Megalithic mapping

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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Boreades » 3:14 pm

Captain's Log, star date unknown.

The good ship SS Boreades has been trapped in Plymouth by foul weather, and some of the revolting teenage crew have abandoned ship to go walking in Snowdonia (four days for a DoE Gold Award, that'll learn 'em). I've given them Red Security shirts to wear, so that should be the last we'll see of them.

Fortunately the SS Boreades doesn't leak much at all despite the rain thundering on deck, and it's given me the peace & quiet to focus on TME Maps.

As work in progress, please see this: https://tme.cartodb.com/

This is not the final destination for our data (for copyright reasons), but it is an excellent way of quickly capturing points of interest (POI), and categorising them.

This lets us define subsets of all the POI. So far I have:
All points
Henge
Island

I'm working my way through the Trade Secrets thread, adding each POI I can find.
What other visualisations would you like?
Last edited by Boreades on 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Mick Harper » 3:25 pm

I'd like a running commentary. At the moment I just see three maps, each one with some familiar places marked. What's actually going on? I speak as someone who is currently having maps thrown at me (by Ishmael) to punctuate our Hydrological Cycle film.
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Boreades » 6:13 pm

The "All Points" visualisation has all the Points Of Interest I've added to the map database (so far)

As I add each POI, I can give it a description. That description can be used as a filter on the points displayed. Which is what all the other Visualisations are.

So far:
Island
Port
Henge (which includes stone circles)
Mine
Hill (inc. hilltop enclosures)

Clear as mud?

Yes, there are loads more points that can be added, and more visualisations. Let me know what you'd like added, preferably by email so we don't clutter this topic.
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Boreades » 9:32 am

Sit.Rep. 10:30 UMT

Revised visualisation titles, to match the categories covered.

Islands
Ports
Hills and hilltop enclosures
Henges and circles
Mines
and the catch-all: All points

The Basemap has been changed to Nokia Terrain Day. It's a bit lighter on the eye, and loads quicker than the satellite imagery.
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Boreades » 6:50 pm

macausland wrote: Iwade,Sittingbourne could provide one of your latitude markers perhaps.


Done.

I am surprised nobody has started jumping up & down about the latitude of this new henge.
Hint: same as Avebury
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby macausland » 9:21 am

For the want of a hosepipe.

The experts at Stonehenge are delighted to declare the circle complete.

A gardener chappie couldn't get his hosepipe to go round the circle because it wasn't long enough and noticed some dry bits he couldn't reach. He phoned mission control immediately.

'Tim Daw, who spotted the parch marks, said: "I was standing on the public path looking at the grass near the stones and thinking that we needed to find a longer hosepipe to get the parched patches to green up.

"A sudden lightbulb moment in my head, and I remembered that the marks were where archaeologists had looked without success for signs that there had been stone holes, and that parch marks can signify them.

"I called my colleague over and he saw them and realised their possible significance as well. Not being archaeologists we called in the professionals to evaluate them.

"I am still amazed and very pleased that simply really looking at something, that tens of thousands of people had unwittingly seen, can reveal secrets that sophisticated machinery can't." '

A spokesperson for English Heritage made the situation clear. Your heritage is safe in their hands.

'Ms Greaney said a high resolution geophysical survey conducted a few years ago had failed to pick up evidence of the holes.

"It's great that people who know the site really well and look at it every day were able to spot these parch marks and recognise them for what they were," she added.

"We maintain the grass with watering when it's very dry in the summer, but our hosepipe doesn't reach to the other side of the stone circle.

"If we'd had a longer hosepipe we might not have been able to see them."'

As reported by the beeb.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-28967538
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Boreades » 11:47 am

Getting back to the OT, please have at look at the latest additions
https://tme.cartodb.com/

We now have a visualisation that includes some lines, like the Stonehenge latitude line, which goes from Lundy to Goseck
https://tme.cartodb.com/viz/9e11e430-2f ... public_map

According to Hatty, who's got a better memory, and found the post about ‘Loon’ on TME forum, ‘'Trade Secrets” (p. 18). :
If you draw a line between Stonehenge and Goseck, it crosses Ramsgate on the south-easternmost point of the Isle of Thanet (ending at Pegwell Bay). It then arrives at an obscure place called Cadzand (‘Holy Sand’?) which is on the present border between Belgium and The Netherlands.

By re-drawing the same line in Google Earth, we can confirm that. In GE, the geographic-geometry follows a Great Circle route. The line goes right through the middle of Ramsgate Port, southern Isle of Thanet, and runs ashore at Cadzand. From which I conclude that CartoDB is using a flattened map projection. Which is fine for plotting individual Points of Interest or short lines. But misleading when drawing lines over distances long enough to be Great Circle routes.

What else is missing?
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby hvered » 9:15 am

A St Michael's Mount is listed in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Hitchin is next to the Icknield Way, as the Michael Line is called east of the Thames, but St Michael's Mount appears to have been subsumed into a roundabout where St Michael's Road meets the A505, whose route shadows the Icknield Way to Royston and Ermine Street (on the Greenwich Meridian).

It was probably the railway in the mid-nineteenth century that did for it though, Hitchin being one of the original stations on the Great Northern Railway.

Image

Interesting that grants of land in and around Hitchin were made to the Knights Templar (appointed to protect highways for the use of pilgrims, according to most history books), subsequently owned by the Knights Hospitallers and thereafter in the hands of the Crown. The preceptory at Temple Dinsley is claimed to have been one of the Templars' most important estates in south-east England.

In the legend of the foundation of Waltham Abbey, Hitchin was owned by Waltham and given by Edward the Confessor to Harold (who was buried at Waltham Abbey, on the meridian!), before it passed to William. Looking at this not especially prepossessing market town, it's somewhat astonishing to find Hitchin has been a royal manor from the time of Edward the Confessor to the present day.
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Boreades » 9:14 pm

What a good find!

It's reassuring to see that spiritual-folk are still tuning into St.Michael. The nearest organisation to the site of that St.Michael's Mount (even if trains go through it) seems to be the Foundation For International Spiritual Unfoldment.

http://www.fisu.org/centres/uk-centres/ ... tfordshire
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Re: Megalithic mapping

Postby Boreades » 11:50 pm

Would appreciate some critical feedback.

I've added some more visualisations of selected points, in the following categories:

POI with Lines
Celtic Abbeys, Priories, Saints and Templars
Druid
Henges and circles
Hills and hilltop enclosures
Ancient Ports
Islands
Mines

Rambling thoughts...

POI with Lines - what lines do you want?

Why should Druid be separate? I dunno.
Do we want to differentiate between Celtic Abbeys, Priories, Saints and Templars, and Druid?

Henges and circles - I've added a few henges and circles in the Orkneys and Shetlands. What's missing?

Hills and hilltop enclosures - I may add more on meridians of interest - any nominations?

Ancient Ports - are ones in the Med of interest?

Islands - what's missing?

Mines - bit sparse, more needed?
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