Orion Correlation Theory - Criticisms

Criticisms

The claims made by Hancock, Bauval, and others (such as Adrian Gilbert and Anthony West) concerning the significance of these proposed correlations have been examined by several scientists, who have published detailed criticism and rebuttal of these ideas.

Among these critiques are several from two astronomers, Ed Krupp of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and Anthony Fairall, astronomy professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Using planetarium equipment, Krupp and Fairall independently investigated the angle between the alignment of Orion's Belt and north during the era cited by Hancock, Bauval et al. (which differs from the angle seen today or in the 3rd millennium BC, because of the precession of the equinoxes), and found that the angle was somewhat different from the "perfect match" claimed by Bauval and Hancock in the Orion Constellation Theory– 47-50 degrees per the planetarium measurements, compared to the 38-degree angle formed by the pyramids.

Krupp also pointed out that the slightly-bent line formed by the three pyramids was deviated towards the north, whereas the slight "kink" in the line of Orion's Belt was deformed to the south, and to match them up one or the other of them had to be turned upside-down. Indeed, this is what was done in the original book by Bauval and Gilbert (The Orion Mystery), which compared images of the pyramids and Orion without revealing the pyramids' map had been inverted. Krupp and Fairall find other problems with the claims, including noting that if the Sphinx is meant to represent the constellation of Leo, then it should be on the opposite side of the Nile (the "Milky Way") from the pyramids ("Orion"), that the vernal equinox c. 10,500 BC was in Virgo and not Leo, and that in any case the constellations of the Zodiac originate from Mesopotamia and were completely unknown in Egypt until the much later Graeco-Roman era. Ed Krupp repeated this "upside down" claim in the BBC documentary Atlantis Reborn (1999).

According to Bauval and Hancock, some astronomers (including Dr. Archie Roy, Dr. Percy Seymour, Dr. Mary Bruck, Dr. Giulio Magli), however, have rejected Krupp's argument. The correlation, they claim, is a visual one when standing north of the Giza pyramids and looking south. Archie Roy, professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Glasgow University, and Percy Seymour, astronomer and astrophysicist at Plymouth University U.K., have both publicly rejected several of Krupp's arguments, including the accusation that Bauval and Gilbert deliberately inverted the pyramid map.

In a ruling by the Broadcasting Standards Commission (UK), the committee ruled in favour of Robert Bauval that Krupp's statement that maps were placed upside down was "unfairly" presented in the BBC documentary Atlantis Reborn, without Bauval's having been given a right to a filmed response. Bauval and Hancock's filmed responses to Krupp's statements were included in the modified version of the documentary Atlantis Reborn Again shown on 14 December 2000.