Figure 7.5 The widespread tradition of a God who changes the astrological Age, through the Precession of the Equinoxes: Top left, Mithras as Sol Invictus; top right, Mithras slaying the Age of Taurus; bottom left, Aion, God of Ages; and bottom right, Orphic God Phanes. Mithras slaying the Age of Taurus (photo by Tim Prevett courtesy of the Segontium Museum, 2005)
This article has been extracted from my 4th book Sacred Number and the Lords of Time as being a fairly self-contained read. The “great time” in the heading is the Precession of the Equinoxes or Great Year of Plato, in which god-like human figures are posited in ancient times as governing the Age named after the Zodiacal sign in which the sun sits at the spring equinox, today the age of Pisces is about to become the age of Aquarius, but the Current Era corresponds to the age of Pisces, inaugurated by the birth of Jesus, hence also called A.D. for “anno dominie” or “year of Our Lord”.
Figure 7.4. The conceptual model of Great Time as two bands at right angles, joined at the equinoctial points where the celestial meridian of the Age crosses the equator and ecliptic
In the previous article, it was shown that the form of the trilithons, of five taller double sarsens approximating to a five-pointed star, matches the astronomical phenomena of the successive morning and evening stars, as Venus approaches Earth from the east and then recedes to the west as the morning pass. On approach, the planet rises in the evening sky and then dives into the evening sun and if one traces this motion it have the appearance of a horn. Venus shoots past the sun and reappears in the morning sky as the sun rises, creating another traced horn shape, symmetrical to the evening.
Figure 1
In support of the form of the trilithons resembling five successive double horns of Venus over 8 years, the width of the inner faces can also be interpreted as to their length being one megalithic rod, that is 2.5 megalithic yards. The distance between each pillar is ¼ of a megalithic rod so that, each inner face is divided by 4 of these units which units are 5/8ths of a megalithic yard, the ratio of the practical year of 365 days relative to the Venus synod of 584 days (365 / 584 = 5/8), the common factor between the two periods being 73 days.
The combined inner width of each pair of supports would therefore symbolize 8 x 73 days, or 584 days. Five of these pairs would then be 5 x 584 days, which equals 2920 days, this time period also being 8 x 365 days or eight practical years.
The inner surfaces lie on an ellipse which can be framed by a 5 by 8 rectangle whose sides are exactly the diameters required to form a day-counting circle for 365 day-inches (116.136 inches) and 584 day-inches (185.818 inches). The 365 day-inch circle (shown red and dashed in figure 4) has its centre in the center of the ellipse and so would have touched the two trilithons at A and B, at a tangent to their faces.
Figure 2 The Venus count of 584 day-inches (shown blue and dashed) was concentric to both the bluestone and sarsen circles, sitting inside of the bluestone circle.
The high degree of correlation between,
the five-fold form of the Venus synod and the five couplets of trilithons,
the summed inner widths of the trilithons as being 5 x 8 = 40 units of 73 days = 2920 days.
the out-rectangle of the inner ellipse being 8 by 5 and
the rectangle’s sides being the diameters of two circles of 584 inches and 365 inches, suitable for day-inch counting,
……. points to the 5-fold horseshoe of trilithons as a “temple” to the unique astronomical behavior of Venus in its synodic relationship to the solar year of 365 whole days.
No other compelling explanation exists, though many interpretions have been proposed such as
above: Carreg Coetan Arthur portal dolmen in Newport, Pembrokeshire.
The prehistory of sacred geometry was the late stone age, when the stone circles, dolmens, and long alignments to astronomical events on the horizon, used megaliths (large stones) in geometrical ways. Their geometries served their quest to understand the heavens, without telescopes or arithmetic, by using counted time periods as geometrical lines, squares and circles. Geometry, supplemented by the days counted between alignment events, was therefore a prelude to sacred and then secular geometry.
By developing early geometrical methods, they forged an enduring cultural norm lasting millennia, as part (or not) of the more-familiar aspect of the neolithic, innovating an agricultural pastoralism, that could support settlements, cities and, only then, the great civilizations of the middle and far east. It was civilization that generated our earliest written histories; these still powering our historical context and leading the basic notion of economic progress and territorial expansion, as superior to all that went before.
The Saros cycle is made up of 19 eclipse years of 364.62 days whilst the Metonic cycle is made up of 19 solar years of 365.2422 days. This unusually small number of years, NINETEEN, arises because of a close coupling of most of the major parameters of the Earth-Sun-Moon system which acts as a discrete system, a system also commensurate with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Venus. It is this type of coherent cyclicity which lies at the centre of what the megalithic were able to achieve through day-inch or similar counting of visible time periods and comparing of counts using geometric means. [see my books, especially Sacred Number and the Lords of Time, for a fuller discussion].
It would have been relatively easy for megaithic astronomy to notice that eclipses occur in slots separated by eclipse seasons of 173.3 days and also to see that the difference between lunar and solar years resolves over the 19 year of the Metonic so that lunar orbits, lunar months, the starry sky and the rotation of the earth provide a close repetition of alignments over 19 solar years which equal 235 lunar months and 254 lunar orbits. The Saros period is 223 lunar months long and is therefore one lunar year of 12 months short of the Metonic of 235 lunar months.
image of stone L9, left of corridor of Gavrinis Cairn, 4Km east of Carnac complex. [image: neolithiqueblog] This article was first published in 2012.
One test of validity for any interpretation of a megalithic monument, as an astronomically inspired work, is whether the act of interpretation has revealed something true but unknown about astronomical time periods. The Gavrinis stone L9, now digitally scanned, indicates a way of counting the 18 year Saros period using triangular counters founded on the three solar year relationship of just over 37 lunar months, a major subject (around 4000 BC) of the Le Manio Quadrilateral, 4 Km west of Gavrinis. The Saros period is a whole number, 223, of lunar months because the moon must be in the same phase (full or new) as the earlier eclipse for an eclipse to be possible.
What really happens when Earth turns? The rotation of Earth describes periods that are measured in days. The solar year is 365.242 days long, the lunation period 29.53 days long, and so forth.
Extracted from Matrix of Creation, page 42.
Earth orbits the Sun and, from Earth, the Sun appears to move through the stars. But the stars are lost in the brightness of the daytime skies and this obscures the Sun’s progress from human view. However, through observation of the inexorable seasonal changes in the positions of the constellations, the Sun’s motion can be determined.
The sidereal day is defined by the rotation of Earth relative to the stars. But this is different from what we commonly call a day, the full title of which is a tropical day. Our day includes extra time for Earth to catch up with the Sun before another sunrise. Our clocks are synchronized to this tropical day of twenty-four hours (1,440 minutes).
