Hi Callevadiva
As I was sat in my car tonight having been to the supermarket the moon was in front of me and the sun was in my rear view mirror. I was part of a Moon-car-Sun alignment.
Which was nice.
Monument alignments seem to me to be under researched (or maybe I’ve just missed the books) whereas Lunar/Solar/Celestial alignments with sites have been the subject of several books some of them of a rather ‘sensationalist’ nature. ;-)
Some site alignments often seem to be due to existing geography and/or the presence of ancient trackways. I was looking at round barrows in Yorkshire recently and while I was doing some research on them the phrase that kept coming up time and again was ‘sited on a probable ancient trackway’. Whether there was actually a track there, or the authors were just speculating because of the presence of the barrows I’m not sure.
I have the feeling that there may be many more alignments than we are aware of but the destruction of sites and modern towns and construction make them hard to figure out. It’s a case of studying the maps and getting out there and looking at the geography and getting a feel for a place. If you were going to build a barrow, where would *you* put it? You might well find that your guess tallies with the old maps and the Monuments Records.
-Chris
