Tag: Gavrinis

Counting Perimeters

above: a slide from my lecture at Megalithomania in 2015

We know that some paleolithic marks counted in days the moon’s illuminations, which over two cycles equal 59 day-marks. This paved the way for the megalithic monuments that studied the stars by pointing to the sky on the horizon; at the sun and moon rising to the east and setting in the west. It was natural then to them to see the 12 lunar months (6 x 59 = 354 day-marks) within the seasonal year (about 1/3 of a month longer than 12) between successive high summers or high winters.

Lunar eclipses only occur between full moons and so they fitted perfectly the counting of the repetitions of the lunar eclipses as following a fixed pattern, around six months apart (actually 5.869 months, ideally 173.3 day-marks apart). The accuracy of successive eclipse seasons to the lunar month can then improve over longer counts so that, after 47 lunar months, one can expect an eclipse to have occurred about one and a half days earlier. This appears to be the reason for the distance between the megalithic monuments of Crucuno, its dolmen and and its rectangle, which enabled simultaneous counting of days as Iberian feet and months as 27 foot units, at the very end of the Stone Age.

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Gavrinis R8: Diagram of the Saros-Metonic Cycle

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.

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What stone L9 might teach us

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. 

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The Three Worlds at Gavrinis

following on from previous post,
an article by M Guillaume found in
AAK Etudes et Travaux No. 1, 1977

Do these three stages [at Gavrinis] not correspond to the three creations, probably inherited by Celts, and  those in Egypt, preceding access to a sanctuary?

Fig. 10 Top left: A tracing of the Druid worlds, the circle in the square defining three areas: Abred (circle of necessity) and Annouim and Gwenwed (the white world). Top right:  On the stone Suèvres, these worlds are the figures by concentric squares. Bottom: In Christianity we find the same structure: this rose at Chartres has a fourth inner circle.
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Gavrinis: On Crossing the Three Thresholds and Entering The Room

following on within an article by M Guillaume found in AAK Etudes et Travaux No. 1, 1977

These half-circles facing upwards – do we not find them repeated a thousand times in the “necklaces” of the Goddess?

Fig. 12 Stones 4 and 5
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Symbolic “forms in movement” at Gavrinis

In this article M.Guillaume introduces some of the AAK’s work on understanding the Gavrinis chambered cairn. It appeared in the first volume of Etudes et Travaux, May 1977, pages 45-51.

It has been translated from French as best I can, in three parts with links between. It was first re-published on the web between 2010-2012 to honour the fact I was given copies of the magazine when visiting Carnac in 2004.

Whilst my interest was site interpretation using numbers, the notion of a vision quest within Gavrinis as an experienced structure is appealing.

What especially strikes one on entering Gavrinis is the extreme  homogeneity of the whole work.

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