We have to concede that the society that existed at the building of the Megalithic structures in the British Isles does seem too primitive to have developed a precise system of measurement. The lives of these people must have been difficult, involving a permanent struggle to produce food and keep warm. So little is known about the inhabitants of these islands in these truly ancient times that they are remembered by the style of the pottery they left behind. Some earlier groups are now known as the Grooved Ware people and Unstan Ware people, with later representatives of the Megalithic culture designated the Beaker Folk. All these terms refer to specific designs or shapes of vessels created by the cultures or subcultures in question and archaeological finds are often dated with reference to pottery shards.
The main upsurge in building began around the middle of the fourth millennium BC when the climate of the British Isles was warmer and wetter than it is today and with a slightly longer growing season. It is known that inhabitants of the region cultivated wheat and barley because impressions of these cereals have been found on pottery fragments. Such printings are evident in examples from across much of Europe and Asia and the cereal grains may be been deliberately used to add patterns to prehistoric pottery. We were to discover that grain seeds, and those of barley especially, had a practical as well as a ritual significance to our ancient ancestors.
These early farmers ploughed the ground with animal bones and planted seeds using a simple kind of mattock or hoe before harvesting their crops with flint sickles and using flat querns (grinding stones) to grind the grain. Experts believe that it must have been a very wasteful process by any later standards. The Grooved Ware people knew nothing of crop rotation and when the ground was exhausted, the farmers moved on, clearing the next patch of woodland with stone axes and burning off the remaining scrub.
Hunted species included deer and wild cattle and available marine resources comprised freshwater and sea fish, especially shellfish including oysters, winkles, cockles, crabs, and razor-shells. Besides planted crops, wild plant resources, including fruits, roots, hazelnuts and acorns were gathered, and rope was manufactured from fibrous plants such as heather, which was twisted. Husbanded livestock included sheep, cows, goats, pigs and dogs, which are believed to have been introduced from mainland Europe between 4200–3500 BC. The evidence from all the settlement sites suggests that sheep or goats and cattle were kept in approximately equal proportions but pigs were relatively rare.
Movement across the countryside for these first British farmers was difficult due to thick forest cover and marshes and, significantly, because the wheel was unknown in western Europe at this time. Heavy loads were moved using land sledges and rafts. Water must have provided the best means of transport and experts have suggested that small animal-skin boats rather like the Inuit whaling umiak or the Irish curragh were used.
Stone tools made from flint, chert beach pebbles and rum bloodstone were used and polished stone axe heads were manufactured in Ireland from around 4000 BC, before spreading to the rest of the British Isles. The dwellings excavated from the period are rectilinear timber structures with stone bases and turf roofs, typically about 6 x 6 metres, although they were sometimes much larger.
The lives these people led were basic but it is almost certain that amongst them existed a class that was different from the norm. Its existence was made possible because of surplus food production and specialization of crafts and trades. These people, thinkers and proto-engineers, doubtless supervised the building of the impressive Megalithic structures that Alexander Thom could understand thousands of years later. As hunter-gatherers, the whole community would have been involved in the daily struggle to find food and make new homes as they moved from place to place. With the advent of farming, the culture could afford to create the considerable support structure needed to cut deep henges (circular ditches), sometimes out of solid rock and to construct giant structures like Newgrange in Ireland. By this stage, many people must have been permanently involved with building and these individuals had to be fed, clothed and housed by the efforts of others. The nature of the finished sites clearly demonstrates that an elite had emerged which represented the architects, the scientists, the thinkers and, no doubt, the poets. These were the ‘magi’ – the astronomer-priests who had responsibility for designing and building the Megalithic sites that Professor Thom studied so closely.
It also appears that there might have been a national network of Megalithic observatories with different ones being used for varying astronomical purposes dependent on the location of each. Had these structures been made to satisfy purely local or religious needs, one would expect to see less commonality in the style and layout than is evident across a very extensive area.
One archaeological site found at Skara Brae in Orkney is particularly interesting because it may well have been a Megalithic ‘university’ for training astronomer-priests. Radiocarbon dating has shown that it was occupied between approximately 3215–2655 BC when it provided a series of linked rooms, each with matching stone-built furniture including dressers, beds, cooking areas and sealed stone water tubs for washing. Archaeologists have identified that secrecy, security and plumbing are also apparent at the site. A secret hidey-hole has been found under the stone dresser and a hole for a locking bar was located on both sides of doors. In addition, a lavatory drain designed to run excrement along wooden piping and into the sea has also been excavated. Curiously, the house designated by archaeologists as ‘number seven’ was isolated and its door was barred from the outside suggesting that it was designed to house an occupant being kept against their will.
The archaeologist Euan Mackie first put forward the idea that Skara Brae had been a kind of prehistoric college when he noticed that the remains of the sheep and cows eaten there had far too few skulls for the number of carcasses. He concluded that pre-butchered meat had been imported to the island, along with the firewood required to cook it.1 Because the island had nothing to trade, the only reasonable answer to this archaeological puzzle is that the inhabitants had been an elite group who where supported by the goodwill of a broader community at a distance.
Skara Brae also revealed some artefacts that have proved impossible to understand. Small stone objects that have been exquisitely carved include two balls: one 6.2 centimetres and the other 7.7 centimetres in diameter. Their purpose is unknown and the deep decoration appears to be impossible to create without metal tools as engineer James Macauley discovered when he attempted to reproduce them using the known technology of the time.
If we had begun our quest by creating intellectual boundaries relating to what was and was not feasible for this culture to achieve, we would never have found the solution to the Megalithic Yard. However, we had been very impressed with the unit, the method for proving it and also its wide distribution, which indicated common values and perhaps religious beliefs. With this in mind Chris took another speculative step forward and began to construct a theoretical weight and capacity system to accompany that of time, distance and geometry that we had already established. He started at the point in history at which many more modern cultures appear to have started when creating such units; by making a cube and filling it with water. Chris knew that those creating the metric system had opted for a length of one tenth of a metre, which they cubed. The volume of water in such a 10 x 10 x 10 centimetre cube was designated a litre, and the weight of such a body of water was named a kilogram.
In our case, the linear units would have to be in Megalithic Inches, which Thom identified as being one fortieth of a Megalithic Yard, equal to 2.07415 centimetres. Taking his lead from the metric system Chris first considered a cube with sides of a tenth of a Megalithic Yard – i.e. four Megalithic Inches (MI). In metric terms this turned out to have a capacity of a little over half a litre, at 571.08 cubic centimetres.
As he performed the simple sum on his calculator Chris thought he recognized the number produced and he quickly converted it into imperial units (the standard measuring system still used in Britain). His brow furrowed and he repeated the calculation twice more to confirm his result. Something very odd was happening because the theoretical Megalithic unit of capacity was equal to 1.005 pints – far closer to one perfect British pint than any pub landlord achieves when pulling a glass of draught ale! Of course, this had to be a coincidence, but it was a really surprising one nonetheless. Next, he doubled the length of the side of the cube to 8 MI and the shock of the first coincidence was compounded because this calculation produced a capacity of one imperial gallon to the same incredible level of accuracy. A doubling again produced a unit equivalent to an obsolete bushel, which was used as a dry weight until as recently as the 1970s.
As Chris stopped to think about the calculations he realized that the gallon would have to fit the same way as the pint because there are eight pints to a gallon and a doubling of the side of a cube will create a capacity eight times larger. But this fact did not detract from the oddity because the imperial system is not known to be based on cubes. These results were odd in the extreme and all logic said that they had to be a coincidence. We had already learned not to dismiss any information simply because it does not fit our own preconceptions. So, instead of tossing the calculation in his office bin Chris picked up the phone and told Alan about the strange correspondence.
‘What?’Alan responded. ‘That’s crazy!’
‘I’m not saying there is a connection – it has to be a coincidence because the pint and the gallon as we know them today are medieval units at best, and they have probably been restandardized several times,’ Chris explained.
But he went on to suggest that we could not simply ignore the results, just because they seemed ridiculous. We should not rule out the possibility that there was some sort of oddball connection between the Megalithic Yard and the imperial measurements, and added, ‘Though I have no idea what it might be.’
We quickly established that the pint and the gallon had had a variety of values before the standardization of imperial units in the various British Weights and Measures Acts of the 19th century, so the correspondence with the Megalithic cube might not be meaningful. However, we looked at examples of the pint from earlier periods and found only small variations. One that was almost the same as the imperial pint dated from the reign of Henry VII (1485–1509) and checking this against the 4 Megalithic Inch cube showed that it was even closer than the modern pint. It was almost a perfect match, with a deviation of less than 1 part in 1,000. Closer still was the standard pint identified for the Exchequer of the British government in the year 1601 because it had an amazing correspondence with the 4 Megalithic Inch – being out by less than 1 part in 5,000. To all intents and purposes this Elizabethan pint and the volume of the Megalithic cube are the same thing.
The pint had turned out to be much older than we imagined and early examples show an almost incredible correspondence to our Megalithic cube. What it meant we didn’t know, but we agreed to accept the volumetric findings without judgement and continued to look at the subject in greater depth.
The next day Chris rang Alan again with some important news.
‘You know we agreed to look at this area of theoretical Megalithic volumes without self-imposed boundaries, don’t you?’
Alan had learned to anticipate Chris’s puzzlement or excitement.
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘So what have you found now?’
‘Well, I thought for thoroughness I ought to consider the volumes of spheres with Megalithic dimensions in addition to the cubes. This sounds really crazy, and I want you to check this out, but I think we have a problem.’
‘What sort of problem?’ Alan wanted to know.
‘The problem of explaining the apparently impossible,’ said Chris. ‘I started by checking out spheres with diameters of 5, 10 and 20 Megalithic Inches and they also produce volumes that are quite close to the pint, one gallon and the bushel. The accuracy level isn’t quite as good as the cubes because the 5 MI sphere held 1.027 pints, which is still as close as anyone in the real world would ever need. But a quick check of the rules that govern the relationship between cubes and spheres revealed that to an accuracy of 99.256 per cent a cube with a side of 4 units will have the same volume as a sphere with a diameter of 5 units, which made the findings odd but mathematically understandable.’
Alan was intrigued but puzzled.
‘If there is no mystery about the pint sphere, why did you say you had to explain the impossible?’ he asked.
‘What I’ve told you so far is the easy part of this conversation, because my next test took me from the rather weird to the downright ridiculous. What do you think that a 6 MI and a 60 MI diameter sphere would hold in terms of weight of water?’
‘I can’t guess. What do they hold?’ Alan asked, with not a little impatience.
‘Well, the 6 MI sphere holds a litre and weighs a kilo, so the 60 MI sphere, 10 x 10 x 10 times as much, holds a cubic metre and weighs a metric tonne. And it’s incredibly accurate too.’
Alan laughed aloud down the phone.
‘Ha ha, very funny...’ He paused. ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’
‘No. You check it out, Alan. The numbers don’t lie. The fit is better than 99 per cent accurate and when I tested the same principles using modern inches and centimetres for the spheres, there were no meaningful results at all. Something truly weird is going on here.’
Alan ran through the calculations during the conversation and agreed that they were correct. The fact that units of Megalithic linear measurement so accurately produce modern imperial measures of capacity when cubed was a fascinating coincidence, but the spheres were something else altogether. For it to be a further massive coincidence seemed almost impossible, yet for there to be a connection seemed even more unlikely.
The possibility of a random event in this case seemed minute because the formula for finding the volume of a sphere (see Appendix 2) involves the concept of pi (π), which is the relationship between the diameter and circumference of a circle. Pi is an irrational number (that is, one that cannot be expressed as a whole fraction) equal to 3.14159265359…, but the numbers after the decimal point apparently go on forever in a seemingly random stream of digits. This makes it very odd indeed that there could be a correspondence between the metric system and spheres that have Megalithic dimensions, not least because the metric system was not developed until the end of the 18th century!
At this point, we had two options: either to forget the whole matter as some bizarre chance event, or to continue investigating the whole area without passing judgement. We chose the latter course, managing to convince each other that the results might make sense with more evidence and the passage of time.
Alan started to wonder what substances the Megalithic people might have wanted to weigh if they had devised a system of weights and measures. He knew that it was within the bounds of the available technology of these people to create a square vessel to form a cube because sealed water containers had been found at Skara Brae. Having manufactured his own 4 x 4 x 4 MI cube the obvious first thought was grain, specifically barley and wheat. He managed to get hold of some seeds of ancient strains and began to conduct practical experiments with his ‘Megalithic pint cube’. He quickly discovered that all grains, whether barley, wheat or unpolished rice, behave in a very predictable way when poured into a cube container. The pointed, ellipsoid shape of the seeds causes them to occupy a volume that is 125 per cent that of the same weight of water, bearing in mind that the relative densities of water and seed are different. Alan filled his pint cube with barley grains as carefully as possible and then tipped them out onto the pan of a pair of scales to weigh the result. The barley grains weighed exactly one imperial pound!
Further experiments with an 8 x 8 x 8 MI cube filled with barley confirmed that it weighed 8 pounds and the 16 x 16 x 16 weighed 1 bushel – a known dry weight of 64 pounds.
This was truly incredible. A pint of water and a pound of grain both appeared to be derived from a cube with sides one tenth of a Megalithic Yard long.
Like everyone in our society, we have been taught that the pound and the pint are old units. However, nobody suggests these are ‘ancient’ units of measure, and we were also aware that standardization to precise current values of both the pound and the pint is a relatively recent event. Yet, if we put aside our own prejudices and looked at the evidence as an objective outsider might, we could see the conclusion staring us in the face. Stretching credibility, we could imagine what might have happened in Neolithic Britain.
At some point in the distant past when trade was developing, someone had created a system of weights and measures using the Megalithic Yard and Megalithic Inches as a starting point. Taking a length of one tenth of a Megalithic Yard as the internal dimension they carefully cut five thin pieces of slate and sealed the joints with fine clay. This innovator had then filled the cube with water until the meniscus was bowing at the rim. Next they poured off the water into a clay beaker and marked the water line on the inside to create a standard unit of liquid that just happens to be the same as an imperial pint. A further procedure was to fill the same cube with grain, gently patting the top to ensure that it was as level as possible within the cube. Our imaginary scientist then poured the grain onto a simple balance and chipped shavings from a stone on the opposite side until the scales were in equilibrium. This stone was thereafter a standard unit of weight that, once again, just happens to be the same as an imperial unit – the modern pound. This hypothetical early trader thus could have created accurate and repeatable units of liquid measure and dry weight simply by watching the motion of Venus crossing the heavens. What a magical thought!
If the pound and the pint were really Megalithic, the parallels between the Megalithic and the metric systems were quite astonishing. Both basic linear units were based on a subdivision of the polar circumference of the Earth, and both units of weight and capacity were defined by a cube with sides one tenth of the linear unit.
The pound and the pint could be recreated anywhere by anyone with the necessary knowledge to watch Venus travel across one 366th part of the sky and swing their pendulum the required number of times. By any reasonable definition these were divine units taken straight from heaven. There was no magic in this, just science, and what is more, science as pure and perfect as it would ever be need to be to create a springboard for civilization.
Now, we asked ourselves again, is all this perfection just chance? Any normal academic would have run away from these findings long before they had reached this point, in fear of so much ridicule from peers that it could spell the effective end of a career. But we are not constrained by such pressures and we had arrived at a point at which it would have been unreasonable to reject the thesis that had unfolded in front of us.
We now felt that we had almost accidentally opened an ancient door that was letting in some brilliant light. Despite the fact that we could not begin to think of a mechanism that could connect the Megalithic builders with modern units such as the pound and pint, and the kilogram and litre, we felt sure that there was something very special happening here.
The modern pound is correctly called the ‘avoirdupois pound’. It is believed to have been first introduced by the counts of Champagne for use at the fairs in 12th-century France. The meaning of the word ‘avoirdupois’ is somewhat obscure but it could relate to Old French and simply mean ‘objects of weight’. For more than 150 years, approximately 1140–1320, the fairs of Champagne constituted the international centre of European commerce, credit and currency exchange. Champagne was an agriculturally-rich region north and east of Paris, with a large and affluent population. The principal fairs were held in four cities in the southwest of the province: Lagny, Provins, Troyes, and Bar-sur-Aube.
The fairs were mostly wholesale operations with merchants buying and selling among themselves, rather than selling in a retail sense. They are further distinguished from normal markets by their great duration and by their infrequency. These great fairs lasted five weeks or more, and only the city of Troyes had more than one in a year. Many of the products traded were agricultural in nature and the term ‘avoirdupois’ is thought by some to have indicated anything sold by weight, such as spices, metals and dyes.
Where the counts of Champagne obtained their avoirdupois pound is not known and we agreed to return to this issue when we had gathered more information. Chris decided to look more closely at all modern measurements to see if there were any other notable correlations with Megalithic units. The imperial system is said to have evolved from disparate units from the past, involving body parts such as palmwidths, feet and outstretched arms. The standard imperial units of length still in use, or used in very recent times, form the following table:
12 inches |
= 1 foot |
3 feet |
= 1 yard |
5½ yards |
= 1 rod |
4 rods |
= 1 chain |
10 chains |
= 1 furlong |
8 furlongs |
= 1 mile |
As Chris looked at this now almost redundant list for the first time since he left primary school, he felt that the sequence appeared chaotic and that the rod stood out as being particularly odd at 5½ yards or 16½ feet. While the other units were neat integer numbers, the rod gave the impression of being alien – as though it had come from somewhere else. As he considered the rod (also known as a pole or a perch) he noticed that it was very close to six Megalithic Yards. In fact the rod is 6 Megalithic Yards to an accuracy of 99 per cent. Could it be, Chris wondered, that the rod was an ancient Megalithic unit? For thoroughness, he tried the rod as a potential metric unit and the surprises continued because it was 5 metres – to an accuracy greater than 99.5 per cent. Both of these could easily be a coincidence but the question that sprang to mind was, ‘Had the rod once been an ancient unit that was tidied up to equal 16.5 feet at some point in the relatively recent past?’ He could see a hypothetical underlying Megalithic pattern that would make a lot more sense:
40 Megalithic |
= 1 Megalithic Yard |
Inches |
|
6 Megalithic |
= 1 Megalithic Rod |
Yards |
|
4 rods |
= 1 chain |
10 chains |
= 1 furlong (40 rods = 1 furlong) |
8 furlongs |
= 1 mile (320 rods = 1 mile) |
A sequence of 40 – 6 – 4 – 10 – 8 looked far more logical than the standard explanation and it required only a tiny adjustment to the modern definition of the rod to achieve it. This was highly speculative thinking but it was producing some very interesting results. Next Chris tried introducing his theoretical Megalithic Rod into the metric system:
10 millimetres |
= 1 centimetre |
100 centimetres |
= 1 metre |
5 metres |
= 1 rod |
200 rods |
= 1 kilometre |
The hypothetical Megalithic Rod was amazingly accurate in its fit and entirely logical. Nevertheless, we had to remind ourselves that its relationship with the metre could not be real because the metric system was not invented until the closing years of the 18th century. Or so we thought at the time!
The results suggested that the mile and the kilometre could both be units that developed from the hypothetical Megalithic Rod:
1 mile |
= 1920 MY |
= 320 Megalithic Rods |
1 kilometre |
= 1200 MY |
= 200 Megalithic Rods |
So both the modern mile and the kilometre are related to each other by the use of the Megalithic Yard and an assumed Megalithic Rod. (Not to be confused with the length that Alexander Thom called a Megalithic Rod. Alexander Thom had identified a unit of 2.5 Megalithic Yards, used on many of the sites he surveyed. He had christened this the Megalithic Rod.) According to standard conversions there are 1.6093 kilometres to a mile and this Megalithic approach gives a relationship between the two that is almost perfect.
Next Chris considered the imperial unit of area – the acre, which is defined as 4,840 square yards. He quickly found that it made a great deal more sense when viewed in Megalithic terms because it represents 5,760 square Megalithic Yards which is a very logical 4 x 40 Megalithic Rods. It can also be expressed as 360 packets of land each 4 x 4 MY.
Looking into now obsolete imperial units Chris also discovered that until recently there was something known as a ‘square rod’ which is defined as being a rather oddball 30¼ square yards. The Megalithic Rod once again made sense of it because it was an exact 36 square Megalithic Yards.
Suddenly the imperial method was looking like a specially designed system based on the Megalithic Yard, not the inch, foot and yard. He looked closer at metric units of area and the same patterns emerged. The hectare is made up of 10,000 square metres or 100 ares, each being 10 x 10 metres. In Megalithic terms these could be seen as:
1 are |
= 2 x 2 Megalithic Rods (12 x 12 MY) |
1 hectare |
= 100 units of 2 x 2 Megalithic Rods |
1 hectare |
= 1 kilometre x 2 Megalithic Rods |
Studying other obsolete units proved to be very interesting. The old Irish acre of 7,840 square yards is a strange measure of land that turns out to be 40 Megalithic Yards x 40 Megalithic Rods to an accuracy greater that 99 per cent. Next, the old Scottish acre of 6,150.4 square yards appeared particularly bizarre until Chris considered it in Megalithic terms and found that it is actually 75 Megalithic Yards x 100 Megalithic Yards to an accuracy greater than 99.6 per cent.
Was the Megalithic Yard really the underlying key to a lost reality behind the modern measurement systems – both imperial and metric? We got together to digest this new information and asked ourselves whether there was a possibility we were beginning to see patterns that were not really there. The next procedure was to assess whether the relationships we had found using the assumed Megalithic Rod were really as remarkable as they seemed. The starting point had been to consider whether the rod of 16½ feet (198 inches) had originally been defined as six Megalithic Yards. We then noticed that the metre also fits into the pattern. We looked again at all three potential versions of the rod in metric terms:
imperial rod |
= 16½ feet |
= 5,029 millimetres |
metric rod |
= 5 metres |
= 5,000 millimetres |
Megalithic Rod |
= 6 Megalithic |
= 4,978 millimetres Yards |
They were close – very close – but any observer could be forgiven for dismissing them as a coincidental fit. The way that the assumed Rod made sense of so many old units such as the Irish and Scottish acres was enough to stop us throwing away the notion. But for the moment, we could only view these observations as being of potential interest if future findings were to lend them further support. If not, even at this stage we were quite prepared to dismiss the whole idea.
We remained somewhat sceptical about the validity of the Megalithic Rod but we now had no doubts regarding the Megalithic weights and measures we had recreated. Perhaps the best way forward would be to look at another, better-understood culture, to ascertain whether Megalithic techniques were being used elsewhere in the world, either at the same time as the western European farmers, or more recently.
A cube with sides of one-tenth of a Megalithic Yard holds one imperial pint of water and one imperial pound of grain to a very high level of accuracy. Doubling the length of the sides produces a capacity of one imperial gallon and doubling again produces a weight of one dry bushel. Spheres with diameters of six Megalithic Inches hold a litre and weigh a kilo, while a sphere that measures one and a half Megalithic Yards across holds one cubic metre of water and weighs a metric tonne. It seems, at first view, that the imperial and metric correspondence must be coincidence because both systems are relatively recent conventions. Investigation into the old unit of length known as the rod shows that it is extremely close to being equal to 5 metres and 6 Megalithic Yards. As such it appears to unite the two systems across all units of length and area, even making sense of peculiar, obsolete units such as the Irish and Scottish areas. The mathematics are easy to check and the pattern that emerges is powerful and simple yet, according to standard histories, it should not exist. All of this may be a coincidence of an unbelievably huge kind but we were not prepared to make that assumption at that stage.1 Mackie, E.: The Megalithic Builders. Phaidon Press, London, 1977.