I have an excellent satellite photo of giza which I often pore over and, last year, as I was following ‘lines’ around the Crow Wall, I panned West to see where the Wall might go to if it extended beyond the G3 complex - and G3 was revealed large on my monitor.

At which point I noticed that the sides of G3 appear not to be straight but actually kink inwards slightly to make an 8-sided pyramid - just like the famous feature on G1.

This section of the photo, transposed North/South as in the original, shows the G3 pyramid and its 'funerary' temple.

I obviously cannot get to see everything that is published but I have never seen any mention of this feature before - even in essays and books dealing with the ‘uniqueness’ of this feature on G1. So, am I the first person to notice this at G3 - or, is everybody else just 'ignoring' it?

The Test
Of course, just this one photo is not ‘proof’ but I can ‘see’ a darker line running from apex to base on the Western side and just a ‘hint’ on the South and East (though these two could be wishful thinking). As a first check I showed my wife a closeup of G1 and explained to her the ‘8-sided’ feature and it’s uniqueness on G1. I then panned over to G3 and, before I could say anything, she said, “But that’s the same - I thought you said the other one was unique?”.

I then printed the photo (as above) and, on the reverse, I printed a square pyramid and an 8-sided pyramid as plain geometric shapes. I showed the photo, independently, to seven friends (who knew nothing of Egyptology, plus one who did), allowed them to ‘study’ it for a minute or two (without telling them why), then turned the paper over and asked them to say which of the shapes most closely resembled the photo. All seven chose the 8-sided (the eighth person said, "Why has that got kinks like G1!" without needing to see the reverse)... I then allowed them to look at the photo again - and none wanted to change their mind.

Conclusion
This might not be very scientific - and it is certainly far from conclusive, but ten people seem to have independently 'seen' this feature in this one photo. I suspect that some of these verdicts were affected by the apparent ‘angle’ of the rubble at the base. As the centre of each side has the most masonry above it it is logical that the centre of the base will have larger rubble piles than nearer the corners, and this does help to give an impression of ‘kinks’.

It has always been stated that this feature on G1 can only be seen from the air but I’m not so sure of this, just because it might never have been seen from the ground... often things are not ‘seen’ because people aren’t really ‘looking’ - I’m sure many people will have seen things in their own photos that were not ‘apparent’ in the viewfinder at the time. So, what we need is better photographic evidence... I am appealing for people to check their own photo collections to look for 'signs' of this feature.

A Theory:
At the equinox the rising and setting sun would not illuminate the North and South faces of the pyramid, BUT for a day (or two) on either side the sun would skim along one half of each face and just illuminate the farther half. Maybe this was intended to give a 1 (or 2) day ‘notice’ of the equinox...

On the left is a diagram of this ‘theory’. What I’m suggesting is that a shot from the South at sunrise or a shot from the North at sunset (before the equinox) might show a clear distinction of illumination between the two ‘halves’ of the North and/or South face. This distinction may not be apparent to the human eye but might be recorded (with a little help from Kodak) - and, with some legitimate enhancement in Photoshop, might provide us with ‘evidence’.

If I’m right that the human eye would not be able to distinguish this feature then one would have to just run off a roll of film on the off-chance. Is anyone looking for a sponsor?

It is thought by some that this feature on G1 is ‘shadowed’ by G2 at the Mid-winter sunset but it would also seem probable that G2 would therefore cast a similar shadow onto G3 at the Mid-summer sunrise...

PS:
If you haven’t already downloaded the photo of the entire Giza Plateau mentioned above you can find it at:
http://www.spaceimaging.com/carterra/
images/pyramids_pan8.jpg
It’ll take a few minutes because it is high quality...

Sunrise at Equinox

Sunrise 1 day before Spring Equinox

Sunrise 1 day after Spring Equinox

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