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Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , coldrum , Klingon , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith , sem
The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Stones Forum >> Equinox
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Equinox |
ragnarok
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|  Posted 22-10-2007 at 17:19
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On 2007-10-22 14:26, tiompan wrote:
[quote]
On 2007-10-21 19:13, ragnarok wrote:
Walrus,
Alignments to the moon are not straight forward. For example the nearest full moon to this years Summer Solstice was 9 days after & the moon rose nearly half way between SE - SSE (nearer SE) here. However in 1800b.c. the nearest full moon was 3 days before the SS & it rose exactly half way between SE - ESE. Quite a difference!
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How do we know that the full moon was what was being taken into consideration , some might argue for a dark moon , or anything in between .
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IMO at most sites the Moon wasn't taken into consideration at all.
(I accept major moon alignments at specified sites)
The Moon is far more complex than the Sun - for starters the Moon is often 'up' during daylight hours as well as night.
Alignment for a dark moon.......mmmm.....how would one do that? And for when? (& why?)
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tiompan
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| Posted 22-10-2007 at 17:36
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On 2007-10-21 16:38, Walrus wrote:
The symmetry of the pentagram is close enough that I originally plotted it on a 1/25,000 map on a large drawing table, took a tracing, turned the tracing over upside down & re-fitted it. I couldn't fault the fitting when I pricked the tracing positions through to the original with a fine needle. I know us mine surveyors were a bit good  but that's an impressive bit of setting out by the "Old Men".
[ This message was edited by: Walrus on 2007-10-21 16:40 ]
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What about this Walrus ?
Arbor Low - Nine Ladies =90.501 degrees and 8.8838 Km
Froggats Edge -Arbor Low = 214 .617 degrees and 15.95214 Km
Froggats Edge - Nine Ladies =180.578 degrees and 13.27803
Square the distances and you are only 36 metres away from a 3:4 :5 triangle with a couple of close cardinal points thrown in ,plus Froggats Edge - Arbor Low winter minor standstill =214.21 degrees .
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cropredy
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from Oxon
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| Posted 22-10-2007 at 17:54
Ragnarok,
If you want to talk about the dark moon, go below.
As for alignments to such as arbor low, remember there is a barrow in the embankment, and one in the adjacent field, don't just aim dead central, think about it geometrically, edge of a circle.
Kevin
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tiompan
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| Posted 22-10-2007 at 20:15
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Alignment for a dark moon.......mmmm.....how would one do that? And for when? (& why?)
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If you accept that the monument builders had a working knowledge of the lunar and solar cycles then the dark moon at winter southern standstill would have been no problem to understand or indicate . The subsequent guaranteed darkness after sunset is as likely a potent ingredient in ritual/cosmology as a full moon .
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ragnarok
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| Posted 22-10-2007 at 21:20
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On 2007-10-22 20:15, tiompan wrote:
If you accept that the monument builders had a working knowledge of the lunar and solar cycles then the dark moon at winter southern standstill would have been no problem to understand or indicate . The subsequent guaranteed darkness after sunset is as likely a potent ingredient in ritual/cosmology as a full moon .
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But were they interested in 'plotting' something which is that obvious to observe? If so at which sites please.
Also was the winter southern standstill in exactly the same place on the horizon 5,000 yrs ago as it is today?
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tiompan
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| Posted 22-10-2007 at 22:09
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On 2007-10-22 21:20, ragnarok wrote:
[quote]
On 2007-10-22 20:15, tiompan wrote:
If you accept that the monument builders had a working knowledge of the lunar and solar cycles then the dark moon at winter southern standstill would have been no problem to understand or indicate . The subsequent guaranteed darkness after sunset is as likely a potent ingredient in ritual/cosmology as a full moon .
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But were they interested in 'plotting' something which is that obvious to observe? If so at which sites please.
Also was the winter southern standstill in exactly the same place on the horizon 5,000 yrs ago as it is today?
[/quote]
We don't know if they were "plotting " or not and can only guess at the significance of architecture that grades stones to the south -west or is suggested by outliers from other megalithic monuments . Recumbent stone circles , Clava cairns , kerb cairns and even Stonehenge have graded stones, the biggest at the SW . The difference between today and the winter standstill 5000 years ago at Stonehenge would be close to a degree .
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ragnarok
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| Posted 22-10-2007 at 23:00
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On 2007-10-22 22:09, tiompan wrote:
[quote]
We don't know if they were "plotting " or not and can only guess at the significance of architecture that grades stones to the south -west or is suggested by outliers from other megalithic monuments . Recumbent stone circles , Clava cairns , kerb cairns and even Stonehenge have graded stones, the biggest at the SW .
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Looks like this has gone full circle  ...back to mid-winter sunset (as shown on previous postings)....which rounds it off nicely for me ta.
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Walrus
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from Derbyshire
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| Posted 24-10-2007 at 19:41
Barbrook first, the notched stone to the SE isn't a candle holder, the one denoting Mayday sunset is though.
The Pentagram;- needn't necessarily date to the early henges. If a line is established from Arbor Low to the Peak Cavern, and another from Arbor Low to the Bullring - easy enough with small lights and a plumbline hung from an A frame, the rest can be set out by sighting pairs of stars, relative to the centreline of the figure. You sight one over the centreline and one over the Bullring, then later in the night the first star is over Wet Withens when the second is over the centre. Same from the other end stood over the cavern entrance to sight pairs of stars to the south, giving the other pair of lines to Hordron & Edale Cross. You didn't read my previous comment, I'm assuming Edale Cross to be on the site of a destroyed circle, probably deliberately so to remove an active pagan site(?) I don't think this figure is chance, the symmetry is just too good and the shape is a dead ringer for a "Squatting Goddess" figure with the Peak Cavern as the Vulva.
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ragnarok
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| Posted 24-10-2007 at 21:06
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On 2007-10-24 19:41, Walrus wrote:
Barbrook first, the notched stone to the SE isn't a candle holder, the one denoting Mayday sunset is though.
The Pentagram;- needn't necessarily date to the early henges. If a line is established from Arbor Low to the Peak Cavern, and another from Arbor Low to the Bullring - easy enough with small lights and a plumbline hung from an A frame, the rest can be set out by sighting pairs of stars, relative to the centreline of the figure. You sight one over the centreline and one over the Bullring, then later in the night the first star is over Wet Withens when the second is over the centre. Same from the other end stood over the cavern entrance to sight pairs of stars to the south, giving the other pair of lines to Hordron & Edale Cross.
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We will just have to agree to disagree about your candle/lamp holder theory.
How would they have known when May Day was?
The rest is a joke yes? I assume that you are deliberately pulling my leg?
If not then I will leave it up to you to determine how that couldn't work on the ground......perhaps I'll give you a couple of clues - there is higher ground between sites & would the poor chap running along the 'line' hear the words ''just there mate'' when he got to the spot where they wanted to erect Wet Withens?
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tiompan
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| Posted 24-10-2007 at 22:00
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On 2007-10-24 21:06, ragnarok wrote:
How would they have known when May Day was?
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May day is simply Belatane the cross quarter day mid way between the vernal equinox and summer solstice . Not too difficult to work out .
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Walrus
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from Derbyshire
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| Posted 24-10-2007 at 22:05
Having spent 23 years doing line surveys of coal mine workings I can assure you it's a lot easier than you think. Transferring pit methods to the bronze age, waving a torch up & down, side to side & round in circles can convey an awful lot of meanings. Human eye can line through a plumb line to an accuracy of about 1 arc minute, maybe 20" for a real expert. A minute is approx. 1" in 100yds., that's say 18" or better per mile. Yes it's possible, just takes a bit of time & organisation. The old men had plenty of both.
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ragnarok
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| Posted 24-10-2007 at 23:44
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On 2007-10-24 22:00, tiompan wrote:
May day is simply Belatane the cross quarter day mid way between the vernal equinox and summer solstice . Not too difficult to work out .
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Quite right, not difficult to work out at all.
According to my calculations that makes May Day on the 6th May these days.
And in 2,500 B.C. it would've fallen on the 28th May (using todays Gregorian calendar).
Apart from the obvious discrepancies, where is the evidence that our stone circle builders counted days? Which they would have to do in order to locate any cross quarter days.
AND they would they celebrate a, much later introduced, Celtic festival like Beltane ?
[ This message was edited by: ragnarok on 2007-10-25 00:38 ]
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ragnarok
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 00:47
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On 2007-10-24 22:05, Walrus wrote:
Having spent 23 years doing line surveys of coal mine workings I can assure you it's a lot easier than you think. Transferring pit methods to the bronze age, waving a torch up & down, side to side & round in circles can convey an awful lot of meanings. Human eye can line through a plumb line to an accuracy of about 1 arc minute, maybe 20" for a real expert. A minute is approx. 1" in 100yds., that's say 18" or better per mile. Yes it's possible, just takes a bit of time & organisation. The old men had plenty of both.
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I'm sure it works well in coal mine surveys but perhaps this cross-country pentagram theory is a whole different animal ?
I would say that the accuracy of this method would be seriously compromised over some 16 miles with hills & trees obscuring the line of vision. In fact IMO it's impossible on that terrain.
Have you tried it?
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Walrus
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from Derbyshire
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 01:19
We used to do it on courses from tech in S Wales. No bother if you do it at night.
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Aluta
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from PA, USA
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 13:25
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On 2007-10-24 23:44, ragnarok wrote:
Quite right, not difficult to work out at all.
According to my calculations that makes May Day on the 6th May these days.
And in 2,500 B.C. it would've fallen on the 28th May (using todays Gregorian calendar).
Apart from the obvious discrepancies, where is the evidence that our stone circle builders counted days? Which they would have to do in order to locate any cross quarter days.
AND they would they celebrate a, much later introduced, Celtic festival like Beltane ?
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It's likely that people in many if not most agricultural societies around the world observed that and other cross quarter days, not, of course calling them May Day, etc. And where they would fall on the Gregorian calendar at various times is completely irrelevant as they always fall at the same time--by definition, half way between solstices and equinoxes.
The observation of these points in the year isn't somehow unique to "Celtic" cultures. That idea is what has caused the idea that stone sites worldwide were built by Celtic peoples who in fact rarely built such sites even where they did live. Don't forget--there was no telly and people watched the sky very closely, working out relationships between movements of celestial bodies and the landscapes on which they lived.
It may be that man's ability to read and write arose from an ability to understand deeply and symbolically the features of the sky and landscape around them, in a sense reading them with the parts of their minds or at least the facilities we now use for the not-insignificant tasks of reading and writing.
We take literacy for granted but it is a huge task when undertaken and it may unfit us to think in the ways that people who were not literate were able to think. I would not be the only person to say that, although it is worth it to us in the world we now must navigate, we lose something when as children we devote so much of our efforts and understandings to learning to read and write. Some educators, and I would have to look it up somehow to find who, used to say that children should not begin to learn reading and writing until they are closer to nine years of age, as the effort stunts some kinds of natural learning.
I say all this by way of reminding you that people did NOT think as we do, did not see and understand the world exactly as we do, that we may have, early in our lives, lost the ability to conceive of sky and land and the turn of the seasons in the same way that non-literate people reared in a culture that teaches deep understanding of the world around them conceive of those same things. Literacy changes the way we understand. This is real yet often forgotten or overlooked.
[ This message was edited by: Aluta on 2007-10-25 13:30 ]
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ragnarok
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 15:18
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On 2007-10-25 13:25, Aluta wrote:
..... And where they would fall on the Gregorian calendar at various times is completely irrelevant as they always fall at the same time--by definition, half way between solstices and equinoxes.
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Exactly my point! They had no Gregorian calendar, they had no DAILY calendar, so how would they know when the half way point was between solstices?
(And it's no use saying that the Sun is exactly at it's half-way point between Equinoxes & Solstices because it isn't.)
IMO they didn't need reference points to mark seasons etc. As you said they were much closer to their environment than we are today, so therefore, observation of animals, trees, plants, temperature, weather etc would be enough. As it STILL is today with traditional farming/country folk. (I don't need a calendar to tell me when Autumn is, or when the weather is right to plant seeds, cut the hay etc.)
The time around the Winter Solstice appears to be the major 'event' at most sites from late neolithic times onwards- according to alignment markers & archaeological evidence found at various sites. Which is understandable, a great relief to see that the days were beginning to lengthen, as indeed it is today.
I'm sure that other times of the year were celebrated as well but I cannot see any case for cross quarter days at all.....
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Aluta
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 16:55
I think there were probably always some people in society who were natural counters and rather obsessive about detail, so I disagree but not enough to argue much about it. I don't know enough of the research to make any kind of informed argument and, strangely, I will let that fact stop me.
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ragnarok
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 16:58
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On 2007-10-24 22:05, Walrus wrote:
Yes it's possible, just takes a bit of time & organisation. The old men had plenty of both.
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Plenty of time? I hardly think so & cannot imagine how you would presume so........especially for impossible & useless follies 
Don't forget that your pentagram is only discernible from the sky & relies totally on this recognition being established by the later builders of Wet Withens, 7 Stones & Edale cross* by EXCLUDING any other build within this pattern. Which clearly didn't happen.
* Edale Cross. Though dated 1610 might have indicated meeting of the three 11th century wards.
[ This message was edited by: ragnarok on 2007-10-25 18:44 ]
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Walrus
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from Derbyshire
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 20:10
Unless something's altered Edale Cross used to be accepted as the work of mediaeval monks, a pattern visible to the sky may have been aimed to please a deity, and spare time? how about the man/hours it took to build Silbury/Avebury/Stonehenge with antler picks & shovels made from ox shoulder blades.
The difference between Neolithic henges & Bronze Age circles may be correct, though there's precious little to date at the latter, but I'd suggest that there's a continuing tradition linking the two. Geometries aren't PC these days but the theodolite surveys show Arbor Low & Hordron as egg shaped, Wet Withens probably so & the Bullring is indeterminate because of damage. If that's opening another can of worms I'll state outright that I'll believe Thom's theodolite work over Barnatt's playing in the park every time.
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sem
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from Bridgend,S.Wales
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| Posted 25-10-2007 at 20:20
"The time around the Winter Solstice appears to be the major 'event' at most sites from late neolithic times onwards- according to alignment markers & archaeological evidence found at various sites. Which is understandable, a great relief to see that the days were beginning to lengthen, as indeed it is today.
I'm sure that other times of the year were celebrated as well but I cannot see any case for cross quarter days at all....."
One thing people forget about Winter Solstice is that the days may start to lengthen but this point heralds the beginning of the coldest part of the year. Maybe it is not a celebration but more of a "what the hell are we in for this time?"
To me Spring Equinox and (even more so) Mayday seem better times to celebrate.
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