Pegs and Ropes: Geometry at Stonehenge
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- University of Oxford, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, UK
- Universite Blaise Pascal, Physics, Aubiere, France
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- Manuscript
- Date:
- Received 04 August 2008 19:04 UTC; Posted 05 August 2008
- Subjects:
- Earth & Environment
- Abstract:
A recent computer-aided-design investigation of the Neolithic 56 Aubrey Hole circuit at Stonehenge has led to the discovery of an astonishingly simple geometrical construction for drawing an approximately regular 56-sided polygon, feasible with a compass and straightedge. In the present work, we prove analytically that the aforementioned construction yields as a byproduct, an extremely accurate method for approximating a regular heptagon, and we quantify the accuracy that prehistoric surveyors may have ideally attained using simple pegs and ropes. We compare this method with previous approximations, and argue that it is likely to be at the same time the simplest and most accurate. Implications of our findings are discussed.
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- This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
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Johnson, Anthony and Pimpinelli, Alberto. Pegs and Ropes: Geometry at Stonehenge. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2008.2153.1> (2008)
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Michael McDonald on 02 March 2010 12:33 UTC
Your investigations of the 56 Aubrey holes is very interesting, and would show a considerable intellect on the behalf of the Stonehenge designers, unless of course it was planned by small scale trial and error modelling on a chalk tablet and then scaled up.
The thing that interests me also are the 30 Z and 30 Y holes. Whatever the Aubrey holes and the large “temple” stones were used for, there would be a need for timing events or counting down from one event to another. I think that the timing was done using the Z and Y holes by using a person to move at a steady pace around one of these circles to count out minutes and possibly seconds, and to log the hours. i.e. they are a clock. I do not know if this has been postulated before, if so I shall keep quiet!