You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2022.
The Trust is currently celebrating the fact that its membership has risen. Hurrah. But there’s no mention of the likely reason: it has just banned trail hunting from its land and as a direct result people are rejoining.
It also supports the too-short Stonehenge tunnel, something else which appalls many people. Perhaps if that policy was reversed maybe many more thousands of missing subscriptions can be regained.
If so then the two policies will be seen as damaging the Trust’s OWN interest which many would see as mismanagement.
.
All this week we have shown various sites around the world that are thought to have possibly been associated with Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka; the three stars that make up the belt in the constellation of Orion. What have we learned from this exercise?
Whilst we suspect that we have only skimmed the surface of sites that could be included in such a list, very few of them can conclusively be proved to have such an association.
- The most probable alignment is that of the Giza pyramids – the angle and direction of one of the shafts is strong evidence of an Orion association.
- Not everything is as it first appears. Carolyn Kennett’s work shows a possible association at the Hurlers with the Milky Way. There is also a Milky Way association at Giza, but in this case, with the River Nile.
- The Hopi Nation creation legends that mention the Orion constellation are interesting, but the spread and layout of the (natural) mesas and the surrounding villages covering an area of over 1000 square miles can be nothing but coincidental.
- There is an element of ‘geographical paredolia’ when looking at potential alignments; people tend to see what they want to see. As an example, close to the Chinese Xi’an pyramid sites is an airport. Looking further afield, there are two other airports within 50 miles, aligned to Orion as well as any of the ancient sites could be. Furthermore, the runways of the three airports are all within 3 degrees of the same compass heading! Spooky, huh? 🥴
- There are far too many strange rabbit holes on the Internet, down which it’s possible to get lost!
For those that wish to further investigate the sites we listed, there is a Google Earth file showing their locations available for download, in either KML or KMZ format.
We now look at some possible alignment sites around the world.
The Hopi Tribelands, Arizona
In NE Arizona, the ancestral home of the Hopi tribe, are three mesas that are said to mimic the positions of the Orion’s belt stars. Furthermore, Ancient Aliens proponents suggest that several villages around the mesas can be shown to mark other stars of the constellation.
This suggestion has been comprehensively debunked on Jason Colavito’s website and is worth a read.
The Hurlers, Cornwall
A short distance from the village of Minions on Bodmin Moor, the Hurlers complex consists of three stone circles on sloping moorland. The circles are close together, making the shortest potential alignment mentioned in this series. The circles are oriented NE-SW 194 degrees over just 0.1 miles.
The Hurlers appear in this list due to the numerical association with Orion’s Belt and the fact that they look ‘right’, but sterling work done by Caroline Kennett has found no definitive association with Orion. There is, however, a potential association and alignment here with the Milky Way, and Caroline has created a video discussing the archaeological and astronomical links at the site.
Tregeseal, Cornwall
An alleged 3-circle complex, of which only the eastern circle is extant. Although the position of the second circle is known, there are no remains of the third – which may have been a burial cairn rather than a stone circle. This means that it is very difficult to ascertain any potential alignments and comparisons with Orion’s Belt.
The site is thought to have been roughly aligned E-W on a heading of 265 degrees over around half a mile at most.
Many outrageous alignments and claims concerning connections between Orion’s Belt and worldwide ancient sites (Nazca Lines as Orion? Alien adrenochrome harvesting?, Lizard people and Nazis??) can be found via a simple Google search. The connection seems to be a favourite of the conspiracy theorists. One such example is the OrionLines website. Caution, severe suspension of belief is required as demonstrated by the following quote from OrionLines:
The reality is, Orion rules this world. They have been coming here for thousands of years using us for slaves, food and drug, ADRENOCHROME. The Orion Group is a SATANIC FORCE who takes over star systems. The Elite of The World have been secretly worshipping them and working for them, FEEDING them people as food in secret. It’s all truth.
Nearly every ancient site has three things in common.
1) They All Align to ORION
2) Human Sacrifice (Adrenochrome Harvesting) and Mass Graves
3) Mass Extinction of Entire Human Society
Meanwhile, back here in the real world, we’ll sum up our conclusions tomorrow!
Today we highlight a couple of sites in the British Isles which appear to be connected to the stars of Orion’s Belt.
Thornborough Henges
The Thornborough Henges complex in North Yorkshire comprises three henges almost identical in size and composition, each having a diameter of approximately 240 meters with an earth ring 3 meters high. A 12 meter berm separates the banks from the internal ditches which were originally each about 20 meters wide and 3 meters deep while all three henges have twin entrances to the northwest and the southeast. The henges are located around 550m apart on an approximate northwest-southeast alignment, though like Orion’s Belt, not exactly in a straight line.
Altogether, the monument extends NW-SE on a heading of 144 degrees for about a mile. There is a left-hand kink of approximately 7 degrees.
Orkney Henges
Three stone circles form the axis mundi of Neolithic Orkney. The first, Stenness, is perhaps the most impressive despite only three-and-a-half of its eleven original monoliths remaining.
Along the narrow isthmus to the northwest of Stenness stands the more intact Ring of Brodgar, twenty-seven of its original fifty-six sandstones are still upright.
Further along the ridge, there’s a third circle, the Ring of Bookan, occupying the high ground from where it is possible to see the other two sites. All that remains of Bookan is a central mound with a collapsed chamber and a circular ditch filled with soil.
The axis of Bookan, Brodgar and Stenness follows a general NW-SE trajectory of 129 degrees, for just under two miles. But the three sites are not in perfect alignment. From Bookan, the line kinks roughly 9 degrees left at Brodgar to meet the Stenness circle.
Next, we’ll look at some other possible alignment sites in different locations around the world.
We begin our brief look at Orion-related sites with three sites in different parts of the globe, each separated by at least 1200 miles, if not more. This shows the spread of the ‘phenomenon’, known as the ‘Orion Correlation Theory‘.
Giza, Egypt
The three great pyramids on the Giza Plateau bear a close similarity to the alignment of the three belt stars, and an air shaft inside the Great Pyramid is said to point directly toward Alnitak at the time of the pyramid’s construction. The shafts are believed to be there to project the dead Pharaoh’s soul toward notable stars.
While this theory remains just a theory, the correspondence between the stars and the pyramids is quite remarkable.
The pyramidal alignment at Giza is oriented NE-SW at approximately 216 degrees for just over half a mile, with a roughly 14 degree ‘kink’ to the left.
Teotihuacán, Mexico
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a similar correspondence has been identified in the ruins of the ancient city of Teotihuacán, some 35 miles NE of Mexico City. Two large pyramids and a temple, believed to have been built in the 2nd century, mimic the three stars of Orion’s Belt. The construction of the ancient city has been attributed to a race of giants, the Quinametzin Giants, who were believed to have populated the world in an earlier era. The Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán is exactly half as tall as the Great Pyramid at Giza.
There is also a link to the Maya culture and calendar at Teotihuacán, which is perceived to be the place where a god placed the three stones of creation and that the three pyramids are symbolic of these three stones. The Pyramid of the Sun faces the sunset on an auspicious date in the Mayan calendar. Many other such connections can be made at Teotihuacán, and a Google search will reveal many of the New Age sites that detail these connections, such as those proposed by authors such as Graham Hancock.
Oriented NE-SW at 186 degrees for around 1.25 miles, at this site, the ‘kink’ is to the right, at approximately 15 degrees.
Xi’an, China
A large complex of some 16 pyramids outside the city of Xi’an, famed for the ‘Terracotta Warrior’ tomb, includes 3 pyramids (or trapezoidal burial mounds) which are placed in a line similar to that of Orion’s Belt, and some researchers have equated this site to be another displaying the Orion Correlation.
A good account of these Chinese pyramids can be read here.
Tomorrow, we’ll list some of the sites a bit closer to home…
All this week, we’ll be looking at something a little different for the Heritage Journal as we dabble into the worlds of archaeo-astronomy, what some would call ‘bad (or false) archaeology’, and some downright odd alien conspiracy theories! Please bear with us…
The constellation of Orion is one of the most prominent and recognisable constellations in the night sky. Its location on the celestial equator allows it to be seen all over the planet.
As such, it may well have been of importance to many ancient cultures as alignment with the position of the stars is said to be marked/mirrored by many ancient monuments.
The most outstanding feature of the constellation is the three stars of “Orion’s Belt”. From left to right these are:
- Alnitak
- a triple star system that is situated in the eastern end of Orion’s belt. The star is 1.260 light-years away from Earth.
- Alnilam
- a supergiant at around 2.000 light-years away from Earth, located in the middle of the belt.
- Mintaka
- a multiple star system at around 1.200 light-years away from Earth. It is 190.000 times more luminous than the Sun. It is located at the western end of Orion’s belt.
Throughout this week we’ll be taking a brief look at some of the ancient sites with connections to Orion to see if there is any ‘ground truth’ in the stories. Stay tuned…
The Madron Church Inscribed Stone is probably the most beautifully decorated of all the Cornish inscribed stones.
Dated to the first third of the 7th century, the inscription is within a divided cartouche, and unique in that it begins with the Latin word ‘vir’. Literally “man”, it probably means “my man” or “my husband”, maybe indicating that the stone was commissioned by the widow.
The man is Conmael (cuno-maglo-s, “princely hound”, and represented on the stone as QONFAL), son of Uennorcit (uenn-orgit, “fair slayer”). Full details of the carving can be found in the CISP database.
The leaf-armed cross at the head of the stone suggests that Conmael may have been an early priest of the Celtic Church at the site, and the stone originally stood in the oval ‘lann’, or church enclosure, of the period, the outline of which can still be traced.
by the late Craig Weatherhill, via Myghal Map Serpren. Tom Goskar’s 3D model of the stone can be seen below.
This beautiful old cross stands inside St Dennis churchyard in Cornwall.
The cross is found beside the main path, approached from the southern entrance through large double wrought iron gates, to the south porch of the church. The cross has a decorated wheel-head and shaft set into a circular base.
The base measures three feet in diameter and a foot high, and the cross stands to six feet six inches high overall. All four sides of the shaft are highly ornamented, and the head is a more unusual horseshoe shape.
It was recorded by Langdon in 1896 as an ornamented Celtic cross:
St Dennis church stands within an ancient dynas (dinas) fort on a prominent hilltop south of the A30 and Goss Moor. The village of St Dennis, home to many workers in the local industry – china clay – covers the hillside below it to the south and east. Due north is Castle-an-Dinas, well-marked from the A30, and sited about the same distance north from that trunk road as St Dennis dinas is south of it.
According to the late Craig Weatherhill, a recognised expert in Cornish toponymy:
“St Dennis church named not after the saint, but the ‘dynas’, the Cornish word for fort, stands in the centre of this site, the name of which might have been ‘Din Milioc’ meaning ‘Milioc’s Fort’ and recorded in 1284. This strikingly conical hill was formerly surmounted by two Iron Age ramparts defending an area 113m in diameter. The line of the inner bank, which may have been stone-built, is followed by the churchyard wall. Only faint traces of the outer rampart can be seen, on the north and east sides, about 18m beyond the churchyard wall.”
“The nearby place name Domellick suggests that the St Dennis hill fort was the Castle Dameliock defended by Duke Gorlois of Cornwall against Uther Pendragon’s force the night Arthur was conceived at Tintagel, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth 12th century account.”
The Genuki.org.uk website states:
“It is named after St Denys the Martyr, although as the church is on a hill top, the name may be a corruption of the Cornish word Dinas, meaning ‘Hill Fort’. Dimilioc represents a smaller hillfort inland 20 miles south of Tintagel now occupied by the parish church of St Dennis – it is within an estate listed as Dimelihoc in the Domesday Book of 1086. In the reign of Henry VIII, St Denys was the only parish in Cornwall with the prefix ‘Saint’.”
With thanks to Myghal Map Serpren for the above account.
By Nigel Swift
The point of banging a drum is that it needs to be a repetitive process. One drum that I’ve been banging for many years is yet to be heard, as was illustrated yet again this week by a detectorist. Asked what a farmer should be told he says:
Yet metal detecting is only tolerated in Britain on the basis that it is “responsible”, i.e. finds will be reported. Anything else is unacceptable and damaging. Why won’t PAS tell farmers so?
.
__________________________________________
More Heritage Journal views on artefact collecting
__________________________________________
All things being equal and Covid mutations allowing, the Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN) will once again be holding their popular Pathways To The Past event over the late May Bank Holiday weekend (28-29 May 2022).
The event consists of a series of walks and talks over the two days. All events are free to CASPN members. The walks are restricted to members, and have to be booked in advance, but talks are open to non-members, for whom an entry charge of £5 is applicable.
We’ll be detailing the individual walks and talks planned for this year in a future post, so keep watching this space!
In addition to Pathways To The Past, CASPN hold regular monthly clean-up events at various sites, and are always looking for more volunteer Site Monitors to keep a regular eye on a selection of the many sites in the Penwith area.
Details of how to join CASPN and get involved in their activities throughout the year are available on their website.
The Heritage Journal 
You must be logged in to post a comment.