A Seafarer's Decoding of the Irish Symbols

by Donald McMahon

  In my opinion, one of the myths that was created from the sailing trips to Ireland and North America from the Nile River was this: The world is flat! The penultimate and the harp trips were keep secret so that the purpose of these trips for gold and copper would remain a secret.

  The penultimate trip from the Isle of Meroe to the Isle Royale occurred. The seafarers returned with the purest copper in the world, from c. 2500 BCE to about 1200 c. BCE, and then the trip’s reality became myth, math, metaphor, and music.

  • • •

  Chapter 13:

  Summary of a Seafarer’s Decoding of Megalithic Stones and Mounds

  Water and Life

  The seafarer was born, sailed the oceans, and generated symbols as a testament to the journeys undertaken. The seafarer connected the star dots. The god was the sun, and the goddess was Venus, and every eight years they united. They shared equal attention by the ancient civilizations.

  Water flowed and five thousand years ago people determined that they could navigate the waters to explore the earth. Celestial guidance was developed with symbolic representation. The seafarers were interested in sailing on the waters and staying on islands, noting the safety the islands provided. Out of land sight, new lands and islands were discovered, and they needed a way to preserve their findings, that is, locations. Symbols were created to record the calendar and navigation aspects of the seafarers explorations.

  Realities needed to be expressed. Pictograms, or glyphs, were etched on stones and represented an object, a single symbol. Combining the symbols led to further expressions of reality. What was below were locations. What was above were celestial bodies. Astronomy was created for calendars and then for navigation.

  Before 5000 BCE, seafarers were sailing to Ireland, and by 3200 BCE symbols were being etched on stones in Ireland. To reach Ireland, sailing was required. The seafarers left symbols for those who came later to understand why they went to Ireland. By taking a seafarer’s perspective, the Irish symbols were decoded. By taking a seafaring view, I hope that the reality behind the symbols is understood.

  The following seafaring questions were a theme throughout the book:

  A Seafarer’s Perspective

  Where am I? Customer’s location

  Where am I going? IRELAND

  Why am I going? Gold and Copper

  How will I get there? Navigation by Boat

  How long will it take? One sailing season

  Will I, or someone, return? Yes

  Two basic trips were discovered and decoded: the penultimate trip for copper to North America returning through Ireland and the Harp Trip to Ireland. The penultimate trip for copper to North America started in the Isle of Meroe on the Nile River and went to the Isle Royale in Northern Michigan. The harp trips for gold also began on the Nile River and went to Ireland. These trips were significant events and were painted on the pharaoh’s pyramids. The trips were frequently taken based on the number of times the trips were painted on the Nile River Dynasty’s stone structures. One should realize that these trips were initially taken hundreds of years before the pyramids were built.

  Symbols were created to record these significant trips for gold and copper. The following summarizes the decoded navigation symbols.

  Navigation: Megalithic maps for key locations Ireland

  A summary of decoded map kerbstones in Ireland is shown in Figure 13-1, where the kerbstones surround a map of Ireland.

  Figure 13-1: Summary of symbols from key kerbstones in Ireland

  These kerbstones are maps of harbors (spirals), storage facilities, mining locations (cup marks) and metal ruler’s locations (concentric circles and ovals) in Ireland. The upper-right stone found at Knockmany shows the Barnenez Mound in northwest Brittany. There are symbol connections to other megalithic locations on the west coast of Europe. The diamonds represent the sun-shadow latitudes of these locations. The zigzags represent counting for trip days between locations.

  Close to Ireland

  Figure 13-2: Summary of symbols from key stones from megalithic sites close to Ireland

  Figure 13-2 shows key map stones from harbors next to Ireland. Going clockwise, we have the spiral harbor map of Wales, the concentric semicircle map of the Brittany harbors, the grid map showing the path through the Strait of Gibraltar and then to the Azores Islands, the river map of the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula and the spiral harbor maps of Ireland. The stacked diamonds on the Brittany Coast Map relate to decreasing sun-shadow latitudes for the selected locations. The right column of navigation symbols is found in Mound A at Barnenez and has symbols for a global map, the horns of Venus, the Northern Cross with the Summer (navigation) Triangle, the symbol for sea travel and a feather for truth. These stones near to Ireland relate to navigation and the storage and processing of metals.

  The seafarer’s language of symbols appears to be universal as they were also seen in the North American sites decoded in this book.

  Navigation: Passageways and Chambers with Latitudes and Longitudes for Key Locations

  Ireland

  The passageway/chamber designs for a given location provide information on latitude and longitude for that location by measuring the angles of the various sections of the passageway. The passageway name suggests a path from some location, to the current location, and then to a return location. Figure 13-3 summarizes the passageways that I observed in Ireland.

  Figure 13-3: Summary of passageway/chambers in Ireland

  Two general passageway/chamber shapes are observed, one that is similar to the Northern Cross and the other that resembles the ankh. The Northern Cross-type passageway/chambers tend to have three angled (zigzagzig) sections, the entrance angle, the center main passageway angle, and the slight angle to the clockwise direction from the center of the main chamber to the center of the top chamber. The left chamber is about thirteen degrees counterclockwise to the line connecting the right chamber to the center. The Northern Cross seen in the upper left picture has the same design.

  The center section of the passageway is usually aligned with the winter solstice angle and represents the sun-shadow latitude for the mound’s location. Some Northern Cross-type passageways are aligned with the east-west axis. The Newgrange Mound has a center window, box passageway aligned with the winter solstice at forty-three degrees from the east-west axis, the sun-shadow latitude for Newgrange. The top chamber has an eight-degree clockwise rotation from the main passageway angle. This relates to the eight-degree west longitude at Newgrange, if measured from the Rose Line meridian.

  The mysterious rotation of the main chamber of many mound designs from a central axis relates to the longitude of that location measured by the earthly view of the Venus pentagram based on the morning and evening star positions of Venus.

  The entrance section angles have been measured and may relate to the sun-shadow latitudes of where the sailing trip began or will go, but more study is needed.

  The angles of the triangle formed by the peripheral smaller side chambers tend to be forty-/thirty-degree triangles.

  There is a remarkable resemblance with the detailed angles of the passageways and chambers to the Northern Cross. The Northern Cross and the Summer (navigation) Triangle were key navigation aids to the ancient mariners.

  Close to Ireland

  Figure 13-4: Summary of passageways closest to Ireland

  The passageway mounds near harbors closest to Ireland are shown in Figure 13-4. Two passageway types are observed: the Northern Cross type and the ankh/rho type. The center passageway section usually is aligned to the winter solstice (e.g., the sun-shadow latitude). The main chambers are ankh/rho shaped and tend to be rotated clockwise from the main passageway.

  The oldest structure, c. 4200 BCE, is the Barnenez Mound in Brittany, having the eleven rho-type passageway/chamber design at two different angles. These angles relate to two different locations. The Barnenez eleven-passageway mound is carved into a stone located at Knockmany, Ireland.

>   The earliest, c. 3500 BCE, Northern Cross stone structure is found at Callanish, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.

  The mound complex at Barclodiad y Gawres, Wales, is very similar to the north passageway in the mound at Dowth, Ireland, in Figure 13-3.

  The rho-type passageway mounds with the large stones crossing the passageway resemble the pillar in the ankh sexton. Figure A-5 in Appendix A is a summary of pillar-type mounds found in the Brittany region.

  Navigation: Mound configurations for supplier and customer locations

  Ireland

  Carved into Irish kerbstones K13 and K52 are locations having concentric circles, cartouches with the metal symbol, and spirals. Triangles were then constructed by the author. Figure 13-5 compares these triangles to the triangles on actual maps connecting various mound configurations.

  Figure 13-5: Mound configurations in the Boyne Valley area

  A forty-/thirty-degree triangle connects the following:

  •the three mounds surrounding the main Knowth mound

  •the mounds at Dowth, Knowth, and Newgrange

  •the three cartouches in K52

  •the three large cup marks on the entrance stone at Dowth

  •the three mounds surrounding Mound T at Loughcrew

  •the three locations of Loughcrew, Fourknocks and Seefin

  •and the three mounds at Fourknocks.

  What really is amazing is a forty-/thirty-degree triangle connects Loughcrew, Fourknocks and Seefin, the locations of the Judgement seat, the storage facility, and the metal mining in the Wicklow mountains.

  It is my opinion that the forty-/thirty-degree triangle of the constellation Libra, le Balance, was the basis for the many forty-/thirty-triangle configurations in Ireland.

  Figure 13-6 compares the kerbstone maps K13 and K1 with the actual map of the megalithic locations in Ireland and a more detailed map close to the harbor at Howth.

  Figure 13-6: Summary of kerbstone maps K13 and K1

  Kerbstone K1 has an equilateral (sixty-degree) triangle at the top of K1 angled at twenty degrees from the east-west axis. If Loughcrew is used as the main reference location, then the equilateral triangle at a twenty-degree angle connects Loughcrew, Knockmany, and Carrowkeel. Because the spirals on K1 may indicate harbors, then an equilateral triangle at a twenty-degree angle connects Knockmany with the harbors at Donegal and Derry (dotted triangle). In either case, Knockmany is a pivotal location.

  Tara is also inside the triangle connecting Loughcrew, Fourknocks, and Seefin in all three maps.

  The spiral harbor in K13 agrees with the actual harbor at Howth, next to a small island called the “eye of Ireland.” The eye of Ireland appears in all three maps. A line connecting the “eye of Ireland,” Fourknocks and Knocknarea near Carrowmore, with the line connecting the “eye” with Knockmany, and the line from Knocknarea to Knockmany forms a forty-/thirty-degree triangle, the large dotted triangle. There is a common root for these locations, “knock,” or simply NK, the phonic for ankh.

  K13 and the actual megalithic map of Ireland are in agreement and in agreement with Libra, le Balance.

  Other megalithic sites reviewed in this book had stones and mounds with similar triangular configurations. Forty-/thirty-degree triangles were observed at:

  •the Callanish sites I, II, and X

  •the megalithic site of Skara Brae in the Orkney Island

  •the locations of Coustaussa, Rennes le Chateau, and the Blanchefort Castle in Languedoc

  •old zodiac map of southern France showing the constellation Libra, the Balance

  •the Watson Brake mounds in Louisiana

  •Aztalan, Wisconsin

  •Mystery Hill, New Hampshire

  •and at Oak Island, Nova Scotia.

  The pentagram rose of Venus was built into the stone circles near Newgrange, at several sites at Callanish, the Stonehenge structure, towns built surrounding a key storage location at Coustaussa, Languedoc, and the Newport Tower at Newport, Rhode Island.

  Navigation: Gold and Copper Mining Locations

  Valuable metals were embedded in quartz rocks. To separate the metal from the quartz, slurry crushing mills were designed and built by the megalithic cultures. A clue for finding a crushing mill is to find a stone structure or mound that has basins with a lip depression for water flow, a water flow path, large stones on which to crush the quartz, nubs or troughs to catch the heavy metals, and quartz remnants nearby. Eroded rifts should be found where the quartz veins would have been mined.

  A summary of the gold slurry crushing mills discussed in this book is shown in Figure 13-7.

  Figure 13-7: Summary of gold slurry crushing mills

  The quartz slurry crushing mills were:

  •the nub, the symbol for gold, is a picture of a slurry crushing mill

  •the oldest slurry crushing mill in the Nubian desert near the Isle of Meroe

  •the three Carrowkell mounds near the depleted veins as seen by satellite

  •the Rose stone at Rennes le Chateau near the Aude (gold) river

  •the slurry crushing mill at Cornwall

  •the stone circle near Cadiz with five pentagon chambers all having crushing stones

  •and the “sacrificial” stone at Mystery Hill, New Hampshire with a collection channel and several nubs.

  Copper was more valuable than gold during the Copper and Bronze Ages. Copper was found in southwestern Ireland, Ross Island, southeastern Ireland in the Wicklow Mountains and the Great Orme Mines of Wales. The best tin was found in Cornwall England. The great copper mines of the Iberian Peninsula are still being mined at Rio Tinto.

  The purest copper in the world was found in the Isle Royale region, Northern Michigan with a sample having a chemistry of 97 percent copper and 3 percent silver. It is estimed that five hundred thousand tons of copper were mined in the Isle Royale/ Keneewha Peninsula of northern Michigan from 2500 BCE to 1200 BCE.

  The pure copper required no crushing mills. The refining process began when the copper was alloyed with tin to form bronze.

  It is obvious that copper played a dominant role at the locations surrounding the Great Circle Loop of navigation in North America as early as 3000 BCE. The copper route in North America had copper embedded in the location names surrounding the sailing’s Great Circle Loop.

  The Harp trips and the Penultimate trips were taken to find and return the gold, copper and tin to the Nile River and eastern Mediterranean dynasties.

  This summary cannot be complete without mentioning kerbstone K67 found at Newgrange.

  K67

  The excitement I felt was overwhelming when I first saw K67 and realized that I understood the meaning of the symbols from a navigation point of view. Michael Slavin at the Hill of Tara, having seen my interpretation of K67, said that he always knew that there was meaning to the symbols. He then encouraged me to write a book, which I have now done. Now you understand the symbols.

  • • •

  Conclusions

  In the beginning there were

  The god was the sun, and the goddess was Venus, and they shared equally in megalithic civilizations. The seafarer was born, sailed the oceans, and generated symbols as a testament to the journeys undertaken. All invaders to Ireland were seafarers who spoke a common language of symbols.

  Symbols were generated by the seafarers to aid in the communication of important observations and events. The seafarers’ trips were secret; the trip information was recorded on stones and mounds and was eventually recorded as myth, math, metaphor, and music.

  In this book, the Irish symbols were decoded from three data sources:

  •the actual symbols etched in the stones of Ireland

  •the passageway/mound designs in Ireland containing the world’s greatest collection of etched stones

  •and mound configurations in the shape of celestial figures.

  The following seafaring questions provided consistent focus throughout this book:

  A Seafarer�
��s Perspective

  Where am I? Ireland

  Where am I going? Customer’s harbor

  Why am I going? Transporting gold and copper

  How will I get there? Navigation by Boat

  How long will it take? One sailing season

  Will I, or someone, return? Yes.

  The major findings from the seafarer’s decoding of the Irish symbols were:

  Sun and Venus

  The megalithic cultures understood the patterns of the sun, Venus, and the moon such that latitude and longitude could be calculated.

  The sun’s shadow at noon forms a double spiral each year. Venus’s path forms a rose-petal design over eight sun years, where each “rose” petal is formed during one Venus year. The sun appears and then disappears every day, but Venus disappears for fifty consecutive days during each Venus year.

  The sun’s shadows at sunrise and sunset help determine the sun-shadow latitudes. Every hour, the sun travels fifteen degrees of longitude. The sun shadows at various times of the year were named the solstices and the equinoxes. The solstices for a specific location were symbolized by an X if one standing stone was used or by a diamond if two standing stones were used. The equinoxes determined the east-west axis.

  The sun was also symbolized as a circle with a point in the middle and a spiral. These two sun symbols are found in most Irish kerbstones. The spiral was a key Irish symbol and came to represent a safe harbor.

  Venus’s appearance and disappearance resulted in Venus being named the Morning Star, the Evening Star, and the Eastern Star. Connecting the location of the morning and evening stars relative to the east-west axis helped determine longitude. One symbol for this event was the “horns of Venus.” The rose became one of the symbols for Venus. The other Venus symbol was the five pointed star.