it worthy of public attention. (Cut to the quick? Click here)

I took a lively interest in the Pyramids of Giza in the mid 70's and through the 80's. At that time I was finishing up my Master of Fine Arts and looking back, I consider that although I had less ability to focus than now, I was certainly a whole lot sharper and perhaps more insightful.
In any event, after considerable study I started to form what regular Egyptologists might consider 'unconventional' opinions about the Giza Pyramid complex. Acquiring a survey map of the Giza Complex, I realized almost at once that the three pyramids invited a three dimensional effect; it was as if the three pyramids were to be viewed as spatial, that Kefre and Mycerinous (2nd & 3rd pyramids) were not smaller, merely receding. 

The vanishing point is a hypothetical point seen from a visual perspective.  One may observe the pyramids as seen from above, treating the actual ground surface as non-existent. The result is a sequence of receding objects suspended in space  (Cheops, Kefre and Mycerinous). Follow the recession, and you come to a vanishing point, a point from which the perspective originates. Place this overlay against the actual ground and see if there are any correlations. 

I thought this observation interesting enough to seek help from experts in this field.
The chief of these is John Legon, possibly one of the most intelligent and insightful members of my fellow species that I have ever had the pleasure to know (You can visit his site here.) Long before my acquaintance with him, John was a serious student of archaeology. He holds a degree in applied physics and as I was to learn, could whip up a mathematical storm with a computer, long before computers were commonplace.
Compared to John, I could at best be described as rank amateur in this field. For better or worse, my one strength at that time was perhaps my absolute faith in the arrived at concept, and my belief that the builders of the Giza Complex arrived at it too. 
Lacking the skill and knowledge to proceed on my own, I undoubtedly was able to see what direction the light was coming from and hope that others could discern the shapes that might appear in that light.
Reading back over my own letters to John - I always made Xerox copies - I am astounded that he had the patience to respond at all. Due to my having done much of my schooling in Denmark, my knowledge of English spelling was poor indeed. I can only put John's continued patient correspondence down to the fact that back then, there were so very few people who thought about the Giza Pyramids as anything but wonderful tombic curiosities. I suspect John was more amused than anything else and initially suffered to correspond with me possibly for that reason alone.

Until I recently dug out my notes on the Pyramids of Giza (1995), I had not been in touch with John Legon for over six years and indeed, the files would probably have stayed were they were but for the advent of the World Wide Web. Suddenly, I did not have to go through the laborious process of finding a publisher. I am now able to display the work and it can be viewed to anybody who has access to the web.

Wisdom is tempered by age; I should at this point remind the reader that the views expressed in John Legon's letters were from many years ago and do not necessarily reflect his current thinking on the subject of the Giza Pyramids.

The Three Pyramids at Giza must be considered as a whole - one continues plan. It is notable that each pyramid built by the succeeding pharaoh was a smaller construction. If the basic thrust of pyramid building was merely to evoke awe by the very nature of their size, then surely each successive pyramid would have been bigger, not smaller. It can be observed that in many extinct civilizations there was a tendency to build ever more ambitious structures, ultimately putting too much of a burden on available resources, resulting in the eventual and inevitable collapse of that civilization.
Were size the main consideration of the Giza Pyramid construction, a Pharaoh would surely loose face if he builds a pyramid next to his predecessors which, when it comes to size, simply is not up to scratch. Surely, better to build it somewhere else so that obvious and painful comparisons cannot be drawn.
Then there are the interior rooms and corridors of the Pyramids to consider. None of them are inscribed or painted with the essential funerary decorations that Ancient Egyptians seem to have considered a 'must have' item if you were going to make it into the After Life. None of this exists in these pyramids; just limestone walls.
For funerary monuments, the Giza Pyramids exhibit a notable lack of bodies. To be sure, large stone containers found in various rooms are in evidence, but this does not mean one has to put a dead body in them. Indeed, no bodies other than an intrusion burial from a later date was ever found in the Giza Pyramids.

These facts got me to thinking:

Here is a civilization that we can't even pinpoint a date to its origin. By the time the Giza Pyramids were going up, this civilization could have had uninterrupted growth for as much as 700 to 1000 years.
A civilization can learn a lot about the nature of the World in that stretch of time, especially if they have record keeping (which they did) and social stability (which they had).

I asked myself, what if, during this stretch of time, they came upon what they considered a great truth, so awe-inspiring and mind-boggling that they felt it simply could not be lost. How would they make such a truth manifest? Answer: Make a diagram. A BIG diagram. A big diagram that could stand up to the test of time.

What if the pyramids meant nothing in themselves, but are to be considered as a whole?
This would satisfy the ego of the successive pharaohs; building smaller did not mean inferior capacity, because they knew they were completing a single entity; an unified complex.

By NOT having yourself buried in it, you are also passing on a message to posterity. By this act you force the future observer to consider it something other than a funerary monument.

We know that the Pyramids of Giza were built with great attention to measurement and orientation. Precision in design and construction was done with such care that fractional measurements hold up over great distances. As if in proof, the procession of surveyors that have been drawn to the complex are evidence of the fact that the Giza Pyramid Complex begs to be measured.
The three pyramids in themselves are marvels of mathematical prowess, design and achievement. Many adventurers and scholars have already trod this path and the fruits of their labor are for all to see *.
It is as if the builders are saying to us through the mists of time, "All right, you figured out that the pyramids in themselves are pretty nifty...now try and put 'em together to get the bigger picture."

And this is what John Legon and I have tried to do. I think we can at this point say with little doubt that the complex was intended to be viewed as a single entity, the proof of which is contained in John Legons computations. What lies ahead? Further mathematical discoveries? Does the evidence justify excavation at the 'bent' South Wall, at the vanishing point? What might be buried at the vanishing point? The future will tell.

I have designed this site so that the viewer can go directly to the computations or view the gradual sequence of letters leading up to the results.

As I compiled these letters, I realized some editing on unrelated topics was in order. Also, some of the letters are missing or lost, so this sequence is less than perfect. However, I think the sum of its contents gives the reader a sense of the twists and turns that led to Johns calculations - calculations which demonstrate that the Giza Complex is a coherent single concept rather than a collection of disjointed structures strung together by succeeding rulers.

Enjoy! Stephen Goodfellow