Misplaced Pages

Megalithic yard: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 05:49, 23 April 2011 editDoug Weller (talk | contribs)Edit filter managers, Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Oversighters, Administrators263,806 edits Reverted to revision 425440416 by Paul Bedson; no, this is the lead, which summaries the article, so for NPOV purposes it should be here. using TW← Previous edit Latest revision as of 01:10, 9 May 2024 edit undoCitation bot (talk | contribs)Bots5,406,541 edits Altered url. URLs might have been anonymized. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Abductive | Category:Articles with disputed statements from April 2024 | #UCB_Category 88/135 
(134 intermediate revisions by 63 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{short description|Hypothetical ancient unit of measurement}}
⚫ A '''Megalithic Yard''' is a unit of measurement, about {{convert|2.72|ft|m}},<ref name="Information1964">{{cite book|author=Alexander Thom|title=New Scientist|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=c2iCzjpnd4EC&pg=PA690|accessdate=19 April 2011|date=12 March 1964|publisher=Reed Business Information|pages=690–|id={{ISSN|02624079}}}}</ref><ref name="Kipfer2000">{{cite book|author=Barbara Ann Kipfer|title=Encyclopedic dictionary of archaeology|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=XneTstDbcC0C&pg=PA344|accessdate=23 April 2011|year=2000|publisher=Springer|isbn=9780306461583|pages=344–}}</ref> that some researchers believe was used in the construction of ] structures. The proposal was made by ] as a result of his surveys of 600 megalithic sites in ], ], ] and ].<ref name="Thom1995">{{cite book|author=Archibald Stevenson Thom|title=Walking in all of the squares: a biography of Alexander Thom : engineer, archaeoastronomer, discoverer of a prehistoric calendar, the geometry of stone rings and megalithic measurement|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=o0HbAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=19 April 2011|year=1995|publisher=Argyll Pub.|isbn=9781874640660}}</ref> It was initially regarded as a fringe claim that was ignored and appeared unbelievable to traditional archaeologists.<ref name="KendallHodson1974">{{cite book|author1=David George Kendall|author2=F. R. Hodson|author3=Royal Society (Great Britain)|coauthors=British Academy|title=The Place of astronomy in the ancient world: a joint symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=FHLvAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=19 April 2011|year=1974|publisher=Oxford University Press for the British Academy}}</ref> ] reviewed Thom's work and observed arrangements of ] in full integers or exact halves of the megalithic yard<ref name="Renfrew1973">{{cite book|author=Colin Renfrew|title=Before civilization: the radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe, p. 237|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=tfGAAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=23 April 2011|year=1973|publisher=Cape}}</ref> while ] suggests that the evidence "is at best marginal" and that Thom's evidence can be explained in other ways, for instance the average length of a pace.
⚫ {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
⚫ The '''megalithic yard''' is a ] ancient ] equal to about {{convert|2.72|ft|m}}.<ref>Thom, Alexander. The megalithic unit of length, ], A 125, 243–251, 1962.</ref><ref name="Information1964">{{cite book|author=Alexander Thom|title=New Scientist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c2iCzjpnd4EC&pg=PA690|year=1964|publisher=Reed Business Information|pages=690–|issn=0262-4079}}</ref><ref name="Kipfer2000">{{cite book|author=Barbara Ann Kipfer|title=Encyclopedic dictionary of archaeology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XneTstDbcC0C&pg=PA344|year=2000|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-0-306-46158-3|page=344}}</ref> Some researchers believe it was used in the construction of ] structures. The proposal was made by ] as a result of his surveys of 600 megalithic sites in ], ], ] and ].<ref name="Thom1995">{{cite book|author=Archibald Stevenson Thom|title=Walking in all of the squares: a biography of Alexander Thom : engineer, archaeoastronomer, discoverer of a prehistoric calendar, the geometry of stone rings and megalithic measurement|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o0HbAAAAMAAJ|year=1995|publisher=Argyll Pub.|isbn=978-1-874640-66-0}}</ref> Thom also proposed the '''megalithic rod''' of 2.5 megalithic yards, or on average across sites 6.77625 feet.<ref>Thom, Alexander., The larger units of length of megalithic man, Journal for the Royal Statistical Society, A 127, 527-533, 1964.</ref> As subunits of these, he further proposed the '''megalithic inch''' of {{convert|2.073|cm|in}}, one hundred of which are included in a megalithic rod, and forty of which composed a megalithic yard. Thom applied the statistical ''lumped variance test'' of J.R. Broadbent<ref>Broadbent S.R., Quantum hypothesis, Biometrika, 42, 45–57 (1955)</ref> on this quantum and found the results significant,<ref name="KelleyMilone2011">{{cite book|author1=David H. Kelley|author2=Eugene F. Milone|author3=Anthony F. (FRW) Aveni|title=Exploring Ancient Skies: A Survey of Ancient and Cultural Astronomy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ILBuYcGASxcC&pg=PA163|year=2011|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4419-7623-9|page=163}}</ref> while others have challenged his statistical analysis and suggested that Thom's evidence can be explained in other ways, for instance that the supposed megalithic yard is in fact the average length of a ].


==Other units==
Archaeologist Euan Mackie noticed similarities between the MY and a unit of measurement extrapolated from a long, marked shell from ] and ancient measuring rods used in mining in the ] ].<ref name="MacKie1977">{{cite book|author=Euan Wallace MacKie|title=The megalith builders, p. 192|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=7gOBAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=22 April 2011|year=1977|publisher=Phaidon}}</ref> Along with Martin Doutré and Kim Williams he also noted similarities with other measurements such as the ancient Indian ''Gaz'' and the Iberian ''Vara''.<ref name="Doutré1999">{{cite book|author=Martin Doutré|title=Ancient Celtic New Zealand, p. 189|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=6XdzAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=23 April 2011|year=1999|publisher=Dé Danann Publishers|isbn=9780473053673}}</ref><ref name="Williams1996">{{cite book|author=Kim Williams|title=Nexus: architecture and mathematics, p. 108|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=nQpQAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=23 April 2011|year=1996|publisher=Edizioni dell'Erba|isbn=9788886888042}}</ref> Jay Kappraff has noted similarity between the Megalithic Yard and the ancient ] ''short yard'' and the ] ''Shusi'', both of {{convert|33|in|m}}.<ref name="Kappraff2002">{{cite book|author=Jay Kappraff|title=Beyond measure: a guided tour through nature, myth, and number|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=vAfBrK678_kC&pg=PA237|accessdate=22 April 2011|year=2002|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=9789810247027|pages=237–}}</ref> E. Fernie also reported that a larger measure proposed by Thom, the '''Megalithic Rod''' of 2.5 Megalithic Yards is equal to the ''] fathom'' of ({{convert|2.072|m|ft}}) from studies of the ] in the ], ].<ref name="Kappraff2002"/> It has also been suggested that it is the diagonal of a rectangle measuring 2 by 1 ]s.<ref name="Michell1978">{{cite book|author=John Michell|title=City of Revelation: On the Proportion and Symbolic Numbers of the Cosmic Temple|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=MHfubwAACAAJ|accessdate=22 April 2011|year=1978|publisher=Abacus|isbn=9780349123219}}</ref> Thom also discovered that the Megalithic Rod could be divided into one hundred and the Meglithic Yard divided into forty, both of which he called the '''Megalithic Inch''' of {{convert|2.073|cm|in}}. Thom applied the the statistical ''lumped variance test'' of J.R. Broadbent<ref>Broadbent S.R., Quantum hypothesis, Biometrika, 42, 45-57 (1955)</ref> on this quantum and found the results significant.<ref name="KelleyMilone2011">{{cite book|author1=David H. Kelley|author2=Eugene F. Milone|author3=Anthony F. (FRW) Aveni|title=Exploring Ancient Skies: A Survey of Ancient and Cultural Astronomy|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ILBuYcGASxcC&pg=PA163|accessdate=22 April 2011|date=28 February 2011|publisher=Springer|isbn=9781441976239|pages=163–}}</ref>
⚫ Thom suggested that "There must have been a headquarters from which standard rods were sent out but whether this was in these islands or on the Continent the present investigation cannot determine."<ref name="Thom1976">{{cite book|author=A. Thom|title=Megalithic sites in Britain, p. 43|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6p-DwEACAAJ|year=1976|publisher=Clarendon}}</ref>


Margaret Ponting has suggested that artefacts such as a marked bone found during excavations at ] near ], the ] from ] and ] from ] in ] have shown some evidence of being ]s based on the megalithic yard in ].<ref name="Ruggles2003">{{cite book|author=Margaret Ponting|chapter=Megalithic Callanish|editor=Clive Ruggles|title=Records in Stone: Papers in Memory of Alexander Thom|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oZ3JGYd1kJoC&pg=PA431|year=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-53130-6|pages=423–441}}</ref> An ] rod from the ] fortified settlement at ] measured {{convert|53.15|in|cm}} with marks dividing it up into eight parts of {{convert|6.64|in|cm}}. Euan Mackie referred to five-eighths of this rod {{convert|33.2|in|cm}} as "''very close to a megalithic yard''".<ref name="North1996">{{cite book|author=John David North|title=Stonehenge: Neolithic man and the cosmos, p. 302|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TnFnAAAAMAAJ|year=1996|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-00-255773-3}}</ref> A ] measuring rod recovered from a ] burial mound in Borum Eshøj, East Jutland by P. V. Glob in 1875 measured {{convert|30.9|in|cm}}. Keith Critchlow suggested this may have shrunk {{convert|0.63|in|cm}} from its original length of one megalithic yard over a period of 3000 years.<ref name="Critchlow1979">{{cite book|author=Keith Critchlow|title=Time stands still: new light on megalithic science, p. 37|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jK3aAAAAMAAJ|year=1979|publisher=Gordon Fraser|isbn=9780860920397}}</ref>
⚫ Clive Ruggles has said that both classical and Bayesian statistical reassessments of Thom's date "reached the conclusion that the evidence in favour of the MY was at best marginal, and that even if it does exist the uncertainty in our knowledge of its value is of the order of centimetres, far greater than the 1mm precision claimed by Thom. In other words, the evidence presented by Thom could be
⚫ adequately explained by, say, monuments being set out by pacing, with the 'unit' reflecting an average length of pace."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ruggles|first=Clive|title=Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland|year=1999|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300078145|page=83}}</ref> Kendall had previously argued that pacing would have created a greater difference in measurements between sites.<ref name="KendallHodson1974">{{cite book|author1=David George Kendall|author2=F. R. Hodson|author3=Royal Society (Great Britain)|coauthors=British Academy|title=The Place of astronomy in the ancient world: a joint symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy, Hunting Quanta, p. 258|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=FHLvAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=22 April 2011|year=1974|publisher=Oxford University Press for the British Academy}}</ref><ref name="KelleyMilone2011"/>


Thom made a comparison of his megalithic yard with the Spanish ], the pre-metric measurement of Iberia, whose length was {{convert|2.7425|ft|m}}. Archaeologist ] noticed similarities between the megalithic yard and a unit of measurement extrapolated from a long, marked shell from ] and ancient measuring rods used in mining in the ]n ].<ref name="MacKie1977">{{cite book|author=Euan Wallace MacKie|title=The megalith builders, p. 192|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7gOBAAAAMAAJ|year=1977|publisher=Phaidon|isbn=9780714817194}}</ref> He suggested similarities with other measurements such as the ancient ] and the ].<ref name="MacKie1977"/> Along with ], Mackie also noted that it is the diagonal of a rectangle measuring 2 by 1 ]s.<ref name="Michell1978">{{cite book|author=John Michell|title=City of Revelation: On the Proportion and Symbolic Numbers of the Cosmic Temple|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MHfubwAACAAJ|year=1978|publisher=Abacus|isbn=978-0-349-12321-9}}</ref><ref name="MacKie1977a">{{cite book|author=Euan Wallace MacKie|title=Science and society in prehistoric Britain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o3O-QgAACAAJ|year=1977|publisher=St. Martin's Press|isbn=978-0-312-70245-8}}</ref> {{Verify source|date=April 2011}} ] has noted similarity between the megalithic yard and the ancient ] ''short yard'' of {{convert|33|in|m}}.<ref name="Kappraff2002">{{cite book|author=Jay Kappraff|title=Beyond measure: a guided tour through nature, myth, and number|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vAfBrK678_kC&pg=PA237|year=2002|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=978-981-02-4702-7|page=237}}</ref> ]<ref name="MacaulayBatchelor2006">{{cite book|author1=Anne Macaulay|author2=Richard A. Batchelor|title=Megalithic measures and rhythms: sacred knowledge of the ancient Britons, p. 38 (megalithic yardsticks)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QqkVAgAACAAJ|date=July 2006|publisher=Floris|isbn=978-0-86315-554-3}}</ref> reported that the megalithic rod is equal in length to the ''] fathom'' of ({{convert|2.072|m|ft}})<ref name="Kappraff2002"/> from studies by Eric Fernie of the ] in the ], Oxford.<ref name="London1981">{{cite book|author=Society of Antiquaries of London|title=The Antiquaries journal: being the journal of the Society of Antiquaries of London, The Greek Metrological Relief in Oxford by Eric J. Fernie, p. 255|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JAgpAAAAYAAJ|year=1981|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref>
⚫ Douglas Heggie casts doubt on this as well, stating that his careful analysis uncovered "little evidence for a highly accurate unit" and "little justification for the claim that a highly accurate unit was in use".<ref>{{cite book|last=Heggie|first=Douglas C.|title=Megalithic Science: Ancient Mathematics and Astronomy in North-west Europe|year=1981|publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=0-50005036-8|page=58}}</ref>
Margaret Ponting has suggested that artefacts such as the ] found in ], ] from ] and ] from ] in ] have shown some evidence of being ]s based on the Megalithic Yard in ].<ref name="Ruggles2003">{{cite book|author=Margaret Ponting|chapter=Megalithic Callanish|editor=Clive Ruggles|title=Records in Stone: Papers in Memory of Alexander Thom|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=oZ3JGYd1kJoC&pg=PA431|accessdate=22 April 2011|date=13 February 2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521531306|pages=423-441}}</ref>


==Reception==
⚫ Thom suggested that "There must have been a headquarters from which standard rods were sent out but whether this was in these islands or on the Continent the present investigation cannot determine."<ref name="Thom1976">{{cite book|author=A. Thom|title=Megalithic sites in Britain, p. 43|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Y6p-DwEACAAJ|accessdate=6 April 2011|year=1976|publisher=Clarendon}}</ref>
Thom's proposals were initially ignored or regarded as unbelievable by mainstream archaeologists.<ref name="KendallHodson1974a">{{cite book|author1=David George Kendall|author2=F. R. Hodson|author3=Royal Society (Great Britain)|author4=British Academy|title=The Place of astronomy in the ancient world: a joint symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FHLvAAAAMAAJ|year=1974|publisher=Oxford University Press for the British Academy|isbn=978-0-19-725944-3}}</ref>

⚫ Clive Ruggles, citing astronomer Douglas C. Heggie, has said that both classical and Bayesian statistical reassessments of Thom's data "reached the conclusion that the evidence in favour of the megalithic yard was at best marginal, and that even if it does exist the uncertainty in our knowledge of its value is of the order of centimetres, far greater than the 1mm precision claimed by Thom. In other words, the evidence presented by Thom could be
⚫ adequately explained by, say, monuments being set out by pacing, with the 'unit' reflecting an average length of pace."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ruggles|first=Clive|title=Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland|year=1999|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-07814-5|page=83}}</ref> ] makes the same argument,<ref name="KelleyMilone2011"/> and says that pacing would have created a greater difference in measurements between sites, and that a statistical analysis of sites would reveal whether they were measured by pacing or not. In an investigation for the ] Kendall concluded that there was evidence of a uniform unit in Scottish circles but not in English circles, and that further research was needed.<ref name="KendallHodson1974b">{{cite book|author1=David George Kendall|author2=F. R. Hodson|author3=Royal Society (Great Britain)|author4=British Academy|title=The Place of astronomy in the ancient world: a joint symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy, Hunting Quanta, p. 249 & 258|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FHLvAAAAMAAJ|year=1974|publisher=Oxford University Press for the British Academy|isbn=978-0-19-725944-3}}</ref><ref>{{citation |title= Hunting quanta |author= Kendall, D. G. |year= 1974 |journal= Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences |volume= 276 |issue= 276 |pages= 231–266 |jstor=74285 }}</ref> Statistician P. R. Freeman reached similar conclusions and found that two other units fit the data as well as the yard.<ref>{{citation |title= A Bayesian Analysis of the Megalithic Yard |journal= Journal of the Royal Statistical Society |volume= 139 |issue= 1 |pages= 20–55 |year= 1976 |jstor= 2344382 |last1= Freeman |first1= P. R. |doi= 10.2307/2344382 }}</ref>

⚫ Douglas Heggie casts doubt on Thom's suggestion as well, stating that his careful analysis uncovered "little evidence for a highly accurate unit" and "little justification for the claim that a highly accurate unit was in use".<ref>{{cite book|last=Heggie|first=Douglas C.|title=Megalithic Science: Ancient Mathematics and Astronomy in North-west Europe|year=1981|publisher=Thames and Hudson|isbn=978-0-500-05036-1|page=58}}</ref>

In his book ''Rings of Stone: The Prehistoric Stone Circles of Britain and Ireland.'' ] calls the megalithic yard "a chimera, a grotesque statistical misconception."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Balfour|first=M|author2=O Gingerich|title=Book-Review – Stonehenge and its Mysteries|journal=Journal of Historical Astronomy|year=1980|volume=SUPP. VOL.11, P.S104|url=http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/seri/JHAS./0011//0000104.000.html|accessdate=3 May 2011}}</ref>

Most researchers have concluded that there is marginal evidence for a standardized measuring unit, but that it was not as uniform as Thom believed.<ref name="KelleyMilone2011"/>

==Arguments for a geometric derivation==
]
Some commentators upon Thom's megalithic yard (John Ivimy and then Euan Mackie<ref name=Macke>{{cite book|author=Euan Mackie|title=Science and Society in Prehistoric Briain, p. 53-57|year=1977|publisher=Paul Elek}}</ref>) have noted how such a measure could relate to geometrical ideas found historically in two Egyptian metrological units; the remen of about 1.2 feet and royal cubit of about 1.72 feet. The remen and royal cubit were used to define land areas in Egypt: "On documentary and other evidence Griffith came to the conclusion that the square on the royal cubit was intended to be twice that on the remen; and Petri identified the remen as a length of 20 digits".<ref>{{cite book|author=A.E.Berriman|title=Historical Metrology, p. 71|year=1953|publisher=J.M.Dent}}</ref>

A square with side length equal to the diagonal of a square with side length equal to one remen has an area of one square royal cubit, ten thousand (a myriad) of which defined an Egyptian land measure, the setat.<ref name=Macke/> John Ivimy noted that "The ratio MY : Rc is SQRT(5) : SQRT(2) to the nearest millimeter, which makes the MY equal to SQRT(5) remens, or the length of a 2&nbsp;×&nbsp;1 remen rectangle."<ref>{{cite book|author=John Ivimy|title=The Sphinx and the Megaliths, p. 132|year=1974|publisher=Turnstone}}</ref> see figure at right.

The main weakness in this argument is probably that, in order to derive their yard, the builders of the megalithic monuments would have needed the remen and royal cubit, upon which this geometrical relationship relies. However, since the megalithic constructs of the British Isles and northern France predate the pyramids by millennia, this supposed counter-argument is anachronistic.

Recent work by John Michell (''Ancient Metrology'', ''The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth''), John Neal (''All Done with Mirrors''), Richard and Robin Heath (various works on British megalithic circles and on Carnac) make a case for the connection of the megalithic yard with a systemic relation of geodetics and the lunation cycle.
]
A fresh proposal demonstrating a correlation between four units of measure (the royal cubit, the remen, the megalithic yard and the foot) examines the text of Euclid{{dubious|date=April 2024}}in light of the ancient cosmological implications of the dodecahedron's construction atop a cube. The approach demonstrates that the Egyptian ], as an encircled pentagram, is a shorthand glyph for the Platonic ] (dodecahedron) and that they both represented the fabric of the celestial canopy covering the earth (cube). In this example, given side AB equals 10 ] (5.236067 meters), then side DB equals 20 remen and line GB equals 1 megalithic yard. The difference between the royal cubit and the megalithic yard is 1 foot.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Balowski |first=Carl |date=April 5, 2024 |title=Euclidean Metrology and the Egyptian Duat: The Dodecahedron as the Basis of Ancient Cosmology and Large Scale Metrology (LSM). |url=https://www.academia.edu/117120359 |website=academia.edu}}</ref>

==See also==
*]


==References== ==References==
{{Reflist}} {{Reflist}}

⚫ {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2011}}
{{Portal bar|Engineering|Geology|History|Astronomy}}


] ]

Latest revision as of 01:10, 9 May 2024

Hypothetical ancient unit of measurement

The megalithic yard is a hypothetical ancient unit of length equal to about 2.72 feet (0.83 m). Some researchers believe it was used in the construction of megalithic structures. The proposal was made by Alexander Thom as a result of his surveys of 600 megalithic sites in England, Scotland, Wales and Brittany. Thom also proposed the megalithic rod of 2.5 megalithic yards, or on average across sites 6.77625 feet. As subunits of these, he further proposed the megalithic inch of 2.073 centimetres (0.816 in), one hundred of which are included in a megalithic rod, and forty of which composed a megalithic yard. Thom applied the statistical lumped variance test of J.R. Broadbent on this quantum and found the results significant, while others have challenged his statistical analysis and suggested that Thom's evidence can be explained in other ways, for instance that the supposed megalithic yard is in fact the average length of a pace.

Other units

Thom suggested that "There must have been a headquarters from which standard rods were sent out but whether this was in these islands or on the Continent the present investigation cannot determine."

Margaret Ponting has suggested that artefacts such as a marked bone found during excavations at Dail Mòr near Callanish, the Patrickholme bone bead from Lanarkshire and Dalgety bone bead from Fife in Scotland have shown some evidence of being measuring rods based on the megalithic yard in Britain. An oak rod from the Iron Age fortified settlement at Borre Fen measured 53.15 inches (135.0 cm) with marks dividing it up into eight parts of 6.64 inches (16.9 cm). Euan Mackie referred to five-eighths of this rod 33.2 inches (84 cm) as "very close to a megalithic yard". A hazel measuring rod recovered from a Bronze Age burial mound in Borum Eshøj, East Jutland by P. V. Glob in 1875 measured 30.9 inches (78 cm). Keith Critchlow suggested this may have shrunk 0.63 inches (1.6 cm) from its original length of one megalithic yard over a period of 3000 years.

Thom made a comparison of his megalithic yard with the Spanish vara, the pre-metric measurement of Iberia, whose length was 2.7425 feet (0.8359 m). Archaeologist Euan Mackie noticed similarities between the megalithic yard and a unit of measurement extrapolated from a long, marked shell from Mohenjo Daro and ancient measuring rods used in mining in the Austrian Tyrol. He suggested similarities with other measurements such as the ancient Indian gaz and the Sumerian šu-du3-a. Along with John Michell, Mackie also noted that it is the diagonal of a rectangle measuring 2 by 1 Egyptian remens. Jay Kappraff has noted similarity between the megalithic yard and the ancient Indus short yard of 33 inches (0.84 m). Anne Macaulay reported that the megalithic rod is equal in length to the Greek fathom of (2.072 metres (6.80 ft)) from studies by Eric Fernie of the Metrological Relief in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Reception

Thom's proposals were initially ignored or regarded as unbelievable by mainstream archaeologists.

Clive Ruggles, citing astronomer Douglas C. Heggie, has said that both classical and Bayesian statistical reassessments of Thom's data "reached the conclusion that the evidence in favour of the megalithic yard was at best marginal, and that even if it does exist the uncertainty in our knowledge of its value is of the order of centimetres, far greater than the 1mm precision claimed by Thom. In other words, the evidence presented by Thom could be adequately explained by, say, monuments being set out by pacing, with the 'unit' reflecting an average length of pace." David George Kendall makes the same argument, and says that pacing would have created a greater difference in measurements between sites, and that a statistical analysis of sites would reveal whether they were measured by pacing or not. In an investigation for the Royal Academy Kendall concluded that there was evidence of a uniform unit in Scottish circles but not in English circles, and that further research was needed. Statistician P. R. Freeman reached similar conclusions and found that two other units fit the data as well as the yard.

Douglas Heggie casts doubt on Thom's suggestion as well, stating that his careful analysis uncovered "little evidence for a highly accurate unit" and "little justification for the claim that a highly accurate unit was in use".

In his book Rings of Stone: The Prehistoric Stone Circles of Britain and Ireland. Aubrey Burl calls the megalithic yard "a chimera, a grotesque statistical misconception."

Most researchers have concluded that there is marginal evidence for a standardized measuring unit, but that it was not as uniform as Thom believed.

Arguments for a geometric derivation

Explanation of how some have derived Thom's Megalithic Yard unit of measure from metrological land measure relationships established historically in Egypt's Dynastic periods

Some commentators upon Thom's megalithic yard (John Ivimy and then Euan Mackie) have noted how such a measure could relate to geometrical ideas found historically in two Egyptian metrological units; the remen of about 1.2 feet and royal cubit of about 1.72 feet. The remen and royal cubit were used to define land areas in Egypt: "On documentary and other evidence Griffith came to the conclusion that the square on the royal cubit was intended to be twice that on the remen; and Petri identified the remen as a length of 20 digits".

A square with side length equal to the diagonal of a square with side length equal to one remen has an area of one square royal cubit, ten thousand (a myriad) of which defined an Egyptian land measure, the setat. John Ivimy noted that "The ratio MY : Rc is SQRT(5) : SQRT(2) to the nearest millimeter, which makes the MY equal to SQRT(5) remens, or the length of a 2 × 1 remen rectangle." see figure at right.

The main weakness in this argument is probably that, in order to derive their yard, the builders of the megalithic monuments would have needed the remen and royal cubit, upon which this geometrical relationship relies. However, since the megalithic constructs of the British Isles and northern France predate the pyramids by millennia, this supposed counter-argument is anachronistic.

Recent work by John Michell (Ancient Metrology, The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth), John Neal (All Done with Mirrors), Richard and Robin Heath (various works on British megalithic circles and on Carnac) make a case for the connection of the megalithic yard with a systemic relation of geodetics and the lunation cycle.

An explanation of how Euclid 13:4, as a precursor to the construction of the dodecahedron, natively unifies the royal cubit, remen, megalithic yard and foot.

A fresh proposal demonstrating a correlation between four units of measure (the royal cubit, the remen, the megalithic yard and the foot) examines the text of Euclidin light of the ancient cosmological implications of the dodecahedron's construction atop a cube. The approach demonstrates that the Egyptian Duat, as an encircled pentagram, is a shorthand glyph for the Platonic quintessence (dodecahedron) and that they both represented the fabric of the celestial canopy covering the earth (cube). In this example, given side AB equals 10 royal cubits (5.236067 meters), then side DB equals 20 remen and line GB equals 1 megalithic yard. The difference between the royal cubit and the megalithic yard is 1 foot.

See also

References

  1. Thom, Alexander. The megalithic unit of length, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, A 125, 243–251, 1962.
  2. Alexander Thom (1964). New Scientist. Reed Business Information. pp. 690–. ISSN 0262-4079.
  3. Barbara Ann Kipfer (2000). Encyclopedic dictionary of archaeology. Springer. p. 344. ISBN 978-0-306-46158-3.
  4. Archibald Stevenson Thom (1995). Walking in all of the squares: a biography of Alexander Thom : engineer, archaeoastronomer, discoverer of a prehistoric calendar, the geometry of stone rings and megalithic measurement. Argyll Pub. ISBN 978-1-874640-66-0.
  5. Thom, Alexander., The larger units of length of megalithic man, Journal for the Royal Statistical Society, A 127, 527-533, 1964.
  6. Broadbent S.R., Quantum hypothesis, Biometrika, 42, 45–57 (1955)
  7. ^ David H. Kelley; Eugene F. Milone; Anthony F. (FRW) Aveni (2011). Exploring Ancient Skies: A Survey of Ancient and Cultural Astronomy. Springer. p. 163. ISBN 978-1-4419-7623-9.
  8. A. Thom (1976). Megalithic sites in Britain, p. 43. Clarendon.
  9. Margaret Ponting (2003). "Megalithic Callanish". In Clive Ruggles (ed.). Records in Stone: Papers in Memory of Alexander Thom. Cambridge University Press. pp. 423–441. ISBN 978-0-521-53130-6.
  10. John David North (1996). Stonehenge: Neolithic man and the cosmos, p. 302. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-255773-3.
  11. Keith Critchlow (1979). Time stands still: new light on megalithic science, p. 37. Gordon Fraser. ISBN 9780860920397.
  12. ^ Euan Wallace MacKie (1977). The megalith builders, p. 192. Phaidon. ISBN 9780714817194.
  13. John Michell (1978). City of Revelation: On the Proportion and Symbolic Numbers of the Cosmic Temple. Abacus. ISBN 978-0-349-12321-9.
  14. Euan Wallace MacKie (1977). Science and society in prehistoric Britain. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-70245-8.
  15. ^ Jay Kappraff (2002). Beyond measure: a guided tour through nature, myth, and number. World Scientific. p. 237. ISBN 978-981-02-4702-7.
  16. Anne Macaulay; Richard A. Batchelor (July 2006). Megalithic measures and rhythms: sacred knowledge of the ancient Britons, p. 38 (megalithic yardsticks). Floris. ISBN 978-0-86315-554-3.
  17. Society of Antiquaries of London (1981). The Antiquaries journal: being the journal of the Society of Antiquaries of London, The Greek Metrological Relief in Oxford by Eric J. Fernie, p. 255. Oxford University Press.
  18. David George Kendall; F. R. Hodson; Royal Society (Great Britain); British Academy (1974). The Place of astronomy in the ancient world: a joint symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy. Oxford University Press for the British Academy. ISBN 978-0-19-725944-3.
  19. Ruggles, Clive (1999). Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. Yale University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-300-07814-5.
  20. David George Kendall; F. R. Hodson; Royal Society (Great Britain); British Academy (1974). The Place of astronomy in the ancient world: a joint symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy, Hunting Quanta, p. 249 & 258. Oxford University Press for the British Academy. ISBN 978-0-19-725944-3.
  21. Kendall, D. G. (1974), "Hunting quanta", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 276 (276): 231–266, JSTOR 74285
  22. Freeman, P. R. (1976), "A Bayesian Analysis of the Megalithic Yard", Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 139 (1): 20–55, doi:10.2307/2344382, JSTOR 2344382
  23. Heggie, Douglas C. (1981). Megalithic Science: Ancient Mathematics and Astronomy in North-west Europe. Thames and Hudson. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-500-05036-1.
  24. Balfour, M; O Gingerich (1980). "Book-Review – Stonehenge and its Mysteries". Journal of Historical Astronomy. SUPP. VOL.11, P.S104. Retrieved 3 May 2011.
  25. ^ Euan Mackie (1977). Science and Society in Prehistoric Briain, p. 53-57. Paul Elek.
  26. A.E.Berriman (1953). Historical Metrology, p. 71. J.M.Dent.
  27. John Ivimy (1974). The Sphinx and the Megaliths, p. 132. Turnstone.
  28. Balowski, Carl (5 April 2024). "Euclidean Metrology and the Egyptian Duat: The Dodecahedron as the Basis of Ancient Cosmology and Large Scale Metrology (LSM)". academia.edu.
Portals: Categories: