Heath Brothers
The Meaning of Le Menec
The latest paper of research by the Heath Brothers on the megalithic sites of Carnac, in the Brittany region of France, is now published here.
This paper proposes that an unfamiliar type of circumpolar astronomy was practiced by the time Le Menec was built, around 4000 BCE. This observatory enabled the rotation of the earth and ecliptic location of eastern and western horizons to be known in real time, by observing stellar motion by night and solar motion by day. This method avoided stellar extinction angles by measuring the circular motion of a circumpolar marker star as a range in azimuth, which could then be equated with the diameter of a suitably calibrated observatory circle. The advent of day-inch counting and simple geometrical calculators, already found at Le Manio’s Quadrilateral, enabled the articulation of large time periods within Carnac’s megalithic monuments, the Western Alignments being revealed to be a study of moonrises during half of the moon’s nodal period. Le Menec’s Type 1 egg is found to be a time-factored model of the moon’s orbit relative to the earth’s rotation. This interpretation of Le Menec finds that key stones have survived and that the gaps seen in the cromlech’s walls were an essential part of its symbolic language, guiding contemporary visitors as to how its purpose was to be interpreted within the pre-literate megalithic culture.
Two key lengths are found at Le Manio and Le Menec: The first, of 4 eclipse years is a day-inch count of the Octon eclipse cycle; the second is a four solar year count that, with the first, forms a triangle, marked clearly by stones at Le Menec. The principles worked out at Le Manio appear fully developed in Le Menec’s western cromlech, including the use of an 8 eclipse year day-inch count, consequently forming a diameter of 3400 megalithic inches which equals in number the days in half a nodal period. The scaling of the Western Alignments is found to be 17 days per metre, a scaling naturally produced by the diagonal of a triple square geometrical construction. A single sloping length on the top of the central stone initiating row 9, indicates a single lunar orbit at 17 days per metre, a length of 1.607 metres. This control of time counting within geometrical structures reveals that almost all of Le Menec’s western cromlech and alignments express a necessary form, so as to represent a megalithic study of (a) circumpolar time as having 365 time units, (b) the moon’s orbit as having 82 times 122 of those units and (c) the variations of successive moonrises over most of a lunar nodal period of 18.6 solar years.
read full report here.
Megalithic Astronomical Simulation at Le Manio
Our survey at Le Manio revealed a coherent arc of radial stones, at least five of which were equally long, equally separated and set to a radius of curvature that suggested a common centre. They can be found set into the public walkway at Le Manio, Carnac, Brittany, between the southern kerb of the Quadrilateral and the recent dry stone wall that defines the pathway. This southern kerb has been shown[1] to incorporate a day-inch count for three solar years to its extreme eastern tip [from Point P to Q’ on our plan]. These stones were found to have a centre of curvature at stone 29 of the southern kerb and the arc they suggest would represent, if complete, a circle of 82 similar stones 17 inches apart whilst the radius of curvature was determined to be 221 inches or 13 times 17 inches. This provides a reasonable approximation to 2 times Pi as a ratio 82/13.
The angle of the southern kerb was measured in our survey as being 22.3 degrees north of east, the acute angle in comparison to an east-west line creating the geometry of a right-angled triangle whose two longer sides form the ratio 12.368 to 13.368, an invariant triangle based upon the frequencies of lunar synodic months to lunar sidereal orbits occurring in a solar year. The known day-inch count for three lunar years on the southern kerb is 88.59 feet long which becomes the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle whose baseline runs east-west and is of length 82 feet. This reveals 82 beneath the fragment of an 82 stone ring as being the length of 36 lunar sidereal orbits in day inches versus the 36 month day-inch count above.
It appears therefore that the astronomers at Le Manio understood that following three lunar sidereal orbits, after 82 days, the moon would appear again at the same point on the ecliptic at the same time of day[2], a very important observational fact and one that would have enabled them to build circular 82-stone circles representing the ecliptic in which a moon marker could be moved by three stones a day, completing an orbit in 27.333 days and returning to the original ‘start’ stone after 82 days had elapsed.
The Origins of Megalithic Astronomy at Le Manio
Chapter 2 of Precessional Time and the Evolution of Consciousness by Richard Heath has three sections similar to this paper, prepared after our Survey in 2010 Spring Solstice at Le Manio. The survey is published here as an Appendix whilst the main body differs in interesting ways from the book. The book offers further insights into what was emerging through the megalithic, that affects us today.
This paper presents the theory that in the Megalithic period, around 4500-4000 BCE, astronomical time periods were counted as one day to one inch to form primitive metrological lengths that could then be compared, to reveal the fundamental ratios between the solar year, lunar year, and lunar month and hence define a solar-lunar calendar. The means for comparison used was to place lengths as the longer sides of right angled triangles, leading to a unique slope angle. Our March 2010 survey of Le Manio (included) supports this theory.
Robin and Richard Heath at Le Manio during the week of our Survey
Following the discovery of such a triangle at Le Manio near Carnac, Brittany, the authors conducted a theodolite survey to accurately establish that both three and four solar year counts had been made in day-inches along the azimuth associated with the midsummer sunrise at that latitude, an angle itself generated between the longer sides of a 3:4:5 triangle (the simplest Pythagorean triangle).
The Crucuno Rectangle exemplifies the fact that, at the latitude of Carnac in Brittany,
the solstice sun, in midsummer and midwinter, shines along the 5 side of a 3-4-5 triangle
with 4-side aligned east-west.
The difference in day-inches between three solar years and three lunar years was confirmed as being a megalithic yard of 32.7 inches within the monument, showing that the megalithic yard emerges naturally from day-inch counting the sun and moon over three years.
The basic truth about the Le Manio Monument is that through counting
solar and lunar years in day-inches, over a three year period,
the megalithic yard used around Carnac was naturally "manufactured".
The invariant proportion of this soli-lunar triangle can be seen at Le Manio as that formed by the diagonal between four squares of equal side length and this generates a natural reading of metres since the modern metre is 4/3 the day-inch count for a lunar month.
The monument reveals a 3 to 4 year relationship that involves the supposedly modern
unit of length, the Metre, as being 4/3 of the day-inch count for one lunar month
Finally, the angle of the Quadrilateral is revealed as adapted to the right angle of the three year triangle towards the East of its southern kerb.
The angle of the monument can be reproduced by extending the southern kerb and forming
a triangle to the east that relates the lunar month to the lunar orbit,
in interesting metrological ways
It can be inferred that later metrology was derived from such a starting point since the inch and an “English” foot of twelve inches are commensurate with the metrological units of the historical period.