Knockmany
Latitude: 54.45° N
Longitude: 7.16° W
Knockmany is a sight in Ireland that has many kerbstones. It is a myth that King Menes from a Nile River Dynasty is buried at Knockmany. King Menes is alleged to be the founder of the first dynasty on the Nile River, 3200/3000 BCE.
Hieroglyphic text inscribed on the empty “tomb” of King Menes at Abydos describes how King Menes had embarked on a voyage of exploration with his fleet “to the Sunset Land in the Western Ocean” (Urani Land). The text reads
“King Menes, the Ruler of Mizraim [Egypt], the Land of the Two Crowns, the perished dead one in the West of the Horus race…The Commander-in-Chief of Ships made the complete course to the end of the Sunset Land. Sailing in ships, he completed the inspection of the Western Land. He built there a holding in Urani Land at the Lake of the Peak…” (Reference 61).
I was astounded when reading a book by Daniel O’Riordain (Reference 41) to find a kerbstone having eleven passageways carved in the same orientation as the eleven passageways found at the oldest structure in Europe at Barnenez, Brittany, c. 4200 BCE. This book was suggested by and then bought from Michael Slavin at the Hill of Tara. Figure 9-20 is a key Knockmany kerbstone, showing the eleven-passageway mound at Barnenez, Brittany.
Figure 9-20: The Knockmany kerbstone, the mound at Barnenez, Brittany, and other symbols found in passageway A at Barnenez (Reference 61)
The Barnenez monument in Brittany is the result of at least two phases of building. Phase One, built before 4500 BCE, had five chambers in parallel. Phase Two, built around 4000 BCE, had six chambers in parallel but slightly different angles than the Phase One chambers. In Chamber A, many key symbols have been carved. It is of note that the symbols for the Northern Cross, the navigation triangle, the grid map, and the horns of Venus are prominent in Chamber A at 4000 BCE. Chapter 10 will describe the Barnenez Mound.
It is remarkable that a kerbstone in northeast Ireland has the same eleven-chambered symbol representing the two design phases at Barnenez.
Conclusion
The Irish mounds studied in this book were the Irish versions of the per ankhs, houses of life of the Nile dynasties. The mounds were also repositories of the stone books, kerbstones, of 3200 BCE.
Sun shadows were built into all the Irish mound locations studied in this book. Many of the passageways were aligned to the winter solstice.
Moon shadows were built onto many Irish mounds, with the Knowth and Newgrange mounds as prime examples.
Venus rose petal was the design shape of the Newgrange Mound and Mound T at Loughcrew. The internal structure of Dowth may indicate an original rose-petal shape.
The ankh-shaped chambers were observed in the south passageway at Dowth, the earthen mound foundation at the Hill of Tara, and the chamber at Fourknocks.
The Northern Cross was built into the passageway/chambers of Carrowkeel, the northern passageway at Dowth and the east passageway at Knowth, Newgrange, Mound T at Loughcrew, and Fourknocks. All five of these passageway/chambers had angles of the crossbars within one degree of the actual Northern Cross configuration.
The summer (navigation) triangle was probably built into the north passageway/chamber at Dowth. The three Boyne Valley mounds of Dowth, Knowth, and Newgrange, the satellite mounds surrounding Cairn T at Loughcrew, and the three mounds at Fourknocks all form a thirty-/forty-degree triangle. It is a significant design feature of the Irish mounds in these locations. The question is: Does the thirty-/forty-degree triangle relate to a specific phase of the navigation triangle or, simply, Libre, le Balance?
From a seafarer’s perspective, the role that the Northern Cross, the summer navigation triangle, and Libre, le Balance played in the design of the Irish mounds is one of the most important discoveries in this book.
Level window boxes were built into the mounds at Carrowkeel and Newgrange for the accurate determinations of latitude.
There were passageways with several different angles based on the location in the passageways at Dowth, Knowth, Newgrange, and Mound T at Loughcrew. They may represent latitudes for different locations. In other words, the location of the mound and a destination location were coded into the stones and mounds in Ireland.
The phonetic sounds of some of the Irish mounds have roots like CR, NK, RK, and TR. The current location names have DN, GL, EL, and R.
Martin Brennan so aptly mentions, “There is a unified system that follows the sun from the autumn equinox to the spring equinox. It seems that after the spring equinox interest shifts to lunar observations” (Reference 6).
• • •
Chapter 10:
Irish Travel Routes to Western Europe
The following facts are quite clear about ancient Ireland: Ireland has one of the greatest concentrations of megalithic structures and carved stones in the world. Ireland has many intersections of freshwater rivers flowing into bays leading to the oceans. All visitors came by boat and were seafarers. Irish antiquarians called these visitors “invaders” for a reason. Invaders came and went. Some stayed, but where did they go? This chapter addresses this issue.
The seafarers left Ireland and sailed north, east, south, and west. The seafaring invaders came to Ireland and then went. They found gold and copper. The gold was primarily in the northwest region, in Carrowmore/Donegal. The copper was from the Wicklow Mountians region of southeast Ireland and Ross Island in the southwest. It is clear that Ireland was an island of metals and was one of the suppliers to the customers sponsoring the seafarers.
Over time, Ireland transitioned from a supplier of metals to a storer of metals from other locations and then, as overseas trading ebbed, to an indigenous society. This only encouraged more invasions. When these seafarers stayed in Ireland, they built the circles and mounds for storage and intellectual pursuits—astronomy.
The west coast of Ireland was important for all of the trading routes because it had many protected bays, stones, and safer ocean travel going north and south. The west coast of Ireland had the greatest locations of stone forts on high cliffs, like the Cliffs of Moher and the Aran Islands.
From 4000 BCE, Ireland was a supplier of metals to the customers, both to the north and to the south, and needed protected harbors as part of the trading routes. This chapter will explore the immediate harbors that the seafarers sailed from Ireland. The emphasis will be to observe the same Irish symbols built into the stones and mounds in these adjacent locations and to decode the symbols from a seafaring perspective.
Newgrange’s Kerbstone SW2, Figure 10-1a, shows the Irish harbors and the sailing direction into the oceans.
Figure 10-1a: Newgrange SW2, spiral harbor map of Ireland (Reference 7, author’s annotations)
Figure 10-1b: Map of the British Isles with the Irish harbor routes (Reference 61)
Figure 10-1c: Megalithic trade routes (author’s annotations)
In Figure 10-1b the spirals show the major megalithic harbors that the seafarers from Ireland would sail. Connecting Ireland to other megalithic sites was part of the trade routes in 3200 BCE. The seafarers, sailing back to the customer locations, would set sail to the following locations:
North: Stornoway, Scotland, and the Orkney Islands;
East: Isle of Anglesey, Wales;
Southeast: Cornwall, England, and Stonehenge and Carnac, Brittany;
South: Galicia, Spain; Portugal, Tarshish, and the Straits of Gibraltar; and
West: North America (Chapter 11).
Figure 10-1c shows these next harbor routes and part of the northern and southern trading routes. The northern trading route goes to the Orkneys, Denmark, and then to the Scandinavian customers. The southern trading route goes eventually to the Eastern Mediterranean customers.
North from Ireland: Stornoway, Scotland, and the Orkney Islands
The great trading center to the north was on the Orkney Islands. To get there from Ireland, the seafarer would sail around the northern Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
One of the earliest stone circles, the Callanish stone circle, c. 3500 BCE, is found on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides Islands of Scotland (Figure 10-2a).
Figure 10-2a: Callanish, Isle of Lewis relative to Ireland
Figure 10-2b: Callanish Isle of Lewis: rainbow, c. 3500 BCE (Reference 61)
Figure 10-2c: Callanish stone structure as a ring cross with angles in ten-degree increments (Reference 61, author’s annotations)
Callanish Stone Circle, Island of Lewis, 3500 BCE
Latitude: 58.1° N, using the golden ratio, a predicted sun-shadow latitude is forty-six degrees north.
Longitude: 6.75° W
I have never seen so many craggy rocks and strong winds as we traveled to see the Callanish Stone circles in the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The stone structures at Callanish are extensive, and there is a spiritual energy present. We met a little flower girl who introduced us to her father, a traveler. The kilted father serenaded us with his bagpipes as the sun set at the summer solstice in 2004. Other visitors were searching for the magnetic lay lines and did not want to be disturbed. Callanish is truly a special location.
The Callanish stone circle, site I, is close to the harbor at Stornoway, Scotland. The stone-circle shape has the ring-cross design, seen in Figure 10-2c. Note in Figure10-2c the angles of the upper part of the cross relative to the east-west equinox line. The stones appear to be in ten-degree increments. Also, in Figure 10-2c, from the bottom of the ring cross, the left crossbar arm is angled about twelve degrees lower than the right arm of the crossbar to the circle center.
The excellent investigations of Margaret Curtis inspired me to study the Callanish structures in greater detail. Figure 10-2d shows the forty-/thirty-degree triangle connecting Callanish sites I, II, and X. The triangle has the shape of either the Summer (navigation) Triangle or Libra, le Balance. Ms. Curtis also observes that the shorter axis in the stone circle at Site X points to Site I. Site X is closest to the quarry where most of the megalithic stones at Callanish were mined. A more complete map of the Callanish structures is seen in Appendix C, Figure C-6.
One of Ms. Curtis’s contributions is the detailed study of the moon at Callanish and how the moon’s major and minor standstills are built into the Callanish sites. It is conclusive that sun and the moon shadows were key to the designers of the Callanish sites.
Where is Venus? There are a number of five stone groupings, a number of petal-shaped circles, circles with flattened bottoms, and many passageways/chambers having an ankh shape. Venus and its five Venus-year cycle was built into the Callanish sites and needs further study. The builders of the Callanish sites were navigators/traders using the protected harbor at Stornoway. Ms. Curtis was quite interested in my concepts and would like me to return to Callanish for further discussions. However, it would appear to me that Site I emphasized the moon, Site X emphasized the sun, and Site II emphasized Venus.
There are a number of other stone circles at Callanish with different celestial orientations. Figure C-6 in Appendix C shows some of my annotations for these Callanish stone configurations.
The Callanish stones are known as “Fir Bhreig,” meaning “the false men” in Gaelic. A legend suggests that the stones were giants, turned to stone by St. Kieran.
The ring-cross of Callanish Site I is shaped like the Northern Cross, and Sites I, II, and X form the Summer (navigation) Triangle.
Orkney Islands, 3500 BCE
Latitude: 58.6° N has a sun-shadow latitude of forty-seven degrees north
Longitude: 3° W
Recent explorations of the Orkney Islands have indicated that the Orkneys were a major Neolithic culture from about 4000 BCE to 2200 BCE. The protected harbor was at Ness of Brodgar, the location of their gardens (of Eden). Figure 10-3a shows the Orkney Islands relative to Ireland. The Orkney Islands was the key location for all Northern European trade routes.
Figure 10-3b shows the Ring of Brodgar, one of two spectacular circles on the Orkneys, the other being the Stones of Stenness.
Figure 10-3a: The Orkney Islands relative to Ireland
Figure 10-3b: The Ring of Brodgar, Orkney
The site contains over one hundred buildings, forming a major village. Orkney’s monuments were constructed at the same time as the emergence of the ancient Nile River Dynasty cultures. Orkney Islands as a whole contains nearly three thousand identified Neolithic sites. Wonderful examples of the structures built on the Orkneys are Maeshowe and Skara Brae.
Maeshowe is a large chambered mound with passageways dating about 3000 BCE. The grass mound has a complex of passages and chambers (see Figure 10-4a).
Figure 10-4a: Orkney, Maeshowe with ring cross, two-angled passageway (Reference 61)
Figure 10-4b: Orkney, Broch of Gurness
Figure 10-4c: Orkney Islands, Neolithic Village of Skara Brae, c. 3100 BCE (Reference 61)
Another mound, called the Dwarfie Stane, was found and was assumed to be a giant’s grave. The passageway design (Figure 10-4a) for the Maeshowe Mound is a ring-circle design with three side chambers. The passageway is horizontal to the horizon. The passageway has two parts: the entrance part has a fifty-three-degree angle relative to the east-west axis, and the second part has a forty-seven-degree angle relative to the east-west axis. The top section of the passageway has a thirty-two-degree angle relative to the east-west axis. All three side chambers have a rho shape.
If the forty-seven-degree angle is a sun-shadow latitude, then it would predict an actual latitude of fifty-eight degrees north, which is close to the Orkney latitude of 58.6° N. Likewise, if the thirty-two-degree angle is a sun-shadow latitude, it would predict a latitude of thirty-five degrees north, which is the latitude for the Strait of Gibraltar. The fifty-three-degree sun-shadow angle would have a predicted latitude of sixty-seven degrees north, which is close to the latitude of Iceland.
The structures on the Orkney Islands are impressive for 3000 BCE. Figure 10-4b shows the Broch of Gurness as an example. Skara Brae consists of ten clustered houses and is Northern Europe’s most complete Neolithic village. Occupied between 3100 and 2500 BCE, the Skara Brae houses are linked by common passages (see Figure 10-4c). The solid triangle is a thirty-/forty-degree triangle.
Orkney Venus
The Orkney Venus is a five-thousand-year-old stone figure that was discovered by archaeologists during an excavation at Links of Noltland in 2009 (Figure 10-5a).
Figure 10-5a: Orkney Venus, showing grid lines and angles, zigzags, and two location dots
Figure 10-5b: Map showing the Faroe Islands and the Orkney Islands
Figure 10-5c: Orkney Grids on pottery plates and Grooved ware jar showing navigation symbols (Ref. 61)
The Links of Noltland prehistoric settlement in the Orkneys is a Neolithic and Bronze Age landscape thought to be as significant as Skara Brae. The tiny sandstone figure, measuring just 3.5 cm by 3 cm, was uncovered by archaeologist Jakob Kainz.
The Orkney Venus has grid lines and angles, zigzags, and two location dots. From a seafarer’s perspective, the Orkney Venus contains extremely important information for sailing in the vicinity of the Orkney Islands. This is a compass with angles and sailing times based on the two positioning dots for the north-south axis. The decoding of the Orkney Venus will follow using the Irish symbol decoding scheme:
The shape of the Orkney “Venus” is a stone version of the golden ankh, with an oval head and body; the grid system is similar to the pillar and scepter.
The Orkney Venus was rotated clockwise because east is always up in the ancient maps (Figure 10-5a).
Orkney Venus’s Oval Head
The key to any map is to set the cardinal axes, N/S/E/W. Using the axis convention from Chapter 5 for Ireland, the two dots (cups) indicate the north-south axis—same as the Irish stones. One line pointing to the lower dot at a ninety-degree angle to the north-south line is the east-west line.
A line at a twenty-degree angle connects the X in the head to the lower dot.
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The zigzag line with three angles is a count of three, which usually indicates a three-day trip (sailing). A three-day trip at a twenty-degree angle from the Orkneys would end in the Faroe Islands (Figure 10-5b).
However, if the two positioning dots were the east-west axis, then a three-day sailing trip at a twenty-degree angle would end at Stornoway, Scotland. Consistent with the Irish decoding, the two dots should indicate that they represent the north-south axis. A third possibility is that the main vertical line in the body is connected to the right dot and is the north-south axis. If this were the case, then the line connecting the two dots has a twenty-degree angle to this east-west axis, and, again, a twenty-degree angle from the Orkneys would result in sailing to Stornoway. No matter which is correct, all three alternate axis schemes result in a twenty-degree-angle trip taking three days.
Orkney Venus’s body
A grid exists on the body. Two major alternatives exist to set the grid. One is keeping with the first alternative for the two-dot axis being the north-south axis, or the grid lines. This results in ninety-degree axis lines in Figure 10-5a. The other alternative is that the principal axis is the center vertical line on the body. The horizontal lines form the grid consistent with the pillar on the ankh sextant. In either case, a well-defined grid system exists on the body of the Orkney Venus. From a seafarer’s perspective, the effort for engraving the grid on the pottery had definite benefits for sailing. Someone skilled in geometry designed the Orkney Venus. The seafarers knew the angles. The Orkney Venus body also has the circle (the symbol for the sun), the crescent (the symbol for the moon), and a one-angle zigzag. The Orkney Venus has many of the basic Irish symbols.
The Orkney Venus is the Orkney Sextant of 3000 BCE. More-involved grids have been found on the Orkney Islands, as seen in Figure 10-5c. Pottery of the Grooved Ware type, shown in Figure 10-5c, originated on the Orkney Islands. Were the people of the Orkneys the Grooved Ware people?
A Seafarer's Decoding of the Irish Symbols Page 13