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What was the motivation behind the development of Stonehenge over
1500 years? Was it a ceremonial site dedicated to the ancestors...a
currently fashionable view? Was it a communal necropolis? An
exercise in sophisticated geometry? A calendar for tracking the
seasons and longer celestial cycles? A calculator for predicting
eclipses? Perhaps at various times it was all these things? Now
Professor Gregg has gone back to reassess the design of the site
and discovered many startling and unexpected patterns. The same
triangle and polygon geometry was used to scale monument features
over the full 1500 year history. Feature dimensions and proportions
reflect key cycles of the Sun and Moon as do stone counts. As a
control the professor analyses the gear trains of the 2nd century
BC, Antikythera astronomical computer, and finds the same, often
prime numbers in play. Where the Antikythera device used rotating
gears for its calculations, Stonehenge used fixed stones and
rotating 'priests'. Remarkably the same numbers turn up in Greek
and Egyptian numerical myths and Eurpean folk memories speak of
dancing stones (or priests) and taboos on ordinary mortals counting
or moving stones at megalithic sites. It also turns out that the
geometry used and the astronomical cycles modelled have close
connections to pi and phi, the Golden Section, in remarkable ways.
Could it be that the designers of Stonehenge recognised these
strange coincidences between earthly geometry, the great irrational
numbers like phi and key celestial cycles? As above so below. Did
these strange coincidences inspire the buildres to record them in
stone and perhaps to worship, ceremonial and ritual there? Did they
feel the gods were speaking to them? The professor also examines
the case for the infamous 'megalithic yard' and finds much
convincing new evidence for its existence including its close and
simple scaling relationships of several established ancient
metrics. These close relationships hinder the identification of
which units were used at sites like Stonehenge. Underlying all
these metrics the professor sees a possible origin in geodetic
scaling. Remarkably at Stonehenge and many other ancient sites
feature dimensions often are in simple fractions of seconds of arc.
This occours at levels hard to attribute to chance. He concludes
reluctantly, that at some early date, before the unification of
Egypt, one or more cultures accuratley measured the size of the
Earth. This geodetic measure was then used to calibrate primitive
metrics based on human proportions...probably through early trade
links. The professor concludes from all this material that our
models of intellectual and scientific development are wrong and
that we have greatly underestimated what can be done with simple
technology as the astronomical knowledge of the Greeks, Babylonians
and the Maya show us. Just how much have we forgotten?
Physicists tell us that the multiverse is a ramshackle creation at
best and that in places the fabric of reality is worn thin. The
Green Man Inn on the Wirral peninsula is such a place and when gas
fracking begins the Old Powers beneath the local Dragon Paths awake
from their long sleep. The final straw comes when Professor Lennox
encourages the tenant to re-erect the giant megalith, Odin's
Pillar, as a tourist attraction. All hell is let loose. The Society
for Unexplained Phenomena find themselves living in interesting
times. Every strange traveller captured by the Dragon Nexus seems
compelled to tell their story: mad scientists, ghosts, the Wicca
Woman, aliens of a sort, time travellers, visiting
crypto-zoologists, a gaggle of ancient gods, monsters from
'Between' and of course Reg, Death's Taxi Diver. These stories of
weird science and the supernatural are in the tradition of Arthur C
Clarke's 'Tales from the White Hart' and the ghost stories of M R
James ...with a little 'Terry Pratchett' thrown in.
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Alligator
August Hoeft
Hardcover
R662
Discovery Miles 6 620
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