The Discovery of a Soli-Lunar Calendar Device at Le Manio

by Robin HeathEngineer, teacher and author, who discovered the Lunation Triangle (c. 1990), that enabled the lunar year to be rationally related to the solar year. During the 1990s we collaborated to further understand the astronomical and numerical discoveries of the megalithic astronomers.

In 2009 I returned to Plouharnel, again for the SolsticeThe extreme points of sunrise and sunset in the year. In midwinter the sun is to the south of the celestial equator (the reverse in the southern hemisphere) and in midsummer the sun is north of that equator, which is above the geographical Equator). Festival, and undertook my own research both before and after the four day event. Howard Crowhurst had undertaken a great deal of theodolite and tape work at a well known site called Le Manio. This collection of surviving monuments forms an exceptionally rich group of astronomical 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. which together carry enormous ritual significance in that these sites hold information about human conception, the gestation period and ritual use of geometry and metrologyThe application of units of length to problems of measurement, design, comparison or calculation.. Howard understands the site to the point where his three hour workshop covered much of this material, and the implications of it were clearly understood by non-specialists. Those readers who have the chance to attend the Festival, and who speak either English or French, should regard this experience as a megalithic ‘must’. Howard is an exceptionally good communicator of what are often seen as difficult areas of megalithic research, and he is astonishingly good at passing these ideas on to his audience with a great deal of clarity, enthusiasm and humour.
It was during Howard’s seminar/workshop that he invited me to set up his theodolite within the Le Manio Quadrilateral, a curious site near the 6.5 metre high ‘Giant of Le Manio’. This done, I noticed something I had been searching for for twenty years. Read on…!