The desire to measure the earth, or convert natural phenomenon into numbers begins with an awareness of pattern and repetition. The moon repeats its waxing and waning, the sun repeats its rising and sinking. The winter solstice full moon rises in broadly the same position as the midwinter sun. Stars circle the pole, or cross the sky following the sun and moon.
Broad and simple patterns are easy to discern, but begin to fall away into complexity as finer, more accurate criteria are used to define true repetition. Therefore it is important to ask what astronomical alignments could show. And secondly ask how much accuracy would have to be built into the monument to create this specific alignment.
Obviously this is a chicken and egg problem...when looking at a set of concrete markers on the ground that give only the barest idea of where posts once stood, or when standing at Stonehenge I cannot know where exactly I'm meant to stand when I make the observation. Nor do I know if the monument was designed to do something that occurred for a short duration, or for a long duration - equinox or solstice.
All I can do is make guesses.
This brings me to geometry and the structure of the timber henges (I include Stonehenge). Euclidean geometry shows the relationship between shapes and focuses on ratio, rather than number. After Newton, geometry became mathematical and specific. In the light of Newton's achievements Euclidean methods seemed semi-mystical, latter to be relegated to the sphere of the occult.
Nevertheless, a consistent re-occurrence of certain ratios at different sites is significant, and shouldn't be over looked.
The center of Stonehenge is roughly the same size as The Sanctuary (Woodhenge is a bit more complicated...)
Measuring from the center to the second of the inner rings in both the Sanctuary and
Stonehenge gives you the distance from the outer ring to the edge of the henge.
The distance from the center to the inner ring is the same as the distance between outer ring and inner bank of the henge - at Stonehenge.
This does not work for The Sanctuary because there isn't a double, outer ring.
If there is any rule here, it seems to be the first, that the distance from the center to the outer of two inner rings = distance to the outer wall of the monument.
If the pattern was the same at the Sanctuary, there should be another ring about 7 foot away from the stones, just inside the outer ring of stones.
The next question to ask is why has this ratio been chosen at both sites. The simplest answer is to say that the method of laying out the circles was the same; a rope is pegged at the center of the ring and a circle drawn, then the same rope is used to measure a standard distance from points around the circumference of the first circle, to mark out the second outer circle..
But why use this ratio?
I suspect that it lies at the heart of Woodhenge and Silbury too, so it may be a standard ratio based on similar methods of construction and nothing else.
On the other hand, I'm keen on shadows, so if a shadow length was used to determine the length of the rope...I'd need to know the height of the central post.
Well, at the Sanctuary the central post hole could support a pole a maximum of 126 inches high..
So, call it 10 foot divided by shadow length (to outer ring of inner circle) of 30 foot, 6 inch. Gives a solar elevation angle of 18 degrees. The maximum elevation angle of the sun at the winter solstice is only 15 degrees, so the shadows are always going to be longer than the distance to the outer ring.
Shorten the post.
If I used the solar angle as the winter sun crosses the meridian, then that gives the post height as 8 foot.
What if the Sanctuary was laid out at the summer solstice?
Using the 10 foot pole (!) The sun has an elevation angle of about 18 degrees just after 6 am at the summer solstice, and the azimuth at that time is about 75 degrees.
Using the 8 foot pole at 5: 45 am, the sun has an azimuth of around 70 degrees.
If shadow length was a determining factor for the ratio of the secondary Sanctuary (of standing stones), is seems to me that midday at the winter solstice would be easier to use.
This doesn't change the fact that the G posts correspond to midsummer sun rise and sun set shadow azimuths.
Broad and simple patterns are easy to discern, but begin to fall away into complexity as finer, more accurate criteria are used to define true repetition. Therefore it is important to ask what astronomical alignments could show. And secondly ask how much accuracy would have to be built into the monument to create this specific alignment.
Obviously this is a chicken and egg problem...when looking at a set of concrete markers on the ground that give only the barest idea of where posts once stood, or when standing at Stonehenge I cannot know where exactly I'm meant to stand when I make the observation. Nor do I know if the monument was designed to do something that occurred for a short duration, or for a long duration - equinox or solstice.
All I can do is make guesses.
This brings me to geometry and the structure of the timber henges (I include Stonehenge). Euclidean geometry shows the relationship between shapes and focuses on ratio, rather than number. After Newton, geometry became mathematical and specific. In the light of Newton's achievements Euclidean methods seemed semi-mystical, latter to be relegated to the sphere of the occult.
Nevertheless, a consistent re-occurrence of certain ratios at different sites is significant, and shouldn't be over looked.
The center of Stonehenge is roughly the same size as The Sanctuary (Woodhenge is a bit more complicated...)
Measuring from the center to the second of the inner rings in both the Sanctuary and
Stonehenge gives you the distance from the outer ring to the edge of the henge.
The distance from the center to the inner ring is the same as the distance between outer ring and inner bank of the henge - at Stonehenge.
This does not work for The Sanctuary because there isn't a double, outer ring.
If there is any rule here, it seems to be the first, that the distance from the center to the outer of two inner rings = distance to the outer wall of the monument.
If the pattern was the same at the Sanctuary, there should be another ring about 7 foot away from the stones, just inside the outer ring of stones.
The next question to ask is why has this ratio been chosen at both sites. The simplest answer is to say that the method of laying out the circles was the same; a rope is pegged at the center of the ring and a circle drawn, then the same rope is used to measure a standard distance from points around the circumference of the first circle, to mark out the second outer circle..
But why use this ratio?
I suspect that it lies at the heart of Woodhenge and Silbury too, so it may be a standard ratio based on similar methods of construction and nothing else.
On the other hand, I'm keen on shadows, so if a shadow length was used to determine the length of the rope...I'd need to know the height of the central post.
Well, at the Sanctuary the central post hole could support a pole a maximum of 126 inches high..
So, call it 10 foot divided by shadow length (to outer ring of inner circle) of 30 foot, 6 inch. Gives a solar elevation angle of 18 degrees. The maximum elevation angle of the sun at the winter solstice is only 15 degrees, so the shadows are always going to be longer than the distance to the outer ring.
Shorten the post.
If I used the solar angle as the winter sun crosses the meridian, then that gives the post height as 8 foot.
15 degrees convert to tan = 0.267.
0.267 x distance between center of Sanctuary and outer of the inner rings.
0.267 x 366 inch (approximately!)So, if the people who laid out the 'new' Sanctuary (the people who put the stone rings in place) used a pole 8 foot long at the center of the Sanctuary, and taken the shadow length as the sun crossed the north-south line (when the shadow was at its shortest) this would give the 'right' length for the rope used to create the basic geometry.
= 98 inches (8 foot).
What if the Sanctuary was laid out at the summer solstice?
Using the 10 foot pole (!) The sun has an elevation angle of about 18 degrees just after 6 am at the summer solstice, and the azimuth at that time is about 75 degrees.
Using the 8 foot pole at 5: 45 am, the sun has an azimuth of around 70 degrees.
If shadow length was a determining factor for the ratio of the secondary Sanctuary (of standing stones), is seems to me that midday at the winter solstice would be easier to use.
This doesn't change the fact that the G posts correspond to midsummer sun rise and sun set shadow azimuths.
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