Bronze-Age Measurement of ­Ancestral Real Estate (Part Two of a Series on Sacred Geometry in the Economics and Law of Real Estate)

Gerard J. Senick, General Editor Julie G. Sase, Copyeditor/Researcher William A. Gross, Researcher "They discuss and teach youths about the heavenly bodies and their motions, the dimensions of the world and of countries, natural science, and the powers of the immortal gods." - Julius Caesar, Commenting on the British Druids during the Bronze Age ­("Writings on Druids," Religious Tolerance, www.religioustolerance.org) ----- A Matter of Weights and Measures Throughout the world, Real Estate Law requires precise and comprehensible measures of all of the areas of our planet. As we have seen from many of the events of 2022 thus far, the accurate measure of national boundaries is of paramount importance on the world stage. With respect to ownership rights, real (aka royal) estate remains vital in a world of many natural and human-made borders. Throughout history, many systems have been applied in the quest for greater accuracy in assigning these rights and continue to be used across Planet Earth. Throughout recorded millennia, more than 250,000 different measurement systems have appeared. Though the results of these systems occasionally conflict with one another, most of those in favor today remain convertible with each other without great difficulty. King John of England signed the Magna Carta ("Great Charter of Freedoms") in 1215 AD. Since then, this document has defined both the laws and the rights of the English people. When the Charter was signed, the British still preferred to use three different ancient standards of measurement. These old but coherent standards have remained reproducible alongside the Metric System of recent times. During the Sixteenth Century, Queen Elizabeth I created the British Imperial System, which used at least one of these ancient systems to develop standards of length and volume and another to establish standards of weight. As the measurement of a pint equating to a pound, which had existed for more than 5,000 years, gave way to the birth of new measurement systems, the old British Naval slogan of "a pint is a pound the world around" no longer held true. Meanwhile, the British Government adapted other lengths and volumes of measure from the Ancient Sumerian Lunar Standard of Lagash to form the British Imperial Standard. Nevertheless, the English continued to use the "Wool Pound" (literally, a pound of sheep's wool), which dates back through the Etruscans to Sumeria, as the preferred standard of weight. At one point, a Sumerian Standard of measurement may have travelled to Ancient Britain, Early Japan, and the Americas four or more millennia ago. The Metric System was established in 1795. Within the last few centuries, it has swept across the world and continues to serve as a dominant system of measurement. However, we cannot consider the British Imperial and the Metric Systems as truly "new" because many similar measurement systems have emerged throughout Planet Earth during the past 5,000 years. ----- Basic Real Estate Geometry During the Bronze Age, the conception of pyramids and related structures and their construction required a working knowledge and the use of the square, the triangle, the circle, and the five-sided pentangle. With respect to these measures of real estate, early Druidic activities in Britain raise a number of questions. In their book "The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth: Discovering the Sacred Geometry of the Ancients" (Adventures Unlimited Press, 2006), Robin Heath and John Michel pose the following sets of questions: 1) How did prehistoric people establish locations and the distances between them with a high degree of accuracy? 2) These people needed rods, ropes, and related tools to maintain a standard of length. Where are the remains of these tools? 3) When did this agrarian tribal society, which presumably ate from crude pots, become motivated to measure angles or long lengths accurately, over often-rugged terrain? 4) More importantly, how did these ancient surveyors determined the size and shape of our planet? 5) How did they measure latitude, longitude, and other basic geometry over extended distances? ----- The Mediterranean World The queries from the preceding section help us to form important and relevant questions as we proceed on our quest of the curious alignments established during the early ages of humankind. Furthermore, how can such measures help us to solve the mysteries beneath these alignments? The epoch for discovering and unraveling the sciences of surveying and geodetics extends over the preceding millennia and into the present. With respect to the science of geography, we may reference Ancient Greek authors of the 4th to 6th Centuries BCE. Our more orthodox historical records credit Anaximander of Alexandria with the distinction of inventing maps, even though many maps that predate that era have emerged more recently. Within a century of Greek map-development, Thales of Miletus announced that Planet Earth is a sphere. However, modern thought tends to argue that the ancient Greeks reflected on philosophy rather than on facts acquired from the scientific observation of our Solar System or from experimentation. However, if their ancient evidence remains verifiable, Heath and Michel wonder in "The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth" why ancient measurements used to determine the size of the Earth appear astonishingly accurate in respect to modern measures. Some contemporary authors suggest that the Greeks derived their sources from either precise measurement or from earlier works known in Hinduism as Yuga, an approach generally used to indicate ages of extended periods of time. The Yuga progression of time appears to correspond with the Mayan Great Cycle, for which one full cycle of time extends approximately 25,920 solar years. Recent research suggests that our Solar System travels in the form of a sine wave above and below the Galactic Plane of what we commonly refer to as the Milky Way Galaxy. This repeating path follows the shape of the letter S turned on its side (i.e., a sine wave). Using the measure of 25,920 years, we proceed downward below the Galactic Plane for 6,480 years until we reach the bottom of the cycle. Then we move upward during the subsequent 6,480 years and cross the Galactic Plane. Presumably, we crossed the Galactic Plane in 2012 AD. Therefore, during these next 6,480 years, we travel to the peak of the cycle before moving back downward to cross the Galactic Plane again 6,480 years later. After that point, our cycle repeats itself while the rim of our galaxy rotates around our center, the Milky Way. Heath and Michel state the two basic axioms for understanding ancient measurement systems: 1) The ancients grouped units of length into "families" connected with one another by the means of whole-number ratios. These ratios are based upon a root measure for which the length always relates to the measure of an average human foot. 2) These "families" of units form a set of precise fractions for the three principal dimensions of the Earth, including a) the Polar Radius, which extends from the Center of the Earth to the North or South Pole; b) the Meridian Circumference, which circles the Earth as it passes through both of the Poles; and c) the (slightly bulged) Equatorial Circumference along the Equator, halfway between the two Poles. In respect to these axioms, we need to consider the work of Claudius Ptolemy, the Greco-Roman geographer of the Second Century CE. Ptolemy calculated a one-degree arc of the Earth as a measure that converts to 69.12 English Furlong Miles. His measurement remains the current value for one degree along the Meridian Circumference of 24,860 miles. (Our planet shape, caused by the flattening at the Poles, is called an oblate spheroid.) Furthermore, the First-Century Roman philosopher and geographer Pliny the Elder calculated the Polar Radius as a measure that converts exactly to 3,949.71 miles - a figure almost identical to our modern estimate of 3,950 miles. In elementary school, we learned (but perhaps forgot) that our Earth does not have the shape of a true sphere. Rather, our planet is an ellipsoid that bulges somewhat at the Equator. In his book "Ancient Metrology" (Pentacle Books, 1981), John Michel identifies the ancient measure of the Equatorial Circumference as being equal to 24,901 miles. This observation suggests that our ancient ancestors possessed the knowledge of this peculiarity. Furthermore, Heath and Michel demonstrate in "The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth" that Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman measurements all produce very precise determinations of this same circumference. The above information suggests that the great minds of more than two millennia not only understood the spherical nature of our Earth, but could measure its size accurately. In the 17th Century, the French astronomer Jean Picard measured the value of one degree of latitude by assessing the distance between Amiens and Malvoisine in France. In turn, English polymath Sir Isaac Newton employed the Egyptian Sacred Cubit (about 2.07 English feet) from the elbow to the middle fingertip to determine the radius of the Earth. At that time, these two scientists did the best measurement that they could with tools available. We must accept that the Earth is spherical in order to measure its latitude. Our task - with more advanced technology than that possessed by Picard and Newton - remains to measure the culmination angles of the stars (these being the highest points observed as we look due south) more accurately. Though currently we do not know what methods or instruments were used by ancient cultures, the locations of many sacred sites around the world suggest that the placement of these sites was more than accidental. During a BBC television interview in 1970, the Scottish engineer Dr. Alexander Thom supported this hypothesis. He noted that the builders of Stonehenge could split a "minute of arc" (as in degree, minutes, and seconds), stating, "That's better than what can be done in modern surveying." To measure the difference as North-South Longitude between any two points on the Earth requires two conditions: 1) Both observers must establish the same moment in time - synchronicity, and 2) They must make their observations of the sky at two different locations simultaneously. One simple technique that Bronze Age humans may have used relies upon the observation of the first moment of the Earth's shadow across a full Moon during a lunar eclipse. This moment varies by position of longitude in a manner that is measurable by the naked human eye. As with latitude, accurate measurement of angles remains necessary for calculating the difference between longitudes. [INSERT BABYLON TRIG] In our modern age, we know that the most accurate measurement of angles comes from the development of trigonometry. Heath and Michel point out that "some of the earliest cuneiform tablets from Babylonia demonstrate that the required trigonometry was established prior to 2,000 BCE. The ancients were well-nigh obsessed with the measurement of angles and research into geometry - a word which today is often taken to mean the creation and analysis of shapes, yet actually means 'measuring the world'; Geo-metry." Therefore, given a root measure (such as a foot or a cubit) of any number of ancient linear-measurement systems and, given the principal dimensions of the Earth, the resulting measures and dimensions serve to establish the relationship between any set of temples, pyramids, or mounds. Furthermore, these measures and dimensions establish the distances between these structures and the planetary location at which they have been placed. Heath and Michel describe the use of these measures and dimensions as "applied Sacred Geometry, a high consciousness meld of science, art, and magic." In other words, this is not a mere leisure activity. (See last month's episode in the Legal News for a discussion of Sacred Geometry.) Ancient cultures used some form of Sacred Geometry to help them to survive everyday life. Their basic geometry allowed them to track the movement of the Sun, the Moon, and the then-five visible planets against the night sky with great accuracy. In turn, they used their observations to calculate the time to plant, to gather, to hunt, and to fish. Furthermore, such knowledge of time, place, and changes allowed these ancients to monitor and to predict major changes in climate that might force them to migrate closer to the Equator. Finally, their command of Sacred Geometry provided them with a means to communicate with their deities. As a result, applied Sacred Geometry constitutes the tool that we will use to explore the curious alignments of the Earth and the mysteries that lie beyond them. From our study of ancient surveying and geodetics, we arrive at an understanding of the placement of various ancient temples, pyramids, and mounds around the world. For example, the Egyptians built the Pyramids of Giza at the latitude of virtually thirty degrees, north (29 degrees, 58 min 34 sec). [INSERT GIZA] This location marks a point that sits at one-third of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole while identifying the midpoint of the land masses on our planet. In addition, Thebes, the capital city of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and Avebury Henge in England both situate precisely at points that measure two-sevenths and four-sevenths of the distance from Equator to Pole respectively. For the early Egyptians, the Temple of Amun constituted the geodetic center from which all distances in the kingdom were measured. In England, the latitude band calculated as 360/7 passes through the middle of the Avebury Henge and its ruined stone circle-currently recognized as the largest in the world. [INSERT AVEBURY] ----- Takeaway Real Estate Law requires precise and comprehensible measures of all of the areas of our planet. Throughout history, many systems have been applied in the quest for greater accuracy in assigning ownership rights. Nevertheless, these measurement systems continue to vary across the Earth. Over many millennia, thousands of different measuring systems have appeared. The measures and methods that we use today germinated in the distant past. In this brief history, we have covered the big picture of these Real Estate tools. In our next episode, we will look at some alignments from antiquity, such as the specific interrelationships of ancient structures to the North Pole and six other locations that intersect along the 47th degree of longitude. We will explore the possible reasons and methods used for these alignments over an extended period of millennia. We will look at ancient settlements and structures throughout the world, including eight in the State of Michigan. We will apply this knowledge to our modern means of measuring Real Estate at large. In addition, we will address the local methods used today for certification in Real Estate Law in both urban and rural locations. Within this study, we will continue to connect to elements of the Michigan Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act 451 of 1994, Aboriginal-Records-and-Antiquities-and-Abandoned-Property and additional acts. Published: Wed, Mar 23, 2022