Re: Silbaby alignment (Watkins ,Michell revisited) | Forum

Silbaby 17

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Silbaby alignment (Watkins ,Michell revisited)

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fitzcoraldo Dec 4, 2006 11:21:00

Replying to tiompan

Nigel
It's interesting that you bring up the Thornbro alignment.
The North Yorkshire antiquarians from Knox through Mortimer to the mighty Elgee seem pretty much in agreement that triple barrow alignments of the North York Moors reflect the handle of Charles or Carles Wain. There are at least 9 groups called 'The Three Howes'.
Elgee notes that barrow groups of between 6 and 7 monuments at Hugglegate Wold, Hulleys, Ebberston Low Moor, Carlton Bank and the ridge between Farndale and Bransdale also 'suggest the plough'.
Check this out
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/44244

nigelswift Dec 4, 2006 11:51:37

Replying to fitzcoraldo

I guess the element of "could simply be chance" is a reverse function of either accuracy or the number of examples or the number of points involved. So I'm more sympathetic to something being deliberately like the plough for instance than something being deliberately like Orion.
T'other thing about Orion, if you look up in the sky and try to draw it, and then represent your drawing on the ground it probably won't be very good - so saying a monument is an accurate representation of Orion involves an extra step - that THEY were extremely good - or lucky.

I think my strongest "belief" is in straight line alignments as they can simply be seen and don't need any extra speculation about whether or not they represented anything else. And if they are very, very accurate in all three dimensions, to an error of perhaps a few feet only over the distance of a mile, well....