Trade Secrets

[hvered]

Seems the herdees need to stand out as much as the herders. Glow in the dark reindeer antlers...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562967/Finns-reindeer-fluorescent-antler-makeovers.html

[macausland]

I'll stick to the brakes to prevent crashes rather than fluorescent reindeer antlers thank you.

Mind you orange does make an inviting target. Hard to resist when one is toting in the wild with plenty of ammo.

[hvered]

Red ochre seems to have been quite a common material in prehistory, used in paintings in Europe and South Africa as well as body paint for the living and the dead, and generally regarded as having a ritual function to do with rebirth, sex, blood and even some entity referred to as the Great Goddess. Archaeologists a thousand years hence will no doubt surmise that Finnish reindeer antlers were sacred objects.

[spiral]

Red ochre seems to have been quite a common material in prehistory, used in paintings in Europe and South Africa as well as body paint for the living and the dead, and generally regarded as having a ritual function to do with rebirth, sex, blood and even some entity referred to as the Great Goddess. Archaeologists a thousand years hence will no doubt surmise that Finnish reindeer antlers were sacred objects.

Ochre had multiple uses ...the tanning of of hides, insect repellent as an ingredient in glue...

I reckon you could use it as a wood preserver, I might try it on my shed.

Good point about the use and abuse of “symbolic” functions

[hvered]

Does Mont Lozère (Mont Losera in Catalan) figure in Guichard's maps? Perhaps it doesn't count as an Alese name but would presumably serve as a trig point being the highest mountain in the Cevennes on the Massif Central. The area was a hive of prehistoric activity, mainly mining and its offshoots.

[TisILeclerc]

Hello Hvered

Tis I Leclerc, master of disguise and famous piece de Resistance. Disguised now as a megalith waiting for the opportunity to catch Renee unawares.

Actually Tis I Macausland whose BT account was sabotaged, possibly by Boreades's interglactic fleet after I made reference to his position in the cosmos. Completely unable to retrieve my account or passwords so here I stand again ready to battle with the international didgereedoo brigade that infests our ancient stony structures.

Having said that, regarding Mont Lozere, still don't know how to do the accents, I can't find it on his maps.

Although interestingly, to me at least, Lewes the place of famous bonfires and 'Londres' (was this always an ancient name for London? Is the 'es' bit a reference to Alese etc?) are on his line of longitude number 6. I wonder if the line which touches London right at the eastern edge is coincidence or not. Seems very close to Greenwich to my way of thinking.

I notice that the town of Albi is in the Lozere region. Albi was at the heart of the Cathar religion. Perhaps a re-examination of Cathar beliefs would be worthwhile. Could it be that the secret they took to the bonfire with them was connected to the ancient map making and allied trades?

I think it would be interesting if the maps showing the latitudes with associated places and longitudes based on Alesia could be posted. I don't know how to do that as they are embedded in the document. Could it be pasted into a graphic application and then pasted?

One thing noticeable in the maps is the way the names change with extra letters added or deleted.

Lots of Calais related names as well as the Lozy, Lizy and perhaps Lozere names. Others have the prefix 'Plan' stuck on them. It may be that the differences in names are a means of identification in the general scheme of things. Versailles is one that crops up constantly. If it does refer to 'going towards' perhaps it is a place marker of some sort.

I'm sure that the people behind this would have been as logical in their naming of parts as they were in their mathematics and astronomy.

There are also many names which are used as personal names these days, Lizy, Lucy, Alice, Alex, Alison. Did these names have such a local importance that they were given to children?

It may be worthwhile to extend the longitude lines further into Britain and re-examine British placenames to see if there is a continuation.

[Mick Harper]

One interesting feature of this part of the world is that (apparently) villages (and other things) are spaced apart in exact English statute miles (that's the one that equals 1760 yards). I learned this years ago but I forget in what context. When I pointed this out to someone or other, the other said, "That is so ridiculous it must be an artefactual coincidence," ie the result of over-exuberant statistical plotting. I replied, "No, it just shows how important British metorolgy is (was)."

I'm not sure that I believe myself but I'd like to hear anything anybody's got on this subject.

[TisILeclerc]

I'm not sure if this fits in with the English mile etc but it's based on calculations to do with the orbit and rotation of the earth as well as the earth's mass.

This site gives a Blue Peterish guide on how to do it yourself with a few toilet rolls and a bit of string. Well a bit more than that.

http://www.robertlomas.com/megyard/

Regarding the location of Alesia there is apparently a debate going on in France at the moment with dissenters started by a French archaeologist Andre Berthier and continued by a 'Classics' professor Danielle Porte.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19167600

This appears to coincide with the theories of Guichard. St Columbanus apparently went to the region to convert the locals to Christianity. He built a monastery and church but tended to live in a cave himself. As they do.

This link should go to the google earth view of the place preferred by Berthier and Porte, Chaux des Crotenay.

http://www.cartesfrance.fr/recherche/?r ... s-Crotenay

There are other sites and a facebook page devoted to the theory although they concern themselves with Vercingetorix and the Romans rather than map making.

[Boreades]

One interesting feature of this part of the world is that (apparently) villages (and other things) are spaced apart in exact English statute miles (that's the one that equals 1760 yards). I learned this years ago but I forget in what context. When I pointed this out to someone or other, the other said, "That is so ridiculous it must be an artefactual coincidence," ie the result of over-exuberant statistical plotting. I replied, "No, it just shows how important British metorolgy is (was)."

I'm not sure that I believe myself but I'd like to hear anything anybody's got on this subject.

Hint: You need to go further back, to the common origins of miles, feet, astronomic metrology and measures of the Earth's rate of rotation.

[Boreades]

I'm not sure if this fits in with the English mile etc but it's based on calculations to do with the orbit and rotation of the earth as well as the earth's mass.

This site gives a Blue Peterish guide on how to do it yourself with a few toilet rolls and a bit of string. Well a bit more than that.

http://www.robertlomas.com/megyard/

Quite right, it is to do with the rotation of the earth.

Much as I admire most of Robert Lomas books and articles, I think he lost the plot on this explanation for the Megalithic Yard. Hand-made pendulums is not a very rigorous or exact method, as would be expected for something derived from astronomical observation.