Charles Piazzi Smyth Plates
Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900) was Astronomer Royal for Scotland and a respected Scientist who did important work in the then new science of Spectroscopy.
In 1865 he traveled to Egypt to produce accurate measurements of the Great Pyramid. He was prompted to produce these measurements by the theories of his friend John Taylor who proposed that the Great Pyramid was a record of ancient knowledge. Smyth took Taylor's theories much further and came to believe that the Pyramid was " God's message in Stone ".
Whatever you think of his theories you have to admire the tenacity with which he went about making his measurements. Working in difficult conditions he produced a vast amount of data, much of which is still valid today. The photographs he took inside the Great Pyramid are amongst the earliest known.
The Plates reproduced here are from an original 1877 copy of Piazzi Smyth's " Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid ".
Smyth wrote several other books to promote his theories but received little official recognition. He became disillusioned and became the first person to resign from the Royal Academy He spent his last years studying and photographing cloud formations in England's Lake District.
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