The Great Pyramid : Why Was It Built? And Who Built It?

In this 1859 work, John Taylor claimed to have discovered the 'pyramid inch', which he argued was one twenty-fifth of the so-called 'sacred cubit' and was derived from ancient astronomical observations. His work was very influential, but was later debunked by the more accurate surveys and measurements of Flinders Petrie.

The publisher and author John Taylor (1781–1864), who took an interest in various antiquarian matters, published this work in 1859. Using the measurements taken by the seventeenth-century archaeologist John Greaves and by the French savants who had examined the Great Pyramid at Giza during Napoleon's Egyptian expedition, he deduced the existence of a 'pyramid inch' (fractionally longer than the British inch), which was one twenty-fifth of the so-called 'sacred cubit' and was derived from ancient astronomical and time-measurement observations; and as a convinced Christian, he concluded that the British inch was therefore divinely inspired. His work was very influential and had a considerable following (the astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth's 1864 book on Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid is also reissued in this series), but was later debunked by the more accurate surveys and measurements of Flinders Petrie, whose interest in Egypt was partly aroused by reading this book.