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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Trethevy Quoit » A clean slate? (or should that be granite?) |
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
May 02, 2011, 15:50
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Resonox wrote: A lot is being made of the "hole"...one poster, in the other thread alluded to it being for the erection of a maypole(yes I know it was a tongue in cheek remark)...but it might not be that far off the mark....perhaps(and only perhaps) the hole was used as an aid to building....by inserting a sturdy lever-style piece of wood(this could explain what was described as a "squircle" too as this would give a good grip of a piece of timber) for aiding in raising the slab and moving it into and holding it in position until the wall structure was fully stabilised...has anyone considered a simplistic theory?? One of the theories put forward was that it was used to haul it up with ropes Resonox, but we just don't know do we. To me, as a pure guess, it was 'drilled'out afterwards as it is perpendicular to the slope of the Capstone. Of equal merit would be to say that ropes were tied to it then secured in the ground like a guy rope to prevent it slipping off. Let's face it, everybody who sees it can't believe that it actually stays there! We may never know now. Of interest is that it is 'drilled' at rather a thin place. Now whether it was always thin there or the lower 'layer' of granite fell away as it was punched through is open to further question but you can see quite clearly where it has fallen away from.
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Rhiannon 5291 posts |
May 02, 2011, 15:50
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Well that's my point, surely? That noon is an objective thing, when the sun's at its highest. And therefore, if you were going to carve a notch to indicate when it was, you'd think you'd carve it where the light indicates noon, not a small time before that.
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
May 02, 2011, 15:52
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Rhiannon wrote: Well that's my point, surely? That noon is an objective thing, when the sun's at its highest. And therefore, if you were going to carve a notch to indicate when it was, you'd think you'd carve it where the light indicates noon, not a small time before that. Touche'
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stonefree 68 posts |
May 02, 2011, 16:09
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Sanctuary wrote: Rhiannon wrote: The notch is nice. But it doesn't point to it at exactly midday, isn't that more what you'd expect if it was being used (being chipped out at great effort) for a deliberate marker, not at quarter to? At midday nothing particularly obvious seems to be happening. I would say 'well quarter to is near enough' but the patterns obviously change quite a bit between quarter to and noon? just an observation. Rhiannon, If the Closure Stone was upright instead of being over 21" out of kilter like it is, the 'reading' would have been entirely different. I find it very difficult to believe that this most important and centralising orthostat was originally set in so much out of upright. In fact I know it wasn't because it has moved since last year! Look aound the remaining structure carefully and see how it is out of shape. Look at just the photos shown to see how the Capstone is way off centre to the main orthostat now and lurches badly to the left. I'll post a photo of the rear of the structure shortly to show you what I mean. I'd just like to point out that there are various aspects of this particular structure which are in fierce contention at the moment Rhiannon. My colleague Dave Kane (horsedrawn) and I are becoming more and more convinced that it has hardly moved at all since it was erected. Whilst we appreciate the efforts of Mr. Sanctuary, we have no way of knowing if his measurements with a plumb bob have been accurate. If the rear stone 2 has moved half an inch in the last year, that would either suggest it has moved nearly a foot in the last couple of decades or that it has only just started moving recently after about 6 millenia! A close inspection of the amazingly small areas on which the capstone rests shows that there are no signs of any movement. The whole thing is perfectly in equilibrium and poised as gracefully as a giant bird alighting! The alignments and optical dynamics we have been discovering seem to indicate that the builders of this amazing structure were in possession of knowledge and capabilities far more profound than some are willing to credit them with. We hope to put that right.
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stonefree 68 posts |
May 02, 2011, 16:19
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Rhiannon wrote: Well that's my point, surely? That noon is an objective thing, when the sun's at its highest. And therefore, if you were going to carve a notch to indicate when it was, you'd think you'd carve it where the light indicates noon, not a small time before that. Forgive me Rhiannon, I obviously still haven't made it clear. The notch is in such a perfect position that when the sun is at it's highest point in the sky, the shadow of the capstone falls exactly on it... you have to forget the time as indicated by modern clocks. We had an expert mathematician calculate from charts at what time the sun would be at it's highest point in the sky at 4.2 degrees west of the Greenwich Meridian. He told us that would happen at 13.19 - and that's exactly what time it was when the shadow fell across the notch!
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stonefree 68 posts |
May 02, 2011, 16:47
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At this point I hope my colleague Dave Kane will step in and explain to you a very specific effect we have been experimenting with. I'm sure you've all been told that one must never stare at the Sun for too long because it will either damage your eyes or send you mad! Well, when you stand in the shadow of the capstone and look at the Sun through it, the effect is that the intense glare of the sky around it is almost completely removed, enabling one to look for longer periods, especially once your eyes have acclimatised. This then brings into play a phenomenon known as 'persistence of vision', whereby one can see a 'negative' image where the strong light has 'etched' an image onto the retina which persist for quite some time after. If you close your eyes just after doing this, you can effectively examine what you have been looking at with more detail than is possible otherwise. Interestingly, the shape of this aperture, when looked at with the Sun coming through it in the mid afternoon, is almost exactly like an eye! Whether this is exactly what was intended, we may never know. ;) p.s. Just to illustrate a point regarding the testing of our hypotheses (and that any of them being disproved is still an important lesson!), we initially theorised that perhaps the midday Sun at Summer Solstice would shine right down the aperture and move down stone 6. Well it doesn't, not by quite a bit. In fact the small beam of light doesn't come within a couple of feet of the nearest upright! So we learned a valuable lesson that day, but it's still quite possible that there could have been an area of white chalk all around the quoit with markings similar to a sundial?
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Resonox 604 posts |
May 02, 2011, 17:06
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stonefree wrote: We had an expert mathematician calculate from charts at what time the sun would be at it's highest point in the sky at 4.2 degrees west of the Greenwich Meridian. He told us that would happen at 13.19 - and that's exactly what time it was when the shadow fell across the notch! Can I ask...did the mathematician work this out prior to and separately from your timings and the two results compared afterwards or did he give you a time and you worked from this? Also did you film this event...I'd like to see footage of it...not for critique or analysis but just out of curiosity.
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Rhiannon 5291 posts |
Edited May 02, 2011, 18:53
May 02, 2011, 17:50
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Oh I see! sorry. I was looking at the wrong shadow. I was looking at the pointy one going across the stone. Because that points to it in the first photo. I didn't notice the line going across the notch itself in the second photo. So that's more convincing. It was your mention of the 'needle' that confused me. But what time of year was this? I know that noon is always the highest point the sun gets too. But it doesn't always get to the same angle from the ground does it, that depends on the time of year does it not?
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stonefree 68 posts |
May 02, 2011, 18:19
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Resonox wrote: stonefree wrote: We had an expert mathematician calculate from charts at what time the sun would be at it's highest point in the sky at 4.2 degrees west of the Greenwich Meridian. He told us that would happen at 13.19 - and that's exactly what time it was when the shadow fell across the notch! Can I ask...did the mathematician work this out prior to and separately from your timings and the two results compared afterwards or did he give you a time and you worked from this? Also did you film this event...I'd like to see footage of it...not for critique or analysis but just out of curiosity.He's eighty-odd years old and thinks we must be mad because the quoit is probably just a random old pile of rocks! lol I had previously taken photos and the time was recorded in the RAW file metadata. My colleague asked the old man to calculate when the Sun would be at it's zenith for 4.2 degrees west of the meridian but without knowing at what time I had photographed it. We later returned and took another sequence - Result shadow on notch at 13.19 - QED! We're planning on recording video footage in the near future (just waiting for broadcast quality cameras to be delivered!)
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stonefree 68 posts |
May 02, 2011, 18:23
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It seems as though the capstone edge is in exactly the right position and has just the right curvature to allow for different elevations of the Sun at different times of year. This is an ongoing investigation and we'll be keeping track of this and many other effects we've discovered!
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