Sanctuary
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 10:47
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nigelswift wrote: I've played around with home made sundials for years. I think if I wanted to mark midday (or any other time) in a really clear way I'd set up two very narrow, vertical gaps so that a pencil thin line of light would appear at the required time for just 2.5 minutes every day or (if you blocked part of them) at any desired time or day.
If the quoit is not a burial chamber (which appears to me to be the implication by others) then why would people all those years ago want to go to all that effort just to make what amounts to a clock anyway? Surely an exact model of it would have done the same job positioned in the same location with minimum effort, or am I being too simplistic here? Does size really matter?
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nigelswift
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 11:17
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"or am I being too simplistic here?"
Or not simplistic enough? A stick is a very good clock (and calendar).
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cerrig
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 15:40
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Hi stonefree, I wonder if you could tell me the date that the photograph of the midday shadow was taken. I am very interested in that part of your investigations.
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tiompan
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 16:28
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cerrig wrote: Hi stonefree, I wonder if you could tell me the date that the photograph of the midday shadow was taken. I am very interested in that part of your investigations.
I wasn't there Andrew but it is worth mentioning that around the summer solstice is when the solar noon is at 13:19 (as mentioned ) these days for that spot . Around the time of the probable build date it would have been earlier and two degrees lower .
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Horsedrawn
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 16:43
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Quite. These are the things I have been struggling with for a long time.
These shadow patterns occur every day and how they vary throughout the year is the subject of study, as well as how things have changed from say, 3500BC.
It is so refreshing to know other minds are now looking at this. Please ask me more questions.
David Kane.
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cerrig
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 16:46
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Hi David
Perhaps you can tell me when the photo was taken?
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Horsedrawn
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 16:56
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I really cannot say; we have taken thousands of pictures. It was either summer solstice 2010 or it might be in April this year. Not much help is it? One advantage of the digital SLR is it knows when it took the picture. I will find out and let you know. The photos posted only show part of the noon sequence.
David Kane.
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StoneGloves
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 17:02
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Don't mess with your eyes or your persistence of vision will be about ten minutes. Get some welding glasses and be strict about using them. Otherwise you are risking blindness both temporary and permanent.
You may be imputing greater skills than the makers possessed. Perhaps the intention of the aperture was simply to illuminate an object inside the vault on a certain day, or range of days. This might have been a carved stone or wooden object. For instance. Similar effects were generated at places such as Maes Howe. A sundial/calendrical calculator would have been more easily constructed in tree and the Quoit will probably have had a more ceremonial/magical function. Perhaps it was where a great leader contemplated a special sunrise or something similar.
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cerrig
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 17:21
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I was just wondering about whether you had taken into consideration the Equation of time, given that these are solar timings you are investigating. I don't think that there is more than a minute ot two difference on the dates you quoted, but that's now. Would this have been the case thousands of years ago, and would it make any difference?
I would be very interested to know more about this, as it's relevant to some sites that I am looking at.
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Horsedrawn
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Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?)
May 03, 2011, 18:07
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The short answer is yes. The rising sun lights the underside of Stone 8 (the capstone) through two apertures towards the East. One is bigger than the other, and I suspect this is due to an understanding of the Equation of Time. This subject is under study. The differences between the extremes; midwinter and midsummer, that is, how the 'daggers' of light play upon the capstone's underside, and other places, suggest strongly that the principles of the Equation of Time were understood and taken into account. I emphasise here that none of this is conclusive, but I would add that such things were understood well at the same time in Mesopotamia, so why not here?
David Kane.
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