Archaeology

That the sun should set very close to midway between the two largest Giza Pyramids when viewed from the Sphinx Temple on the summer solstice (June 21–22) is intriguing by itself. However, the ancient Egyptians also wrote the word for “horizon,” akhet, as the sun setting between two mountain peaks.  Could the image of the sun setting between the two pyramids have been the akhet written on a scale of acres?

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We have come full circle, returning to the surveying and mapping of major Giza Plateau monuments for the first time since David Goodman and Mark Lehner laid out the basic survey control network in 1984.

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Multiple tombs await discovery in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, say researchers working on the most extensive exploration project in the valley since the 1920s. Their conclusion is based on excavations and ground-penetrating radar.

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Four deposits of artifacts possibly buried as a ritual act of sorts before the construction of a tomb have been discovered in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.

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The towering Great Pyramid of Giza is an ancient feat of engineering, and now an archaeologist has figured out how the Egyptians may have aligned the monument almost perfectly along the cardinal points, north-south-east-west — they may have used the fall equinox.

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The Great Pyramid of Giza may be a Wonder of the Ancient World, but it's not perfect: Its base is a little lopsided because its builders made a teensy mistake when constructing it, new research reveals.

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The Great Pyramid of Giza, more than 4,500 years old, remains a never ending source of fascination. For years people have scrutinized it, theorized about construction methods, and speculated about hidden chambers. We at AERA are also trying to understand how the Great Pyramid was built. We map the builders’ marks in the surface around the base of the pyramid.

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If we had clear-cut lines and corners, we could give precise coordinates for the pyramids to those who believe this is meaningful in terms of the builders’ intentions. But, could the builders have measured distances to an accuracy of millimeters or centimeters over hundreds of meters, given sighting by eye without our telescopic instruments and challenges such as the stretch and sag of a rope?

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The 2012 Glen Dash Foundation Survey took AERA back to its beginnings: The Giza Plateau Mapping Project, launched by Mark Lehner and David Goodman in 1984 to create an accurate map of the natural and man-made features of the entire Giza Plateau. Despite the intense interest in the pyramids over the centuries, no one had yet produced a good topographic map that showed the precise locations of the pyramids and other monuments at Giza. Mark and David laid the groundwork for the map with a survey control network. But the map was never completed— more urgent projects demanded our attention. Thanks to the Glen Dash Foundation, the GDFS picked up where Mark and David left off. During Season 2012 the GDFS team collected much of the data needed to finally create the map.

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