Robert Bauval was born on March 5, 1948. He is an Egyptian-born Belgian writer and teacher who is most known for his work on the Orion Correlation Theory, which relates to the Giza pyramid complex.
Early life
Bauval was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to parents with Belgian and Maltese backgrounds. He studied at the British Boys' School in Alexandria, which is now called El Nasr Boys' School, and later attended the Franciscan College in Buckinghamshire, England. In 1967, he left Egypt shortly before the Six-Day War began, during the time when Gamal Abdel Nasser was the president of Egypt. Most of Bauval's career as a construction engineer has taken place in the Middle East and Africa, where he has lived and worked.
Writing career
In late 1992, Bauval was trying to find a translation of Hermetica by Walter Scott. He later discovered a new edition published by Solo Press, which included a foreword by Adrian Gilbert. Bauval reached out to Gilbert after reading the foreword, which discussed a possible connection between an Alexandrine school of Hermes Trismegistus and the builders of the pyramids during Egypt's Fourth dynasty. They collaborated on writing The Orion Mystery, which became an international bestseller. Around the time the book was published, BBC Two aired a documentary about Bauval's theories. Bauval has also co-authored three books with Graham Hancock, including Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith (2004). In a review for The Independent, sociologist of religion David V. Barrett described the book as factually incorrect and unconvincing, criticizing its use of sources and its promotion of an idea related to a Jewish-Masonic plot, a concept often associated with ultra-right-wing conspiracy theories.
Orion Correlation Theory
Bauval is best known for the Orion Correlation Theory (OCT), which suggests a connection between the fourth dynasty Egyptian pyramids on the Giza Plateau and the positions of certain stars in the constellation Orion. However, 20 years before Bauval published his book The Orion Mystery, which proposed that the Giza pyramids were aligned with Orion’s belt, James J. Hurtak noted a similar idea in 1973 (published in 1977).
In 1983, while working in Saudi Arabia, Bauval took his family and a friend’s family to the Arabian Desert for a camping trip. His friend pointed out the constellation Orion and noted that Alnitak, the easternmost star in Orion’s belt, was slightly off from the others. Bauval then noticed that the arrangement of the three main stars in Orion’s belt resembled the layout of the three main pyramids in the Giza necropolis.
The Orion Correlation Theory has been called a type of pseudoarchaeology. Two astronomers, Ed Krupp of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and Anthony Fairall, an astronomy professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, have criticized the theory. They studied the angle between Orion’s Belt and true north during the time Bauval described, which differs from the angle in the 3rd millennium BCE due to the precession of the equinoxes. They found the angle was not as close to a perfect match as Bauval and Hancock claimed—47 to 50 degrees, compared to the 38-degree angle formed by the pyramids.
Krupp also observed that the line formed by the three pyramids was slightly bent toward the north, while the slight "kink" in Orion’s Belt was curved toward the south. This means a direct match would require one of the two to be flipped. Bauval and Gilbert’s original book, The Orion Mystery, compared images of the pyramids and Orion without showing that the pyramid map had been inverted. Krupp and Fairall also raised other concerns, such as the idea that if the Sphinx represents the constellation Leo, it should be on the opposite side of the Nile (the "Milky Way") from the pyramids ("Orion"). They also noted that the vernal equinox around 10,500 BCE was in Virgo, not Leo, and that the zodiac constellations originated in Mesopotamia, not Egypt.
Atlantis Reborndocumentary
On November 4, 1999, the BBC aired a documentary called Atlantis Reborn, which presented the theories of Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock. After the broadcast, Bauval and Hancock complained to the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC), claiming they were treated unfairly. A hearing was held, and in November 2000, the BSC ruled in favor of the documentary makers on nine out of ten main complaints.
The BSC found that only one complaint was valid, which related to the documentary not including Bauval and Hancock’s response to an argument against the Orion Correlation Theory. For the other nine complaints, the BSC concluded that Bauval and Hancock had not been unfairly criticized regarding their theories about carbon dating, the Great Sphinx of Egypt, Cambodia’s Angkor temples, Japan’s Yonaguni formation, and the mythical land of Atlantis.
The BBC offered to air a revised version of the documentary, which Bauval and Hancock accepted. The updated version, titled Atlantis Reborn Again, was broadcast on December 14, 2000. The revised documentary still included criticism of Bauval and Hancock’s ideas from experts such as astronomer Anthony Fairall, Ed Krupp of the Griffith Observatory, Egyptologist Kate Spence of Cambridge University, and Eleanor Mannikka of the University of Michigan.