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Dear All, Aug 17, 2014
The August issue of National Geographic has an article that features the
stone rings and other old (~5000 yrs.) structures of the Orkney Islands.
From this article & Wikipedia; the circular Ring of Brodgar; spaced for 60
stones of which 27 remain and the slightly nearly circular but elliptic (so
they say) ring of the Stones of Stenness; spaced for 12 megaliths with
perhaps 1 or 2 never erected.
Is it now so widely recognized that such structures served as
observatories (an analog calendar and crude sundial) that it is too obvious
to mention ? Alignment to the winter solstice at sunset (which would also
fit the summer solstice at sunrise I think) is mentioned but surely these
could have been used to keep track of time throughout the year.
Even short stones would cast a long shadow at sunrise and sunset and the
changes in direction with time would be consistent from year to year. A
circular structure with 12 stones is a snap to lay out if you have enough
rawhide and this natural and practicable number likely accounts for our 12
signs of the zodiac, 12 months of the year and 24 hours in the day. But a
ring with 60 markers is slightly more tricky to lay out, using Neolithic
hardware, then say a ring of 48 or 96. The number 60 has the advantage of
being divisible by 2,3,4,5&6 so the designer of this ring was just a step
away from a 360o circle; dividing a circle into 60 or 360 parts is
essentially the same problem and both have similar advantages if fractions
are difficult to deal with.
Yt, Dave Wwbster, Kentville
Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
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