Month: March 2025

Shaping of Stones in Alignments

Megalithic sites are subject to strict evidence criteria regarding solar and lunar alignments. Studies show that stone configurations often indicate astronomical events, with specific shapes reflecting lunar cycles. Notably, the alignment of stones at sites like Le Manio and Carnasserie highlight ancient observation techniques, suggesting intentional design to mark celestial occurrences.

where the sun or moon rose or set at a site can allow a dating due to the tilt of the earth having varied over a very long term cyclicity. One can also see that alignment to such events was a major feature of megalithic monuments, of pointing to sun and moon events. This approach gets even more powerful when day or month counting between alignment events can be measured within the dimensions of a site, using units of length seen belonging to a megalithic culture, like the megalithic yard.

However, another feature of stones at megalithic sites is their shape. When tracking the tracking the moon in time, its phase is changing so that shapes could indicating lunar phase, according to some sort of code. Le Manio Quadrilateral near Carnac shows a great shape variation in the 36 stones of its southern curb of 36, marking the 36 lunar months in three lunar years alongside a day-inch count of 1063 days-inches. This count starts from the Sun Gate from which the summer (and winter) sunrise can be viewed (so that the curb is 14 degrees south of the summer sun line.)

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Exploring the Astronomical Basis of the 260-Day Almanac

The Mayan 260-day sacred year, structured on 13 and 20-day periods, aligns with solar and Venus calendars. Robert D. Peden emphasizes its accuracy in syncing with tropical years over cycles, suggesting a profound astronomical foundation for Mesoamerican calendars. This reveals ancestral knowledge of cosmic time systems integral to their culture.

diagram: the interaction of two types of week creating a sacred calendar of 260 days. text: from Sacred Number blog, Saturday, November 8, 2008

In 2008, William Sullivan sent me an explanation for why the Mayan time system used 260 days as a sacred or ritual year, counting 13 and 20 day periods (that divide into this), to characterize days of one’s birth.

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Centers of the World

Explores the concept of sacred centers in relation to ancient civilizations and their geographical patterns. It discusses how these centers, influenced by Earth’s nature, manifest through numerically significant shapes and polygons. The movement from the poles affects mapping and measurements, revealing harmonious relations in spatial designs reflective of cosmic principles.

18th-century illustration of Mount Kailash, depicting the holy family: Shiva and Parvati, cradling Skanda with Ganesha by Shiva’s side

A culture often creates centers, While someone may gets powerful, and everything gets built around them and the rest is history, the concept of sacred center came from the nature of the Earth itself. In Egypt the meridian was both explicit and dominant in the south to north flow of the Nile, after the desertification of the Sahara. In Britain and elsewhere however, large landscape geometries were created of an approximately circular nature and this is a natural result of the near-spherical Earth.

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Easter Aquhorthies

Easter Aquhorthies (i.e. apocathery) has eleven stones in a circle and in between the two south-to-south-west stones is a large (bridging) recumbent stone, more commonly found in Scottish circles  and associated (by Alexander Thom) to lunar observatories because, in Scotland at lunar maximum standstill, the moon can rest upon or be hidden by a raised horizon.

Picture by krautrock, a member of megalithic.co.uk in June 2010.

Figure 1 Alexander Thom’s site plan, with cardinal directions and highlighting the diameter .

It is tempting to assume geometry within stone circles and this one invites that by having eleven regularly placed stones,. However, 11 is rarely found in regular geometries or stone circles.

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