This paper proposes that an unfamiliar type of circumpolar astronomy was practiced by the time Le Menec was built, around 4000 BCE. This observatory enabled the rotation of the earth and eclipticThe path of the Sun through the sky along which eclipses of sun and moon can occur, traditionally divided into the 365¼ parts of the solar year, each part then a DAY in angle rather than time. location of eastern and western horizons to be known in real time, by observing stellar motion by night and solar motion by day. This method avoided stellar extinction angles by measuring the circular motion of a circumpolar marker star as a range in azimuththe standard angular measurement of angles on the horizon, measured clockwise from zero degrees true North., which could then be equated with the diameter of a suitably calibrated observatory circle. The advent of day-inch countingThe practice of counting the days, using inches or other small units, between synodic phenomena such as years or planetary loops. and simple geometrical calculators, already found at Le Manio’s Quadrilateral, enabled the articulation of large time periods within Carnac’s megalithic monuments, the Western AlignmentsA name special to Carnac's three successive groups of parallel rows of stones, starting above Carnac called Le Menec, Kermario, and Kerlescan and another found near Erdevan. being revealed to be a study of moonrises during half of the moon’s nodal periodUsually referring to the backwards motion of the lunar orbit's nodes over 6800 days (18.618 years), leading to eclipse cycles like the Saros.. Le Menec’s Type 1 egg is found to be a time-factored model of the moon’s orbit relative to the earth’s rotation. This interpretation of Le Menec finds that key stones have survived and that the gaps seen in the cromlech’s walls were an essential part of its symbolic language, guiding contemporary visitors as to how its purpose was to be interpreted within the pre-literate megalithic culture.
Two key lengths are found at Le Manio and Le Menec: The first, of 4 eclipse years is a day-inch count of the Octon eclipse cycle; the second is a four solar yearFrom Earth: the time in which the sun moves once around the Zodiac, now known to be caused by the orbital period of the Earth around the Sun. count that, with the first, forms a triangle, marked clearly by stones at Le Menec. The principles worked out at Le Manio appear fully developed in Le Menec’s western cromlechBreton word for a rounded kerb monument or stone circle., including the use of an 8 eclipse yearthe time taken (346.62 days) for the sun to again sit on the same lunar node, which is when an eclipse can happen. day-inch count, consequently forming a diameter of 3400 megalithic inches which equals in number the days in half a nodal period. The scaling of the Western Alignments is found to be 17 days per metre, a scaling naturally produced by the diagonal of a triple square geometrical construction. A single sloping length on the top of the central stone initiating row 9, indicates a single lunar orbit at 17 days per metre, a length of 1.607 metres. This control of time counting within geometrical structures reveals that almost all of Le Menec’s western cromlech and alignments express a necessary form, so as to represent a megalithic study of (a) circumpolar time as having 365 time units, (b) the moon’s orbit as having 82 times 122 of those units and (c) the variations of successive moonrises over most of a lunar nodal period of 18.6 solar years.