(Photo by Simon Ledingham, May 2005)
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2020 20:35
To: Euan.MacKieFrom: Thomas Yaeger
Subject: The Mathematical Origins of the Megalithic Yard
Euan,
Hi. You might be interested in looking at this article, 'The Mathematical Origins of the Megalithic Yard' http://shrineinthesea.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-mathematical-origins-of-megalithic.html
Which I think may be the definitive answer to a number of questions about the construction and purpose of megalithic circles. Obviously this article is subject to criticism, which is fine, and I would be grateful for any comments you may care to make.
I got to this point over seven years of rumination, and several articles on the Neolithic and patterns of thought in the Neolithic, in so far as they might be inferred from both the archaeological remains, and what ancient writers said about Britain before the Romans arrived.
I was given a classical education at school in Edinburgh (minus Greek literature), and a wider education at UCL later, where I studied Rome, Greece, and the Greek language. As well as Mesopotamia, Egypt and other cultures. My particular interest has always been Greek philosophy. Eventually I found my way back to an interest in British prehistory. I was struck by some of the things which Alexander Thom found through a phenomenological analysis, about the mindset of the Neolithic architects, because they echoed ideas which are commonplace in later Greek philosophy (the importance of the idea that reality itself is necessarily unchanging, meaning the idea of the 'One'; and of Totality, and the importance of commensurate values, and the significance of the fact that commensurate values are sometimes lacking in the physical world, etc.). I've written extensively about the Pythagoreanism of the 1st millennium BCE. Much of which came from the ANE, during Pythagoras's travels. Mainly, but not exclusively from Egypt. It is a technical substrate of Egyptian religion, which Pythagoras imported into his view of the world, after (reputedly, according to the neoplatonists) twenty years of study in Egypt. Meaning that the pythagorean perspective is older than Pythagoras himself, and possibly of immense age.
What we have in the stone circles of the British Isles, is just such a technical substrate of ancient religion, written in mathematics and geometry. Personally, I think most religions got started this way, though we are a long way off from being able to say this for sure. It is not however an argument that is considered at all at the moment in archaeological circles. I think it should be considered, even if only to finally eliminate it for rational consideration.
[Other materials relevant to this article can be found by using the search box on my blog ["neolithic" will pick most of them up].
Best wishes, Thomas
Hi. You might be interested in looking at this article, 'The Mathematical Origins of the Megalithic Yard' http://shrineinthesea.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-mathematical-origins-of-megalithic.html
Which I think may be the definitive answer to a number of questions about the construction and purpose of megalithic circles. Obviously this article is subject to criticism, which is fine, and I would be grateful for any comments you may care to make.
I got to this point over seven years of rumination, and several articles on the Neolithic and patterns of thought in the Neolithic, in so far as they might be inferred from both the archaeological remains, and what ancient writers said about Britain before the Romans arrived.
I was given a classical education at school in Edinburgh (minus Greek literature), and a wider education at UCL later, where I studied Rome, Greece, and the Greek language. As well as Mesopotamia, Egypt and other cultures. My particular interest has always been Greek philosophy. Eventually I found my way back to an interest in British prehistory. I was struck by some of the things which Alexander Thom found through a phenomenological analysis, about the mindset of the Neolithic architects, because they echoed ideas which are commonplace in later Greek philosophy (the importance of the idea that reality itself is necessarily unchanging, meaning the idea of the 'One'; and of Totality, and the importance of commensurate values, and the significance of the fact that commensurate values are sometimes lacking in the physical world, etc.). I've written extensively about the Pythagoreanism of the 1st millennium BCE. Much of which came from the ANE, during Pythagoras's travels. Mainly, but not exclusively from Egypt. It is a technical substrate of Egyptian religion, which Pythagoras imported into his view of the world, after (reputedly, according to the neoplatonists) twenty years of study in Egypt. Meaning that the pythagorean perspective is older than Pythagoras himself, and possibly of immense age.
What we have in the stone circles of the British Isles, is just such a technical substrate of ancient religion, written in mathematics and geometry. Personally, I think most religions got started this way, though we are a long way off from being able to say this for sure. It is not however an argument that is considered at all at the moment in archaeological circles. I think it should be considered, even if only to finally eliminate it for rational consideration.
[Other materials relevant to this article can be found by using the search box on my blog ["neolithic" will pick most of them up].
Best wishes, Thomas
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