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As
John Michell (above right) said of
the diminishing Cornish megaliths, a use for modern
archeology students would be to take up the job of mapping
the stones before they are all gone. For unless these
markers are surveyed and recorded on the county maps,
they are vulnerable to demolition along with the boundary
walls that often incorporate them.
This
was also evident in Nicholas Mann's
research around the landscape of Glastonbury. He showed
with utter conviction that Windmill Hill and the Tor
create a perfect winter solstice sunrise alignment,
suggesting the larger landscape was also under the spell
of the megalithic peoples. On the film it was seen how
the sun appears to roll up the edge of the Tor and even
sit on St. Michaels church at the peak of the hill.
Many stones that have been found on ancient maps, especially
around Windmill Hill, suggest the megalithic significance
of the area.
Andy
Worthington, who discussed 'The Pagan Reinvention
of Stonehenge', set the stage in a post-modern context,
describing the current effects of 'Megalithomania' on
those who have become so obsessed with these particular
stones as to create modern religions around them. Druids,
neo-pagans, witches and hippies have graced Stonehenge
for the last 50 years, with a persistent enthusiasm
and a passion that does not look like waning..
The
minds of the megalithic builders were probed by Robin
Heath, John Neal and John
Martineau, as the subjects of advanced mathematics,
geometry and ancient measure came forth. Heath, who
has unlocked the deeper mysteries of Stonehenge, gave
a beautiful biography of the father of archaeo-astronomy,
Alexander Thom, a brilliant academic who held the chair
of Engineering Science in the University of Oxford from
1945 until 1961. Thom also discovered the bane of many
archaeologists, the megalithic yard; proof that the
ancients were not guessing the size of stone circles,
but accurately measuring and aligning sites and creating
geometry.
John
Neal, who was giving his first public presentation,
has refined the story of ancient metrology and has become
probably the number one authority on ancient measure
in the world. Frustrated by the lack of coherence from
traditional archaeologists and researchers, he has come
up with a comprehensive view on the different measurements
from across the planet stretching back to neolithic
times.
When
in Glastonbury, ley lines and earth energies often arise
in speculative conversation, so Paul Weston
gave us his 'magikal' view of the journey he took across
the most famous ley of all, the St. Michael line. Hugh
Newman opened this up further suggesting that
the intricate energies of the corresponding Michael
& Mary lines that weave around the conferences venue,
are part of a global network of great earth circles
and even geometrical grids that correspond to the Platonic
solids. These classical Polyhedra seem to go back much
further than Plato, due to the discoveries of the beautifully
geometrically carved 'stone balls' dug up around northern
England and Scotland that pre-date Plato by at least
two thousand years. The first person to question the
idea that these stone balls were not 'hunting projectiles',
but rather a tool for understanding spherical geometry
was Keith Critchlow, the keynote speaker
at the 2007 conference. |
