Course Number vs. Elevation in the Great Pyramid Masonry Courses: A Theoretical Model

Abstract

Petrie (1883) observed that the Great Pyramid's unusually thick masonry courses show no relation to the intervening distances or number of courses between them, but proposed as an alternative that they might correspond to levels where the pyramid's cross-section is a simple fraction of 25ths of the base area. This paper derives a closed-form cubic relationship between course number (Cno) and this n/25ths area fraction directly from Petrie's own raw survey data, shows it predicts real, held-out course numbers exactly, and confirms it independently against Davison's separate 1764 survey. The result mathematically disproves Petrie's initial observation while validating the hypothesis he proposed in its place, and provides a working tool for generating theoretical course elevations at any point on the pyramid.