Pyramids Mystery

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6887, 18 April 1929, Page 4

Pyramids Mystery

RESEARCH EXPERT DECLARES THAT THEY WERE USED TO MEASURE SEASONS.

N attempt is to be made to solve the secret of the Pyramids, on the assumption that they were built as sundials, by which the priests

could measure tlie seasons, Mr. Moses B. Cotswortli, director of the International Fixed Calendar League, has written to the Egyptian Government asking permission to erect a model of the original apex on the top of the Great Pyramid. Mr. Cotsworth is the originator of the 13-months calendar plan, for which the International Fixed Calendar League is endeavouring to obtain universal support. Mr. George Eastman, president of the Kodak Companies, is an enthusiastic supporter of the proposed new calendar, and Kodak, Ltd.', adopted the Cotsworth 13-period system on January 1 this year for purposes of accountancy, costing and statistics. “The generally accepted theory that the Egyptians built their series of stupendous pyramids merely as royal graves will not hold,” says Mr. Cotsworth. “No other race was so eminently practical as the ancient Egyptians. “It was the exact knowledge of the seasons acquired, as I believe, by the priests, with the aid of the pyramids, that first enabled the Egyptians to produce two crops each year instead of one. “More perfect pyramids later produced such accuracy in their prognostications that they were enabled to obtain three crops of durah, their most important grain. “A delay of even a few days in sowing seed for such important third crops brought bad harvests, which endangered the national life and prosperity.” The most important use of the pyramids, Mr. Cotsworth maintains, was to keep a secret calendar which preserved for them a monopoly of accurate knowledge as to the recurrence of the seasons. In a country whose people had no ready means of reckoning time and the seasons accurately, yet whose livelihood depended upon their agricultural work being performed at the right dates, the Sacred Caste who kept the secret calendar would exercise an all-powerful influence. The sun was the Egyptians’ god, and the privilege of measuring his pyramid’s shadow was accounted p sacred rite. The priests announced from their altars, on the 10th, 20th and 30£h day of each month, the work that should be done during each ensuing ten days. For instance on September 20 a pronouncement was broadcast throughout Egypt to cover the next ten days:— “Day and night are equal. Autumn begins. Nile highest. Open waterchannels. Sow clover. Sow turnips and beets. Separate ewes from rams. Sap of trees recedes. Gather cotton and olives. Women make syrups of fruits. Men sow barley. Sow winter vegetables. Fishes spawn. Store fruit.” The high priests acquired, in time, the knowledge that the year was .242 of a day longer than 3G5 days, but they ketit their knowledge secret because the insertion of a leap-day in the public calendar would have disclosed their most valued secret.