New Views over Megalithia

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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby TisILeclerc » 11:48 am

What we do know is that there was a connection with the middle east. Tin, copper, and other minerals were in demand.

This means trade which means ships. Traders and sailors. And accountants. Accountants do the sums and calculate.

Tel Dor in Israel is on the coast and was once, or several times, an important port. We have Durdle Dor and Dorset.

We are told the stone circles were built by farmers who wanted to work out when to plant crops. I don't think farmers have ever needed stone circles to work out that. They look for the weather signs, behaviour of animals and birds and so on. They don't need to build stone circles which would take time to build and lots of labour.

But traders and their representatives on land would need to know precisely when the next ship is coming in. So they build permanent sun dials which count weeks and months. Or something like that. Sailors can calculate by the sun and stars.

By the shore we have a network of ships agents or hermits keeping an eye out for sails and keeping the beacons shining.

They can calculate how long a ship should take to come. All of this will be written down in some way. Clay tablets? If a ship sinks they will know that it's overdue. But there'll always be another one.

In the meantime the miners can mine, farmers can farm and the shipping magnates can er magnate and tidy up the circles.

The accountants can count the trading values of the goods and how much they'll get back in the home ports

People organise to whatever level is needed for their kind of society. They don't do things by chance.

Circles serve a mapping purpose as well. And we know that Orkney was in touch with Stonehenge so the idea of isolated little communities scratching a living is well and truly dead. Everything was organised. 12 inches to the foot. 12 pennies to the shilling. 12 months in the year. 12 hours in the day. 360 degrees in a circle and 360 days in the year more or less.

It all points to a centrally organised system and one I imagine based in the middle east and inherited from the Sumerians and others.

And what were the Druids doing speaking Greek?
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby hvered » 3:00 pm

The majority of historians believe agriculture was introduced to Europe from the Middle East. The Middle East does not have anything like the profusion of stone circles found in Britain. Israel has one known stone circle, part of a submerged Neolithic village near Atlit south of Haifa, and there's one stone circle in the Golan Heights in Syria.

There doesn't seem to be any evidence to justify linking agriculture to stone circles, not in its presumed place of origin anyway. The Middle East is also the birthplace of archaeology as practised today.
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Mick Harper » 3:28 pm

12 inches to the foot. 12 pennies to the shilling. 12 months in the year. 12 hours in the day. 360 degrees in a circle and 360 days in the year more or less. It all points to a centrally organised system and one I imagine based in the middle east and inherited from the Sumerians and others.

Well, where's the duodecimal system most at home? Middle East or British Isles?
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby TisILeclerc » 8:51 pm

I was not linking agriculture with stone circles. I was saying what others claim.

It's obvious that stone circles were built by professional stone circle builders.

They also exist in Egypt south of Cairo and are older than the pyramids. And who built Gobekli Tepe?

Image

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabta_Playa

And Jordan

Image

https://www.livescience.com/48532-big-c ... stery.html

2.722 feet is 32.66 inches. This falls out oddly if computed in Sumerian inches to 49.49. But if we divide it by 50 we obtain .653 inches. Using 2.72 feet we obtain .652 inches or the Akkadian inch that Knight and Butler were using. Fifty of the .66 inches gives 2.75 feet. The long and the short of the argument is that the Sumerian inch is directly related to both the English system and to Thom’s Megalithic Yard.


https://noahsage.com/2013/01/13/the-inc ... rian-inch/

If tin and copper etc were imported into the middle east from Britain it would be in the interests of the middle eastern traders to keep a count on the days. They had the ability through their knowledge of mathematics and geometry to do such a thing. And if they built enough stone circles across Britain they would all know the time at any particular moment and what day it was. Very useful for getting to the port on time wherever you were.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stone_circles
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Mick Harper » 12:16 am

How does knowing what day it is help you get anywhere on time? I think you'll find, even today, that ships sailing from the Middle East to Britain or vice versa get there when they get there. Nor, I think, does having a common measuring system turn out to be very important in international trade.

It's obvious that stone circles were built by professional stone circle builders.

The big ones, yes. The small ones always seem pretty ropey to me. Look at the Egyptian one you show. My family could do better at the seaside. Actually it looks a bit bogus to me. Not sure why, what's the provenance? Jordanian 'henge' is a nice spot though. Any others?.
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:28 am

Funny to say that your family could build one on the beach. This bloke has done just that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFfMYFJDBg0

And checks it for starry alignments etc.

The Japanese also have stone circles.

The site consists of two large stone circles located on an artificially flattened plateau on the left bank of the Oyu River, a tributary of the Yoneshiro River in northeastern Akita Prefecture. The site was discovered in 1931, with detailed archaeological excavations taking place in 1946, and in 1951-1952.

The larger circle, named the “Manza” circle has a diameter of 46 meters, and is the largest stone circle found in Japan. A number of reconstructions of Jomon period dwellings have been built around the site. The slightly smaller circle, named the “Nonakado” circle, is 42 meters in diameter and is located around 90 meters away, separated from the “Manza” circle by Akita Prefectural Route 66. Each circle is made from rounded river stones brought from another river approximately 7 kilometers away. Each circle in concentric, with and inner and an outer ring separated by an open strip approximately 8 meters wide.[2] Each circle contains smaller clusters of stone, including standing stones surrounded by elongated stones in a radiating orientation, forming a sundial which points toward the sunset on the summer solstice and allows for calculation of the winter solstice, the vernal equinox and the sun’s movements


Image

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cyu_Stone_Circles

As for keeping time. The tale of the Merchant of Venice is driven by the late arrival of a ship which forces the hero to accept an offer he can't refuse.

Time and Tide wait for no man. Funny as well, time and tide are both the same word and mean time. In gaelic as well as English.

Set up megalithic sun dials wherever you are and calibrate and synchronise them and no matter where you are you will know what the time is and if the boat is coming in. You wouldn't want to miss it. You will need to keep a tally of the days of course but the organisation will include plenty of tallymen. And the circles can be used for many things, triangulating the landscape, checking stars and planets. Even today people like to have watches that can do more than just tell the time. I had one that could survive at great depths underwater for some reason.

Today map making is in the hands of the military. The Ordnance Survey was an army response to te '45 rebellion and was used to map Scotland so that Wade could build his roads and stone garrisons. The Ordnance Survey is less militaristic today and calls itself the OS. A nice big circle and a snake side by side.

The three main questions regarding standing stone circles are who, why, and when. If we can find the answer to any one of those questions we will be on the track to solving the others.
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 10:19 pm

Re who was writing things down, and why.

If the priests, druids, academics, etc didn't write things down (for their own good reasons), who did want to write things down?

By way of an example, the first useful working computer in Britain was built and paid for by Lyons Tea Shops. For valuation jobs, payroll, inventory, etc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer)

Traders and merchants might have needed to write things down, for bills of sales, stock control, shipping inventories, etc. Hence the Phoenician alphabet arriving in Britain along with all the trade goods by ship.

Architects, designers and builders also needed to write things down.

Not forgetting the coded relationship between our Indian Decimal numbers and linear geometry (hiding in plain sight)

Image
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Mick Harper » 4:52 am

Most ingenious. I suppose the most urgent use is labelling sealed jars, whether in the kitchen or in the hold. I ran into the problem at a hippy commune when we used to swap our food stamps for cheap USAID tins whose labels had fallen off. It made for eclectic meals. It was OK because we were all on acid but the problem for the Mesopotamian housewife or trader using amphorae is clear enough. Opaque enough. What we need to do is put ourselves in her place and decide how we would solve the problem.
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 8:58 am

hvered wrote: The Middle East does not have anything like the profusion of stone circles found in Britain. Israel has one known stone circle, part of a submerged Neolithic village near Atlit south of Haifa, and there's one stone circle in the Golan Heights in Syria.

Agreed, not many, but perhaps they've not really been looking until recently?

Archaeologists in Jordan have taken high-resolution aerial images of 11 ancient "Big Circles," all but one of which are around 400 meters (1,312 feet) in diameter.


These drones are proving jolly useful at finding things so big people on the ground can't see them.

There is an Old Testament tradition of circle-makers e.g. Honi the Circle-Drawer. In the Mishnah Taanit 3:8 ...

Once they said to Honi the Circle-Drawer, "Pray that rain may fall.". He answered, "Go out and bring in the Passover ovens [made of clay] that they be not softened." He prayed, but the rain did not fall. What did he do? He drew a circle and stood within it and said before God, "O Lord of the world, your children have turned their faces to me, for I am like a son of the house before you. I swear by your great name that I will not stir from here until you have pity on your children." Rain began falling drop by drop. He said, "Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain that will fill the cisterns, pits, and caverns." It began to rain with violence. He said, "Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain of goodwill, blessing, and graciousness." Then it rained in moderation, until the Israelites had to go up from Jerusalem to the Temple Mount because of the rain. They went to him and said, "Just as you prayed for the rain to come, so pray that it may go away!" He replied, "Go and see if the Stone of the Strayers has disappeared." Simeon ben Shetah sent to him, saying, "Had you not been Honi I would have pronounced a ban against you! But what shall I do to you? You importune God and he performs your will, like a son that importunes his father he performs his will. Of you the Scripture says, 'Let your father and your mother be glad, and let her that bore you rejoice.' "

Ref : Honi the Circle-Drawer
http://josephus.org/HoniTheCircleDrawer.htm

Literally-minded or fundamentalist people like those at Beginning and End say that Honi is heretical witchcraft, and can't possibly be accepted, because he's mentioned in the Talmud but not in the Bible. I think they specifically mean the New Testament Bible as we know it, after much editing.

There is a very good reason for that. The Paulian Christianity, as passed to us via Flavius Josephus, had eliminated Paganism and competing religions. Roman Christianity eventually became the official state religion of all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire. Peoples from the Enochian traditions were definitely on the Pagan side of the fence. As was, by that time, some of the things associated with King Solomon.

Holy Stones

King Solomon is said to have built his famous temple in Jerusalem on a site that was already a Canaanite sacred sanctuary, which involved the Melchizedek priesthood. In the bible, we are told that Solomon adopted many Canaanite customs (and got into trouble for it with the orthodox Jews). These included sacred springs, mountain top and cave sanctuaries, and megalithic stone circles called Gilgal. While that term applied to any stone circle on Canaan, the Hebrews used it for one specific town that had the most important circle of them all, said to be about two kilometres north of Jericho, where Saul was crowned as the first King of the Jews.


“The stone heap of the wild cate” later known as Gilgal Refaim “wheel of giants”. Which is even more Pagan.

In Kings 18:30-35, we can read how the prophet Elijah repaired a stone circle:

“..Elijah took twelve stones..and built an altar … and he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two measures of seed, … and he filled the trench with water.”


That sounds like a Henge to me. It’s another curious coincidence that this stone circle tradition in ancient Israel so closely matches the same tradition in north western Europe.

Saul was crowned in a stone circle, because the Jewish traditional ritual of king-making included holy stones. As did the Druids, and as did the Welsh and Scots. That was, at least, until 1296 when Edward the First of England “acquired” the Stone of Scone from Moot Hill and took it to Westminster Abbey. In slightly dubious circumstances, and there seems to be a good chance the Scots had enough forewarning to fob Edward off with a substitute.

In Westminster Abbey, the (or a) stone became an essential part of the coronation of English Kings and Queens to this day; they have to be crowned while sitting above the Stone of Scone. The origin of this custom in Britain is said to be the “Stone of Israel”, and the “pillow of Jacob”. According to tradition,

“Jacob’s descendants kept the stone as a sacred national treasure until, when the Israel nation fell, its guardians fled with it to Ireland. There for nearly a thousand years the Kings of Ireland were crowned while seated on it. It was then taken to Scotland and used for the same purpose until Edward I took it to Westminster.”


A fantastic fairy story? Perhaps, but our current Royal Family still believes a Jewish tradition is an essential part of what gives them authority. Perhaps that's why Prince Charles (and a few generations that came before him) had been circumcised by a Jewish Mohel (the licensed remover of foreskins).
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:16 am

Does that mean prince Charles will have to go to Scotland to be crowned when the time comes?
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