- The Avebury Mechanism
Work on this book is still underway as it is a subject that seems to grow enormously the more I discover. The above image is still a contender for the cover design although I might be tempted to use an image of an eclipse seen from inside Avebury Circle instead.
Moving North
Last year I moved permanently back to my roots and to semi hermit-like retreat in a clay-walled longhouse on Hadrian’s wall. This unique survival of a type of building more common in the dark ages is a suitable time-warp, I think, in which to continue the study of neolithic geometry. If course I still regularly visit Avebury and my much loved Wiltshire friends.
My time is now partly occupied by the maintenance of this ancient house, built by the northern and border families to whom both of my parents belong. It is the same kind of house as was originally built on the wall and on the forts by us northern tribes when the Romans were leaving Britain. Mostly these are just archaeological remains, like the clay-walled longhouse at the Roman fort at Housesteads, but this one is still here. It was rescued from dereliction by Richard Polley, who acquired the land in 1978 in order to save the house, whose thatched roof and clay walls were collapsing. Thanks to him, this is now my warm comfortable home, and Britain’s only surviving example, I believe, of a clay-walled, thatched, cruck-framed longhouse and barn. There are no draughts in a Cumbrian clay dabbin, the walls are very thick, and I had it rethatched last summer!
Winter is a good time for the study of neolithic geometry and for the last few winters, despite other activities, I have been able to make some progress with this book.
Progress with the Book
So far I have printed out 30 A2 sized proof pages with geometric drawings and explanatory text as an introduction to the neolithic geometry and how it is based on ratios between observable celestial cycles, and most of a chapter on eclipses at Avebury and eclipse cycles in the geometry (Yes there are eclipse cycles in the geometry at Avebury).
I still have another 120 pages of drawings to edit and print for the main section which is based on a circumnambulation of Avebury starting in the East, explaining line by line how its geometry works based on the lines of stones in Avebury’s outer circle, and showing all the maths, geometry and arithmetic for all the celestial cycles it reflects.
There is a chapter on the beginnings of this geometry as seen in the layout of the West Kennet Long Barrow. I expect to get further on with this during this winter and next.
Further Insights from Northern Stone Circles
In the meantime I have inevitably met people here who share my interest in stone circles and have begun to use the knowledge gained at Avebury to help analyse stone circles in Cumbria and in Scotland near the border.
This has thrown remakeable new light on the subject; a similar language of geometry is evident here and is helping me to clarify my understanding of the geometry of Avebury.
I am now able to compare stone circle geometry at 51,4° latitude to geometry at around 55° latitude, and at some point I will find it necessary to start visiting stone circles at 57° latitude, because this also seems to be a significant latitude in the type of spherical geometry all these neolithic layouts are made from.
The subject keeps growing but my hope remains to get a copy of my book to the British Museum before I die!
(updated 23/11/2019)
