Maen Llia forum 7 room
Image by Kammer
Maen Llia

Welsh Ramblers walks May 2014

close
more_vert
GLADMAN G
GLADMAN May 11, 2014 00:55:30
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
tiompan wrote:
GLADMAN wrote:
tiompan wrote:
It’s worthwhile looking at the detail of the relationship between these monuments . An undated cairn is equidistant to Maen Llia and an undated “ ringwork “ . If Maen Llia was also equidistant to the ringwork it would be more noteworthy but more importantly the Coflein comment about Maen Llia “its geometric relationship with nearby Bronze Age monuments points to its prehistoric origins .” This comment along with that for the cairn “The site lies equidistant from Maen Llia and concentric 'hengiform' earthwork within the triangle and thus is probably related to them.” Is nonsense , the other monuments have not been dated to the BA and since when did a couple of equidistant monuments indicate a relationship , where are the precedents ?
Another monument has been introduced into the equation , an undated platform which is also described as being equidistant to Maen Llia and the “ringwork” , it’s 143 m from the stone but due to the diameter of the ringwork it could also be described as being 126m from the cairn . Again there are not two monuments equidistant from Maen Llia . If there is any degree of saliency in these “relationships “ then just as Google earth has produced relationships between obscure monuments from all over the globe and Giza or Stonehenge we will find the old Ley hunters will be out with their rulers , measuring and finding large scale and small scale relationships everywhere .
btw it was not David leighton who first noted this ,it was Bill Griffiths in the late 60's .
I've always been on the way to - or coming home from - somewhere else to stop off and take a proper look at this grouping of monuments. Seems it'll be worthwhile at some point.

Just out of interest, what would be the statistical likelihood of two monuments just happening to randomly be equidistant from another? If it's pretty low... wouldn't that imply a reasonable chance the latter was used as a reference point for the others?

The mimimum is two and that is what we have in thsi case . I think the likelihood for two is high , I seem to remember one bloke who wrote of a "grid " of equidistant monuments , that was on the macro scale ,but it would apply on the micro too . Imagine how many you could find in the Stonehenge landscape ? ,you might even get past the minimum particularly if you can include undated monumnets ,as above , and sites from different periods . Despite the "“its geometric relationship with nearby Bronze Age monuments points to its prehistoric origins .” I can't think of of any examples where equidistant spacing of monuments was considered intentional in a UK prehistoric setting . Why bother ? comes to mind and also moderns need for imposing their knowledge and ideas on data ,so often abused by metrologists , archaeoastronomers and anybody who can count /measure .
I'll ask the Mam C to bring a tape measure..... if they are indeed equidistant I admit I will be hard pressed to accept random placement as a plausible explanation. Depends on the accuracy, but if it is (near enough) spot on I disagree that the likelihood in such a small sample of monuments is high.

T tiompan
tiompan May 11, 2014 09:16:49
Replying to GLADMAN

GLADMAN wrote:
tiompan wrote:
tiompan wrote:
GLADMAN wrote:
tiompan wrote:
It’s worthwhile looking at the detail of the relationship between these monuments . An undated cairn is equidistant to Maen Llia and an undated “ ringwork “ . If Maen Llia was also equidistant to the ringwork it would be more noteworthy but more importantly the Coflein comment about Maen Llia “its geometric relationship with nearby Bronze Age monuments points to its prehistoric origins .” This comment along with that for the cairn “The site lies equidistant from Maen Llia and concentric 'hengiform' earthwork within the triangle and thus is probably related to them.” Is nonsense , the other monuments have not been dated to the BA and since when did a couple of equidistant monuments indicate a relationship , where are the precedents ?
Another monument has been introduced into the equation , an undated platform which is also described as being equidistant to Maen Llia and the “ringwork” , it’s 143 m from the stone but due to the diameter of the ringwork it could also be described as being 126m from the cairn . Again there are not two monuments equidistant from Maen Llia . If there is any degree of saliency in these “relationships “ then just as Google earth has produced relationships between obscure monuments from all over the globe and Giza or Stonehenge we will find the old Ley hunters will be out with their rulers , measuring and finding large scale and small scale relationships everywhere .
btw it was not David leighton who first noted this ,it was Bill Griffiths in the late 60's .
I've always been on the way to - or coming home from - somewhere else to stop off and take a proper look at this grouping of monuments. Seems it'll be worthwhile at some point.

Just out of interest, what would be the statistical likelihood of two monuments just happening to randomly be equidistant from another? If it's pretty low... wouldn't that imply a reasonable chance the latter was used as a reference point for the others?

The mimimum is two and that is what we have in thsi case . I think the likelihood for two is high , I seem to remember one bloke who wrote of a "grid " of equidistant monuments , that was on the macro scale ,but it would apply on the micro too . Imagine how many you could find in the Stonehenge landscape ? ,you might even get past the minimum particularly if you can include undated monumnets ,as above , and sites from different periods . Despite the "“its geometric relationship with nearby Bronze Age monuments points to its prehistoric origins .” I can't think of of any examples where equidistant spacing of monuments was considered intentional in a UK prehistoric setting . Why bother ? comes to mind and also moderns need for imposing their knowledge and ideas on data ,so often abused by metrologists , archaeoastronomers and anybody who can count /measure .
I'll ask the Mam C to bring a tape measure..... if they are indeed equidistant I admit I will be hard pressed to accept random placement as a plausible explanation. Depends on the accuracy, but if it is (near enough) spot on I disagree that the likelihood in such a small sample of monuments is high.
Why ?

C cerrig
cerrig May 11, 2014 15:24:38
Replying to GLADMAN

The chances of 5 prehistoric monuments ( the only 5 within the area ) forming 2 regular triangles , one inside the other , sharing the same centre line and the same base line are nil . The number of other points within the area that any of these monuments could have been sited on is huge , and if any of the outer corners was misplaced there would be no pattern . To put this in perspective , to win the lottery you need to pick 6 points out of a possible 50, there are far more than 50 possibilities in this area , there must be thousands . It cannot possibly be a coincidence .
While George is right that there is no precedent in the UK , this doesn't detract from it's authenticity , it simply makes this site unique , which it most certainly is , for many more reasons than is presented here.
By the way, the local who relayed the story of the midsummer myth was me, and the word I used was "distorted" not forked , but the flavour of it was understood I think.