The cube of 3 is 27, the cube of 4 is 64 and the cube of 5 is 125. The sum of 27, 64 and 125 is 216. One astrological age comprises 2160 years. He argues that ancient astronomer/astrologists were aware of this connection and incorporated 3:4:5 into the siting of the structures that they built. Use was made of the two acute angles that comprise a 3:4:5 triangle, namely 51.13˚ (arctan 4/3) and 36.87˚ (arctan 3/4).
He cites Harran, a major ancient city of Upper Mesopotamia, as an example. It is situated at 36.8631° N in modern day Turkey.
He goes on to mention the Ziggurat of Ur (a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat in what was the city of Ur near Nasiriyah, in present-day Dhi Qar Province, Iraq) situated at 30.9628° N. According to Hancock, the two cities of Ur and Harran were closely linked in ancient times but how is an angle of 30.9628° linked to the 3:4:5 triangle? Well, at this point Hancock introduces the notion of colatitude. This is defined by Wikipedia to be: in spherical coordinates, colatitude is the complementary angle of the latitude, i.e. the difference between 90° and the latitude, where southern latitudes are denoted with a minus sign. So the colatitude of Ur is 59.0372° which is arctan(5/3) in degrees. Thus the 3:4:5 triangle is involved, albeit indirectly.
Note these connections hold regardless of the system of angular measurement used (degrees, grads, radians or whatever). There are other sites he mentions, such as Baalbek in Lebanon, situated at 34.0047° N that don't have any apparent connection to 3:4:5 but I'm sure I could find one if I set out to do so. At the moment, I'm still a little skeptical and will need to test it out with the location of other ancient sites. If the majority prove to have some direct or semi-direct connection, then there may be something in it.
Getting back to the Great Year, the number 43200 = 2160 x 20 is mentioned as significant because of its connection to the dimensions of the Great Pyramid. Hancock states in his book that the polar radius is 43200 times the height of the Great Pyramid and that the circumference of the Earth at its equator is 43200 times the perimeter of its base. Let's try to verify those figures.
The height is a bit of problem because now its only 138.8 metres high due to erosion and the absence of its pyramidion whereas it was originally 146.5 metres high. Let's go with the latter figure. The polar radius of the Earth is 6356.8 kilometres and so 146.5:6356800 --> 1:43391 which is reasonably close but far from exact. Let's try the circumference. The perimeter of the base of the Great Pyramid is given as 4 x 230.4 metres, while the equatorial circumference of the Earth is 40,075 kilometres. The ratio 4 x 230.4:4007500 --> 1:43465. Again this is close but by no means exact.
To get some idea of the discrepancy involved, consider that a height of 147.15 metres gives a very close approximation to the exact ratio. This is a difference of about 65 centimetres, so looked at in this way the difference is very slight. With the circumference ratio, a base side of 231.92 metres gives a very close approximation and this represents a difference of only 1.52 metres, which again isn't much. The thing is of course that when multiplying a much smaller numbers by 43200, small increases or decreases in those numbers become greatly magnified. Thus we need to lenient about exactitude, especially given that we are working only with what we think were the original measurements.
There's been a great deal written about the mathematics of the Great Pyramid and I don't want to go any further into it at this point. There's a danger in playing around with numbers that you can find connections to anything you want. It could be that what's being encoded into the pyramid is just the squaring of the circle and if that's the case then it's just a coincidence that the scale factor of 1:43200 happens to have a connection with the precession of the equinoxes (43200 = 2160 x 20). The perimeter of the base of the pyramid (4 x 230.4 metres) when considered as the circumference of a circle gives 3.145392491467577 when divided by twice the height of 146.5 metres, the length of its diameter. This can be compared to the actual value of π = 3.141592653589793 ... and it is seen that the accuracy is only good to two decimal places. Link to more about 432.
The "heartbeat" of the Great Year as Hancock emphasises is the number 72. This is the number of years that it takes the vernal equinox to precess by one degree. From this other numbers of apparent significance derived. For example, 72÷2=36, 72+36=108 and 108÷2=54. I'm learning a lot from Hancock's book, not least of all about the Younger Dryas Boundary or YDB as it's known. I'm sure that I'll learn a lot more as I make my way through the rest of the book.
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