Layout and Location - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 134

the phases of the Moon. The odd thing is, apparently only 24 days are
shown in each lunar month, instead of the 30 of the Egyptians and the
Maya. This problem has led to some wonderful “solutions,” such as
the Bellamy and Allen one in term of the cycles of fire and ice in Nazi
cosmology. In Man and the Stars it was suggested, tongue in cheek,
that it was a ready reckoner for extraterrestrial visitors who lived a
28-h day; the numerology, though fun, proved absolutely nothing and
was left as an exercise for the reader [ 12 ]. But is it not interesting in
this context that the two rings of figures surrounding the Knappers
inner structure contain 24 figures each?
On the perimeter, exact positions unfortunately not marked,
there were “traces of a ring of 19 large pillar stones (the same
number as in the Stonehenge Bluestone horseshoe and the North
approach to Callanish - D.L.) set apart at equal distances.” Then we
come to the appendix, “Results of Latest Diggings, July 1939”:
Much of the Temple area still awaits examination. Test dig-
gings in the still intact and unexplored ground indicate the
presence of many curious structures.
A circular dwelling 21 ft in diameter and probably of wood
and wattle walls, with a substantial wooden central standard
7 in. in diameter, has been revealed. On the floor were found
prehistoric pottery fragments and many domestic stone tools,
chiefly pounders.
To the West, some 215 ft (79.04 MY - D.L.) from the main tem-
ple builders, have been excavated circular stone pavements
each 43 ft in outer diameter (15.81 MY; circumference 24.803
MY). These overlap like circular links in the chain, and con-
stitute a unique feature. From their centers, which form small
pavements, radiate rows of stone and timber pillars which
mark quite positively points on the distant hill horizons where
the sun sets and rises at the solstices and equinoxes, thus reg-
istering the important stations in the sun's yearly journey.
The old alignments differ slightly from the modern owing to
the precessional changes (in the obliquity of the Ecliptic - D.L.),
the amount of which shift being about 10¾ in. to the east at
a radius of 50 ft from the observer's station (1°.03, nearly two
solar diameters - D.L.)
Traces of fires, probably ceremonial, occur along the Midsum-
mer alignment.