Figure 1 The five Trilithons of Stonehenge 3, highlighted in yellow within the Sarsen ring to express the five evening and morning star couplets which occur in eight practical years of 365 days. Plan from Megalithic Remains in Britain and Brittany, Oxford U.P. Central portion is fig.3, upside down to match the horseshoe of trilithons..
Inside the Sarsen ring of Stonehenge, there once stood a group of five trilithons, each made up of two uprights and a lintel stone, repeating the unique style of building found in the Sarsen ring. However the Trilithons were higher than the sarsens, punctuating an elliptical cup shape towards the midsummer sunrise, the axis of Stonehenge and its solstice-marking “heel” stone.
The Horns of Venus
The symbolism therefore involved (a) the Sun, (b) the number five of the trilithons while (c) expressed something involving close pairs. The dominant astronomical significance of the number 5 comes through the brightest planetary phenomenon of all, in which the planet Venus approaches the Earth, as Venus approaches from the east, preceding the Sun in the evening sky. It is often therefore called the Evening Star. Venus then shoots past the sun and reappears in the morning sky, again growing in brightness as the Morning Star.
The original astronomers of the megalithic only saw the planetary system from the Earth and not (conceptually) from the Sun, as we do today. That is, they were naturally geocentricThe ancient view of the planetary world in which the inner planets orbit the sun and the sun and planets orbit Earth (the geo part). The Chaldean order was Earth - Moon - (Mercury - Venus -Sun) - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn. whilst the present worldview is heliocentricThe modern view of the solar system in which all planets orbit the Sun and the Moon orbits the Earth as third planet out..
The astronomers could study cosmic time periods without arithmetic, through counting days, using a constant unit length to mark each single day adding up to a fixed length of days. Through such counting they would see 365 whole days between the solstices and (more reliably) between the equinoxes (when the Sun moves most rapidly on the horizon). It was also quite obvious that the horns of Venus were bracketing the Sun, just as the elliptical cup of the trilithons they erected at Stonehenge bracketed the solstitial sun, a sun which travels every day from east to west.
Five-ness in the Zodiac
If the earth was their viewpoint then the ZodiacThe 12 constellations through which the sun passes in the solar year of 365.2422 days of the sun’s path over the year could, like the Sarsen Circle, be seen as a circle of 365 days, and when the time between evening or morning stars was counted, the result was 584 days between the horn-like and brilliant manifestations of Venus. 584 days is 219 days more than 365 days. The sun has therefore moved 3/5th of a year forward and hence it became noticeable, as stated above, that 1/5th of the practical year is 73 days, the practical year 5 units of 73 days long whilst the Venus synod is 8 units of 73 days long. The Venus synod therefore has exactly 1.6 (8/5) practical years between its phenomena.
The form of Venus upon the Zodiac therefore describes a 5-fold pentacle star. This would later make the number 5 and all of its properties, sacred by association to the planet Venus who became the leading goddess of the Ancient Near East. The Golden Proportion or Mean (1.618034…), often seen in Classical and Neoclassical architecture, has the number 5 as its root. Also, many living bodies share forms derived from the number 5, or of the Fibonacci approximations to the Golden MeanThe Golden Mean is that unique ratio {1.618034}, relative to ONE {1}, in which its square and reciprocal share the same fractional part {.618034}. It is associated with the synodic period of the planet Venus, which is 8/5 {1.6} of the practical year {365 days}, by approximation. It is a key proportion found in Greco-Roman and later "classical" architecture, and commonly encountered in the forms living bodies take..
The Fibonacci series (of 1, 1, 2, 3 ,5 ,8 ,13 ,21, …) has successive numbers that sum to give the next number, and each new ratio, between successive numbers in the series, yields an ever-better approximation to the Golden Mean: (2, 1.5, 1.6, 1.6, 1.617, …).
The Gravitational Perspective
Meanwhile, in modern gravitational thinking, Venus and the Earth can be seen as locked through their regular synodic proximity, exploiting the fact that – a planet whose orbital period is 8/13 that of the Earth will automatically have a synodic period of 8/5 since 8 plus 5 equals 13.
8/5 year synod divided by 8/13 year orbit of Venus
= 13/5 (2.6) orbits of Venus for 8/5 (1.6 year) synod of Venus
Similar episodic conjunctions appear to have led to the many other number coincidences found within the geocentric astronomy of the megalithic.
When the synod occurs then Venus returns to the evening and morning star phenomena . For this to continue, the numbers {5 8 13} must be exact but also are kept exact by those integer numbers.
Out of balance forces act according to the deviation from the mean, as a cybernetic regulator in achieving homeostasis.
Using ⅝ megalithic yard units to represent the Year and Venus
Almost certainly therefore, the general form of the horseshoe of trilithons at Stonehenge appears to have monumentalized Venus, Fibonacci numbers, the Golden Mean, and related 5-based geometries. This can be confirmed by looking at the metrologyThe application of units of length to problems of measurement, design, comparison or calculation. used in building the “horseshoe”, which was simple yet indicative of 8/5, in units of the megalithic yardAny unit of length 2.7-2.73 feet long, after Alexander Thom discovered 2.72 ft and 2.722 ft as units within the geometry within the megalithic monuments of Britain and Brittany. used at Stonehenge.
Stonehenge phase 3 is widely found to have been used a megalithic yard (MY) between 2.72 to 2.722 feet long. Thom says,
The intended width of the [remaining] uprights in the trilithon ring seems to have been 1 rod [equal to 2.5 MY] , and the spaces ¼ rod [⅝ MY] and 4MY [10 units of ⅝ MY], all measured on the inside ellipse.
Thom & Thom, 1978, p145
That is, the common unit applying to the inside faces employs a Fibonacci ratio of the megalithic yard of 5/8 MY, the ratio of the practical year of 365 days relative to the Venus synod of 584 days. However, each trilithon is a single Venus synod in a set of five: the width of each pair is 2 rods or 8 x 73 days and after 5 synods of Venus, 8 practical years (40 periods of 73 days) have elapsed and the cycle of Venus manifestations will then return to almost exactly the same place in the Zodiac.
The front widths of all 10 trilithons, equal 40 units of 5/8 MY which, seen as 73 days each, equals 8 practical years of 365 days which in turn equals 5 Venus synods of 584 days.
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