Category: Books

Books and other occasional writings

Gavrinis 1: Its dimensions and geometrical framework

This article first appeared in my Matrix of Creation website in 2012 which was attacked, though an image had been made. Some of this material appeared in my Lords of Time book.

photo For Wikipedia by Mirabella.

Gavrinis and Tables des Marchands are very similar monuments, both in the orientation of their passageways and their identical latitude. Gavrinis is about 3900 metres east of Tables des Marchands but, unlike the latter, has a Breton name based upon the root GVR (gower). Both passageways directly express the difference between the winter solstice sunrise and the lunar maximum moonrise to the South, by designing the passages to allow these luminaries to enter at the exact day of the winter solstice or the most southerly moonrise over many lunar orbits, during the moon’s maximum standstill. Thus both the monuments allow the maximum moon along their passageway whilst the winter solstice sunrise can only glance into their end chambers.

From Howard Crowhurst’s work on multiple squares, we know that this difference in angle is that between a 3-4-5 triangle and the diagonal of a square which is achieved directly by the diagonal of a seven square rectangle.

Figure 1 The essence of difference between the winter solstice sunrise (as diagonal of 4 by 3 rectangle) and southerly maximum moonrise (as diagonal of a single square), on the horizon, is captured in the diagonal of a seven squares rectangle.
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82: A Natural Accurate Pi related to Megalithic Yard

Author at Le Manio Quadrilateral (c. 4000 BC) in 2010. To left, the end of the southern-kerb’s day-inch count, which created the first megalithic yard of 261/8 (32.625) day-inches.

In my academia.edu paper on lunar simulators, based upon the surviving part of a circular structure at Le Manio (Carnac, Brittany), a very simple but poor approximation to PI could be assumed, of 82/26 (3.154) since there seem to have been 82 stones in the circle and the diameter was 26 of the inter-stone distance of 17 inches. The number 82 is significant to simulation of the moon’s orbit since that orbit is very nearly 27 and one third days long (actually 27.32166 days). In three orbits therefore, there are almost exactly 82 days and in day-inch counting that is 82 day-inches. Also of interest is the fact that in three orbits, the exact figure would be 81.965 day-inches which approaches the megalithic rod of 2.5 MY as 6.8 feet.

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The Roof Axe as Circumpolar Device

This article explores the use of axe motifs within a form of carved schematic art unique to the megalithic monuments near Carnac, southern Brittany, France. First published in February 2014.

A diagram found on the underside of the capstone of a chambered dolmen called Kercado (see figure 1) appears to hold metrological and astronomical meanings. Classified as a type of AXE, local axe motifs are said to have three distinct forms (a) triangular blades, (b) hafted axes and (c) the Mane Ruthual type [Twohig, 1981[1]]. 

Figure 1 Well preserved sculpted-stone axe-head motif in Kercado dolmen

Types b and c are often found in the singular on the undersides to roof slabs and in the case of form (b), the hafted axe, I have attributed its display below the roof slab of Table des Marchands at Locmariaquer (inset right) as being used to represent the north pole between 5000 and 4000 BC, at a time when there was no star near to the pole itself. The abstract point of the north pole, the rotational axis of the earth, is shown as a loop attached to the base of the axe haft, whilst the axe head then represented a chosen circumpolar star, as this rotates counter-clockwise in the northern sky, at the fixed distance of the haft from the pole itself. Note how compatible this idea of an axe ploughing the northern skies is to our own circumpolar constellation, The Plough. Note also that the eastern horizon moves through the equatorial stars at the same angular rate as the marker star moves around the north pole.

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The Golden Mean compared to PI

In reviewing some ancient notes of mine, I came across an interesting comparison between the Golden Mean (Phi) and PI. They are more interesting in reverse:

A phi square (area: 2.618, side: 1.618) has grown in area relative to a unit square by the amount (area: 0.618) plus the rectangle (area:1 ). This reveals the role of phi’s reciprocal square (area: 0.384) in being the reciprocal of the reciprocal so that in product they return the unity (area: 1).

On the right, the phi squared square showing how the reciprocal of phi and its square uniquely sum to unity (area: 1), a property that is scale invariant between structures who share the same units and grow according to the Golden Mean.
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Sacred Latitudes of the West

The post explores the geodetic concept of “Sacred Latitudes” and “Michael lines,” tracing historical and religious significance along these lines. It discusses saints’ locations, Columbus’s explorations, Templar disappearances, and maritime traditions. The narrative links these geographic lines to cultural, spiritual, and historical events, suggesting deeper connections in European and New World history.

above: the symmetrical Mary line of Europe to the Michael line (see figure) which correlated with places of significance to Mary. first published on Sunday, 19 September 2010

Adventures in Geodetic Imagination

At the heart of my second book, Sacred Number and the Origins of Civilization, lay the story of the Secret Men of the North, which followed the west-to-east path of a European Michael line (see figure 6), in the sense of the original invasion of the Middle East by northern Christianity, during the Crusades; ostensibly to re-take Jerusalem from a world of Islam that was itself invading Europe, from Spain, Sicily and the Levant.

Whilst working on a continuation of such a geodetic story, the concept of Sacred Latitudes emerged in which parallels of latitude might have some psycho-historical relevance, based on the original insight that, in the last century, “manifestations of Mary” have emerged, first in Garabandal in Spain and recently in Medjugorje, in Bosnia, that are on exactly the same line of latitude, 43 degrees and 12 minutes (43.2 degrees) (this brought to my attention by the late John D. Kirby’s studies of “Mary places”. He had organized tours from the UK to Medjugorje: see youTube video at end.)

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Venus: Planet of Harmony: part 1

Venus has played a strong role in mankind’s imagination, being a bright object in the sky in the evening sky and then the morning sky, whilst also viewed as the primary female goddess of the Ancient Near East. To recent astronomers, she is covered in impenetrable clouds, whilst the invention of radar revealed a rocky sister planet to Earth but with no life as we know it. It is perennially associated with the pentagon, because its synodic periods draw out a pentagon within the zodiac in 8 solar years. The reasons it does so are intriguing to say the least, and we explore the unusual numerical characteristics of Venus seen from Earth.

(adapted from a 1994 text, using 2020 hindsight)

The Venus cycle of eight years in which a morning or evening star has five manifestations, dividing the zodiac into a pentagram (Figure 1.6 Sacred Number and the Origins of Civilization)

Part 1: A Nearly Golden Mean

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