Heavens' Henge

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Heavens' Henge

Postby Boreades » 9:49 pm

I wonder how many have seen Jon Morris' website on http://heavenshenge.blogspot.co.uk/?
It strikes me it has relevance to the Megalithic Empire.
1) Tin from Cornwall was being mined at least 5000 years ago
2) Tin could be used for mirrors
3) Trad.Archeology struggles to explain why people from as far as Germany came to Stonehenge to live and die.

If we accept Jon Morris's view of Stonehenge as a geocentric solar university, maybe we should we think of Avebury as more than a communication hub? A planetarium as well perhaps?

But with long-distance trade established by the Megalithic Empire, so surely there would be long-distance communication and knowledge. Were the "angels" or messengers simply depicted with winged feet as a metaphor for being fast carriers of messages? Was there a megalithic version of David Coleman who would have said "He literally flew the last megalithic mile". Cue Catholic icons of angels with wings.
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby jon » 9:19 am

Thanks for the mention Boreades

A more detailed pdf explanation can now be downloaded here:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/download.php?op=getit&lid=183
or: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/download.php?op=NewDownloadsDate&selectdate=1348762969

Avebury seems to have many of the geocentric characteristics of Stonehenge: The same thing explained in more detail (covering lunar as well as solar) but without the Geocentric demonstrator mechanism.

I'll try to cover it in the next paper. I went to a number of selected geographic locations to do low tech experiments to show that it was possible to easily develop a geocentric worldview: These were mostly selected using ordinance survey because they looked to be the best places to do each task. On turning up, I found each location already set up, as if it were a method of teaching, in the form of barrows and other constructions. These barrows are unusual in that they all appear to contain no funerary deposition.

I'm in the process of writing all this up and will make it available via Kindle for review (there are so many of these monuments that it would be equivalent to at least 100 pages using the adobe format above): Amazon only allow short restricted periods to download without payment, so if there's interest, could you let me know here?

Thanks


Jon
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby hvered » 9:51 am

If we accept Jon Morris's view of Stonehenge as a geocentric solar university, maybe we should we think of Avebury as more than a communication hub? A planetarium as well perhaps?

If it's accepted that navigation, i.e. maritime travel, relies on the heavens then all landmarks are heaven-oriented including the stone circles at Avebury. As above so below. But Britain is notoriously cloudy

Were the "angels" or messengers simply depicted with winged feet as a metaphor for being fast carriers of messages? Was there a megalithic version of David Coleman who would have said "He literally flew the last megalithic mile". Cue Catholic icons of angels with wings.

Angels' wings aren't any old wings, they're swans' wings. North is the direction from which bearings are taken and it is the direction that geese and swans follow in their autumn migration. Discovering that in alchemy mercury is equated with swans begat a whole sequence of swan/angel/Hermes questions, some of which are still hovering in the air.
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby hvered » 10:14 am

Looks very interesting indeed, Jon. I like the diagram of a sail, it made me think again about sails as lozenge- or rhombus shapes, something I've wondered about in connection with map-making without taking it further.

The point you made about east-west stars reminded me of the question of latitude and Stonehenge. Some people seem to think there's a special significance in the 51 point something line to an observer of the equinoctial stars. These kinds of 'special significance' claims are often simply special pleading, do you think there's any justification for it?

P.S. Have you looked at Dan Crisp's Appendix to the Megalithic Empire? I can send it to you separately if that's easier. It was supposed to go at the end but that was before the book grew like Topsy.
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby hvered » 5:12 pm

Using a pool as a device to measure stars' trajectories makes sense. But why on top of a hill which by definition is exposed to 'weather'? The surface of the pool would be unruffled in a sheltered spot.

If it was at sea level would that be more suitable, guaranteeing an absolutely level surface? Eratosthenes used a well apparently.
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby jon » 6:00 pm

I can't see anything special about 51 degrees other than it divides neatly into 56 parts (6/56 from the pole, 8/56 from the equator). I looked at the sunrise thing for a friend but found that his latitude (New England) actually worked better. The only reason Stonehenge works for the summer sunrise equinox is that the ground is elevated to the North East and even then you have to assume that the trees are 10 metres tall (I've done a separate paper on that for Time and Mind but no idea when it might get published: On surveying trees in a similar 'minimal management' setting, I found that our natural woodland tends to grow to 25-40 metres.)

The pool is only needed to construct the bowl: When that is done, you have a level surface at the rim, so don't need the water any more. For that particular experiment, it's better to be as high as possible: You get the greatest angular difference and when I repeated the experiment using just sticks and a measuring tape, the size of the world came out about 5% bigger than it really is (so not bad given the accuracies)

All the best

Jon
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby Boreades » 10:38 pm

Isn't the 51 degrees special because it is at only at this precise latitude that a line of sight to the rising midsummer sun is directly opposite (180 degrees) to the line of the setting midwinter sun. Likewise at 51 deg., the line of sight of the winter solstice sunrise is 180 deg to the line of the summer solstice sunset. On any other day of the year, the sunrise and sunset would be further north or south and would not align across the centre of a circle.
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby Mick Harper » 1:13 am

If 51 degrees truly is significant (and other people have advanced cogent reasons that it is) then I can tell you why Salisbury Plain was chosen. Put your pencil point down anywhere in the ancient world (say, the Great Pyramid but honestly anywhere will do). Then instruct your pencil to trace out a path to somewhere suitable for siting an observatory ie
a) fifty acres of reasonably flat land with horizons in all directions
b) on the 51 degree line
c) reasonably easy access from anywhere
and you will have a choice between just two places: central southern England or Picardy in northern France.

That's if you are travelling by sea. Overland from the Mediterranean means going through the Lublijana Gap and heading for Goseck, the German version of Stonehenge.
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby jon » 6:04 am

Isn't the 51 degrees special because it is at only at this precise latitude that a line of sight to the rising midsummer sun is directly opposite (180 degrees) to the line of the setting midwinter sun. Likewise at 51 deg., the line of sight of the winter solstice sunrise is 180 deg to the line of the summer solstice sunset. On any other day of the year, the sunrise and sunset would be further north or south and would not align across the centre of a circle.


it's one of those urban myths Boreades. The place where the solstice winter sunset and summer sunrise (or vice versa) do match is the equator. Everywhere else does not match: You can check it out using the NOAA calculator:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/

Another easy logic way is to imagine what's happening at the equator using a geocentric description and then look at what happens at very high latitudes (for example near the north pole where there never is a summer solstice sunrise because the sun is up all the time): Everywhere else must be somewhere between these two extremes.

The reason it matches at Stonehenge is because of the hills to the north: They raise the horizon by a degree or so which means that summer solstice sunrise occurs slightly later than it would on flat ground: In this time, the azimuth (angle from north) has rotated round by a couple of degrees, so now matches the winter solstice sunset.

Having said that, it doesn't match exactly, you have to assume a tree line of another 10 metres above the hills to make the azimuths oppose each other by 180 degrees.
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Re: Heavens' Henge

Postby Mick Harper » 9:29 am

Using my new super-duper longitude'n'latitude thingy I typed in Goseck and got 51.195296 and then typed in Stonehenge and got 51.17882. That's a few hundred yards over a few hundred miles (probably!). So, Jon, how would you account for this compulsion among international 'Stonehenge'-builders to line up their latitudes?
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