Analysing Stonehenge Gold found in the Bush Barrow.

 

Few artefacts have been studied more than the large lozenge of gold found on the chest of a man interred in a round barrow one kilometre to the south of Stonehenge. But it cannot be based on a hexagon as Johnson claims in Wikipedia - because the angles so produced would be different to that of the actual artefact.

       The lozenge was restored to its domed state in 1985 and the results were published in Antiquity 62 1988 when Keith Critchlow measured and found its sharp angles to be within half a degree of 80. T. R. Burrows also measured its sharp angles, but found each end to be slightly different. He found one side to be 80.25 and the other to be 80.89, thus producing an average sharp angle of 80.57-degrees.

       However, whether measuring angles or attempting to produce linear measurements over a semi-domed form is difficult if not almost impossible to do. Especially if all we have to go on is a photograph that is by its very nature, essentially flat. The red lines in the picture above, drawn to exact scale, demonstrates what happens when the lozenge’s true measurements are placed over a flat image - The outer rhomboids can be seen to render with an overlap!

       Thankfully, over such a small area of dome, and for what it matters, the central rhombus can be regarded as virtually flat.

       Here then, are the sharp angles that I find to be forming the central rhombus - they are 79.86 and 80.53, thus giving an average of 80.2 degrees. 

       If the lozenge had been founded on a hexagon as Johnson suggests, its sharp angles would be 81.79-degrees, and would differ from the actual by at least 1.22-degrees. So Johnson’s hexagon theory cannot be correct.

 

Ample evidence gathered from elsewhere proves that the large lozenge embodied the Sun and Moon in its design by simulating their astronomical azimuths. These highly polished mirror-like artefacts of gold were taken into Stonehenge for the purpose of reflecting sun and moonlight onto the internal faces of the monument’s stones.

 

According to the recently deceased astronomer Professor John North, the first glint of the sun in 2,500 BC was close to 41.6-degrees north of east on solstice morning and 39.2-degrees south of east in winter, therefore totalling 80.8. (I presume that John’s figures are taken from equinoctial east) His published azimuths for full orb are similar. These two angles were added together by the person who designed the lozenge when he or she gave it its 80.5-degree average angle.

 

Deducting 80.5 from 180 we get 99.5, which is very nearly but slightly smaller than the angle made by the extreme positions of the moon. Compromises therefore had to be made. For if the ‘Beaker person’ who made the large lozenge had made both sharp angles a true 80.8, the resulting complement would have squashed still further the 100-degree angle made by the major moon. This had the danger of forcing our night-time luminary out of the equation. Perhaps that is why one of the sharp ends was made 80.25 and the other 80.89. AND - why one of the angles in the central rhombus is even less than 80.

 

The Bush Barrow Lozenge and the Megalithic Inch.

 

 

This is a view of the innermost rhombus of scribed lines that measures two megalithic inches, as can be seen by the two megalithic inch circle imposed on it in this picture. We know early people had an interest in pairs of things from the several pairs of lines spaced two megalithic inches apart that were scribed on the chalk wall of Grimes Graves prehistoric flint mines of Norfolk.

       Note also that the 2 MI dimension is taken over its sharp angles. This is opposite to the way in which the Clandon lozenge was treated; that lozenge will be dealt with later.

The published length of the large lozenge is misleading. Instead of being measured linearly, it was measured over its domed form, which gives a greater figure than it actually is.

 

Despite Professor John North’s contradiction of the report in Antiquity, the large lozenge, originally, was not flat but domed by about 8mm.

       The large lozenge proved difficult to measure prior to 1985 because it had been flattened by pressure of earth, (chalk blocks, actually) whilst placed on the chest of the Bush Barrow man for 4,000 years. The lozenge was therefore necessarily restored to its domed state so it could be properly measured.

       The actual sizes of the lozenge’s scribed lines above, are based on flatted measurements that were taken over its ‘dome’ by Kinnes and Longworth et al, and were therefore ‘developed measurements’ that were found by placing flexible paper card over the lozenge’s curved form, which was then laid flat to give linear dimensions. None of the other golden artefacts has been measured with such precision as this, which makes it very difficult for modern scholars to conduct researches on the rest of the gold artefacts.

       Importantly, across the curvature of the dome is how the incised lines decorating the face of the lozenge were produced in the first place. And by producing a bar graph of them - seen above right - makes it very clear that from a 2 megalithic-inch start, something was expected to grow. 

 

The Bush Barrow ‘Belt Hook’ of Gold

 

 

With arc sizes difficult to determine, the ‘Belt-Hook’ seems to be based on a 24-megalithic-inch lozenge built on four large circles of differing diameters. (24 MI = 0.6 MY = 0.498 Metres.)

 

 

This close-up of the ‘Belt Hook’ shows where the lines cross when placing developed arcs onto a flat plane. Having to deal with such large radii meant that the Belt Hook was not the most accurately made gold item.

       It’s my belief that this artefact was not a Belt Hook but a depository for fertile material such as barley seeds. Then, again, perhaps as a container for something altogether different…

       NB. One of Avebury’s Cove stones in the middle of Avebury’s northern circle was restored to the vertical for reasons of safety and securely cemented in place in 2006. It was during those operations that Barley seed was found to have been placed around the base of the stones, some 5,000 years ago.

 

The small lozenge has a maximum overall size that equates to 1.52 megalithic inches - its slightly oversized base due to being wrapped around an organic former, such as wood.

       So, one-point-five megalithic inches overall on its top face, it has incised lozenge’s that increase in size from one third of a megalithic inch to a full megalithic inch.

       Being given 30, 60, and 120-degree angles, this lozenge represents the minor moon alone. And; as is demonstrated by the bar-graph alongside it - it also represents growth.

 

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Research is more difficult when considering the Clandon Barrow lozenge found south of Dorchester; because - The angles are in any case very difficult to establish in the case of the Clandon Barrow lozenge, which has been badly crumpled in the course of its long history. Professor John North.

 

 

According to Pro North, Critchlow measured the blunt angle of the Clandon lozenge and arrived at a figure of 102.75-degrees. That would make the sharp 77.25-degrees, and is not what I find it to be! I make the sharp angles 70.42 and 69.13, thus producing an average of 69.78.

       So, founding the Clandon Lozenge on a ten-sided figure, as again wrongly suggested by Johnson, would make it 72-degrees with angles more than 2-degrees out.

 

The bar graph of the Clandon lozenge again proves growth by increasing in size from 1.5 megalithic inches by no less than five 0.5 MI incremental steps up to a maximum of 4 MI.

       As previously mentioned, comparing one lozenge against the other shows that whilst the Bush Barrow lozenge was measured across its sharp angles, the Clandon lozenge takes its measurements from across the blunt.

 Copyright © T. W. Flowers 2013

 Bibliography

Stonehenge, Neolithic Man and the Cosmos. John North 1996.

Antiquity 62 1988: p24-39: Bush Barrow gold I.A.Kinnes, I.H.Longworth, I.M.McIntyre, S.P.Needham & W.A.Oddy.

Excavations at the Cove 2006. Mark Gillings, Joshua Pollard et al

 

 

Avebury’s Cove in 2005,  it looks safe enough to me!