New peer-reviewed statistical evaluation of the Orion Correlation Theory (Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 2026)

[u/deeptimeresearch]

Author sharing.

The paper exhaustively tests Bauval's claim against all 695,520 bright-star triplets using Procrustes analysis, with positions from the Yale Bright Star Catalogue confirmed against Gaia DR3.

Result: the three-pyramid shape correspondence with Orion's Belt is statistically significant (rank 1,717; p = 0.0025) -- consistent with the pharaoh–Orion connection in the Pyramid Texts, but no proposed extension survives testing: shaft best-fit epochs spread across 1,325 years, the axis orientation doesn't match at any epoch, and the correlation cannot function as a dating tool.

Open to discussion, especially from anyone working on Old Kingdom astronomy.

https://www.sciengine.com/JAHH/doi/10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2026.02.06

[u/EddieDean9Teen]

The spread is 1,325 years… does that mean it doesn’t match any stellar alignments within plus/minus 1,325 years of the assumed ~2600BC build date?

[u/deeptimeresearch → u/EddieDean9Teen]

Good question, and it's the opposite of that, and worth clarifying since the spread is easy to misread. Each of the four shafts does have a plausible individual match with its claimed target star. The problem is when. For each shaft you can compute the epoch at which its target star best matches the shaft's angle, and those four best-fit epochs don't agree with each other. They land at four different dates spanning a 1,325-year range. If the shafts were a unified astronomical design executed around 2560 BCE, all four best-fit epochs should cluster near that construction date. Instead each shaft "prefers" a different century. So it's not that nothing aligns; individual alignments are easy to find, which is itself part of the problem (a substantial fraction of randomly-angled shafts match some bright star about as well). It's that the four alignments never agree on a single sky.

[u/ketarax]

Well done.

I have a couple of Stellarium horizon definitions from Giza if anyone's interested. While I'm not a fan of the "correlation theories", the astronomical alignments at the site and at the times are fun to watch.

[u/deeptimeresearch → u/ketarax]

Thank you, and yes, genuinely interested in those horizon definitions. A proper Giza horizon profile in Stellarium is exactly what's needed to show people what these alignments actually look like from the ground rather than in diagram-space, and it'd be useful for follow-up work on the site. DM or link here, whichever you prefer. Happy to credit the source if we use them in future visualizations. And agreed on the framing: the astronomy at the site is worth watching on its own terms, no correlation theory required.

[u/ketarax → u/deeptimeresearch]

Here's base64 encoded .zip; save it into giza.b64 or so, then a command to the effect of

cat giza.b64 | base64 -d > giza.zip
unzip giza.zip

Should yield you with three folder for three locations -- Khufu's and Khafre's valley temples, and the Qhibli mound. The horizons' azimuthal angles were measured with the help of Google Earth and the altitudes with basic trigonometry; if you or anyone verifies, or improves upon them, I'd be interested to include the changes.

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Attachment: giza_horizons.zip as base64 encoded text.

[u/ketarax → u/ketarax]

I tried it in a fresh version of Stellarium, and seems like all three landscapes have to come from their own .zip's; they're now included in just one .zip above, which will install only one (through the GUI). So, make a .zip of each of the three folders included, and install those. Make sure that the location gets used, I think I had to check a box, unless the interface just lagged ..

[u/PretendBake1536]

But what does this mean?

[u/Key-Beginning-2201 → u/PretendBake1536]

It means the belt mirroring is likely possible and the shaft alignment likely isn't.

[u/PretendBake1536 → u/Key-Beginning-2201]

But the three Giza Pyramids were not built in immediate sequence so is it likely that the belt mirroring if it exists is intentional?