Megalithic astronomy achieved far more than modern studies of their astronomy have thought possible. The role of the megalithic in seeding the later religious ideas, of subsequent civilizations, has therefore caused ancient religions to be seen as having no objective basis, and to be considered works of human imagination alone. To correct for this wrong perception and realize what ancient stories were actually about, a number of hybrid disciplines need to be recreated for the modern day. Astronomy, for example, needs to be related to whole number numeracy by seeing the metrological and geometrical possibilities possible to the (Stone Age) megalithic “monuments” and the heritage of later ancient buildings. When this is done, as I and other have, the conclusion is clear, that the megalithic understood not just the time cycles of the sun and moon but also those of the planets and the longer periods of “great time”, though counting time periods in terms of the smaller time periods such as the day and month. As this work proceeded many surprising results emerge hinging on whole number ratios.
My six books, written over twenty years, demonstrate that the planetary system constitutes a special type of system governed by relatively small numbers, the 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. planets expressing invariant properties of the number field, especially harmony. And I suggest that modern astronomy may find that extraterrestrial intelligence exists on planetary systems similar to our own, in this numerical form given to time on earth, as a prerequisite for the complexity of the biosphere. The use of numbers for counting time in the megalithic, was therefore a further key process in the acquisition of important frameworks of meaning, attributed to civilization. And this is why my last book came to be called Sacred Geometry: Language of the Angels.
This significance of numbers to the cosmic process cannot be found until one tries to form an astronomy of time rather than of space. This appears true because the structuring of the world has more to do with the framework numbers provide in the fitting of “things” in space than the modern notion of cause and effect governed by laws, rather than by dimensionality. This can be illustrated by what types of things a framework enables, that cannot be achieved without that framework being extant.
As the megalithic counting of days and months developed, a whole tradition of geometry and numerical ratios were revealed to the prehistoric astronomers, as built in to the time body of geocentric astronomy. 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. are found, centred upon megalithic observatories, to the horizon events of solsticial and equinoctal sunrises and setting, or to the lunar maximum and minimum standstills. The counting between successive events gave the length of time cycles. Only when one learns what the events are and their duration in days of their cycles, can a megalithic site can be properly interpreted as having counted time cycles, using a constant unit of length representing a day, or a month, to reveal a number of days or months within each cycle.
For exampe, Alexander ThomScottish engineer 1894-1985. Discovered, through surveying, that Britain's megalithic circles expressed astronomy using exact measures, geometrical forms and, where possible, whole numbers., a top engineer of the 20th century, noticed alignments between megalithsStructures built out of large little-altered stones in the new stone age or neolithic between 5,000-2,500 (bronze age), in the pursuit of astronomical knowledge. to lunar maximum events on the horizon, occurring every 18.618 solar years. He was once asked, what happened if the sky was cloudy and you missed the alignment. His response was the ancient astronomers must wait over eighteen years for another maximum; but Thom had not seen that counting between events, using a growing length of equal units per day allowed observatories to use counts between similar events and that this glued the whole enterprise of megalithic astronomy together.
And what we call the megalithic period, in some areas lasted millennia so that an enormous intellectual tradition based upon the numbers of time remains lost to the modern world unless one recognizes that, in the counting of time, lay a doorway into a large numerical scheme perfectly preserved within the planetary system itself. The heavy planetary bodies, orbiting the Sun and as seen from the Earth, are constant in their orbits and their consequent synods, with each other and the Earth. Whatever they are is frozen in eternity whilst this is experienced within time, as our present moment. The design of Time and the evolution of intelligence are therefore an artifact of a higher intelligence than our own, to which the ancient religions sought to connect, in one way or another.
But if one cannot recognize the significance of ancient time counting, then prehistory will be populated with mysteries and rather primitive ancestors.
Counting Days
A good example of counting days in a long cycle emerges from the fact that the 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. of 18.618 years is 6800 days. It is obviously easier to have counted the days between a lunar maximum standstill and the next, and this means that, exactly halfway through the counting (3400 days) the lunar minimum will occur. It would be noticed that 17 divides into 6800 days to give seventeen periods of 400 days. And 400 days is very close to 399 days of the Jupiter synod, if one can count that between Jupiter’s loops against the stars as the earth “undertakes” the giant planet. So a 400 day-inch rope could be counted along seventeen times.
One can see how the Maya came to their Long Counting by merging all of their knowledge of cycles and letting them play out from a known starting point, hence creating a single calendar representing the geocentric planetary as a whole. Using that one can also go back in time and forward, to predict sky events.
Before the study of great time day-inch countingThe practice of counting the days, using inches or other small units, between synodic phenomena such as years or planetary loops. was developed by 4000 BCE to quantify the invariance between the sun and the moon , from which an integrated calendar could be created (or reconstructed from previous counting exercises) at Le Manio near CarnacAn extensive megalithic complex in southern Brittany, western France, predating the British megalithic. Brittany – and also see geometry lesson 5. This explains how Robin Heath’s Lunation TriangleThe right-angled triangle within which the lengths of the two longer sides are the relative proportions of the solar and lunar years., implied by Stonehnege’s Standing Stone Rectangle, came into the megalithic vernacular by counting three solar and lunar years and comparing these, geometrically within right angled triangles, which are both trigonometric structures (relating to the circle) and proportional calculators in the metrological sense.
The three year triangle creates an excess of three solar years over the three lunar years, equal to 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. (MY) of 32.625 (32 and 5/8ths) day-inches which I call the Proto MY (see appendix 2 of Language of the Angels).
I made a film about this about ten years ago. Poor sound and picture quality for nowadays, but it gives interesting details of a possible cosmic “design”.
Counting Months
By counting in inches per day, 32 +5/8 day-inches is the excess, of 2.718 feet, a megalithic yard. This led to the idea of counting months using the new unit of lengths and, counting the twelve lunar months (24 half months) the remains of the 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. became an english footThe standard prehistoric foot (of 12 inches) representing a unity from which all other foot measures came to be formed, as rational fractions of the foot, a fact hidden within our historical metrology [Neal, 2000]., somewhat defining the foot of 12 inches as a new standard unit. To recap, using day-inches created an solar excess over 3 years of the megalithic yard and then counting a single year using megalithic yards generated the English foot.
If we allow the megalithic astronomers to have pondered such a sequence then the world of time seems to be giving new unit when counting using a simpler unit: inches per day giving the megalithic yard and megalithic yards per month giving the foot as the excess over a solar year. It was as if counting time was generating significant set of measures, some we still use today: the inch and foot. This continuity between the megalithic period, the ancient world and the modern world of measure implies that measures of length have a very long history of at least 6000 years! It also means that the ancient world somehow got these measures from the megalithic astronomers from whence, classical writings and historical discoveries show that civilized building practices built these measures into often sacred buildings so that religion were specuations based upon the measures and findings of megalithic astronomy.
When counting in months, many longer cycles are seen to recur over an integer number. The eclipse cycle called SarosThe dominant eclipse period of 223 lunar months after which a near identical lunar or solar eclipse will occur., 10 days over 18 years long, is 223 lunar months because the sun and moon are conjunct at a solar eclipse at one of the two lunar nodes whilst, at a lunar eclipse, they must be on opposite sides of the earth. This makes the integer number of “moons” in that case.
In 19 solar year, there are 235 lunar months and 254 lunar orbits, because the number of lunar months in a single year is 12 and 7/19 lunar months so that after 19 years, seven extra lunar months is the excess over 19 x 12 (=228) lunar months and 228 + 7 = 235.
There are also 13 plus 7/19 lunar orbits in that period so that 19 x 13 (=247) orbits plus (again) seven more equals 254 orbits in 19 years, a period called the MetonicGreek: The continuous 19 year recurrence of the moon's phase and location amongst the stars.. And since, after (any) 19 year period, the orbits and the months are all integer, almost identical celestial circumstances repeat (continuously) over 19 years. That is all the permutations, patterns, or behaviors, are continuously expressed within nineteen years, over the Metonic period. In this sense “there is nothing new under the Sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
One can count all sorts of celestial recurrence using measures to arrive at a strong tradition of sacred numbers and geometry pre-existing the historical period and informs its characteristic religious thinking. After my first book on the astronomy, I wrote Sacred Number and the Origins of Civilization for this reason. The megalithic and religious use of numbers was then explored in Sacred Number and the Lords of Time.
I had also found the lunar month was in musical harmonic resonance with the outer planets and even the other planets too in Harmonic Origins of the World – where I also had to explore rudimentary musical realities as these are also numerical. My latest, Sacred Geometry: Language of the Angels,