Stone Age astronomy focused on celestial time cycles and natural units, allowing astronomers to develop intricate cosmic meanings. As civilizations advanced, attention shifted to space and scientific models, diminishing the intimate connection to time. Notably, the development of megalithic measurements reflected their unique perception of time, emphasizing a geometric understanding of their environment.
figure 1: The north-east quadrant of the horizon from the megalithic sites of Carnac. At that latitude, alignments to the solar and lunar extremes followed a simple geometry of multiple squares, repeated in all four quadrants, the observer in this quadrant being placed bottom left.
It was most fortunate for the stone age astronomer that the time periods surrounding the earth could be counted in whole numbers of natural units such as the solar day, the lunar month, and the lunar orbit. Over longer periods, whole number fractions would become whole, revealing special cosmic numbers, then symbolic of the cosmic time periods associated with planets, eclipses and other coincidences, so that a large matrix of relationships gave the Stone Age a world of meanings in the sky based upon time and number.
The post discusses the prophet Mohammad as the last prophet of Allah, emphasizing the origins of Islam in Mecca, the role of the Kaaba, and its connections to Abraham and Ishmael. It explores the Kaaba’s symbolism as an Ark, its geometric significance, and how it represents a divine relationship with time and celestial events, illustrating the intertwining of religious and astronomical concepts.
The prophet Mohammad declared he was the last prophet of Allah, a name resembling the El Shaddai (trans. Lord God, KJV), the god of Abraham in the Bible. Mohammad galvanised the Arabs and nearby nations with an original religion, branching off from the start of the Patriarchs found in the Bible’s first book, Genesis. His story follows Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, from whom the Arabs believe themselves descended.
The Kaaba of Abraham (left) and Mohammad
Mohammad’s religion of Islam (“salvation”) started in Mecca where he received visions of angels and spontaneously recited suras (verses) which became the Quran and associated texts. An unknown history of Abraham and Ishmael emerged, intimate with Mecca, long a spiritual center for the Arabic world. Mecca’s principle monument, the Kaaba or “cube”, has taken a number of forms. Adam located it as a dolmen created by God when Adam was formed; Ishmael built the next design for his father, “open to the sky”, using surface stones from nearby mountains; and Mohammad’s dispensation adds ancient stories about cubic arks and located these as a renewed Kaaba, the prime center, or Pole of redemption for the world.
The three keys here will be the Kaaba as an Ark, the Pole (Qutub) and model of Great Time.
This highlights the Minoan civilization’s understanding of sacred geometry, through measuring the distances and dimensions of two significant sites in Crete, the temples of Knossos and Malia. Calculations then connect the temples to the lunar nodal cycle, the English mile, and the diameter of Stonehenge in the architecture and dimensions of these palaces.
Figure 1 On the left: The Knossos Monolithic Basement, the oldest part of the Palace. On the right: The 34-holed Kournos built into the floor of the Malia Palace Courtyard.
In Sacred Geometry and the Goddess I wrote about the Minoan New Palace period (on Crete), where I found that the distance between the primary temple at Knossos, and coastal temple Malia directly east of Knossos, were 18.618 miles apart. This implying the periodicity of the Lunar Maximum (currently just concluding) as taking 18.618 solar years, was known to he Minoans and that if the Minoans were interested in this Nodal cycle, and chose to signify that cycle between these monuments, then they also used the mile and probably the foot to do it and familiar with it as 5280 feet (this being just one of the many miles used within historical and earlier settings).
The text discusses an Irish dolmen and the use of megalithic measurements related to sacred geometries and lunar cycles. It explains the significance of various lengths and units, such as the megalithic rod and Assyrian foot, in the context of ancient cultures and their alignment with astronomical events, particularly around eclipses and lunar months.
image above: I made myself a kind of information board for this well known Irish dolmen.
This subject, of Irish megaliths has been on hold since perhaps 2020 due to other work.
The Metrology
At that time I was working on Sacred Geometries in Ancient Goddess Cultures (Heath, 2022) and using a new, very-small unit of 3/100 (0.03) feet, found to be in practical use in Britain in a circle called Seascale (in Cumbria, see pages 109-113, 138-140 of Sacred Geometries: Language of the Angels (2018) : namely the su-shi, one sixtieth part of the historical Assyrian double foot of 1.8 feet (0.03 feet), and 30 in the foot of 0.9 feet.
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.)
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.
