Evidence of the Gods (20 page)

Three, four, five, and six written in sequence read as 3456. This figure is present on the 21st monolith. 3456 divided by 21 gives 164.57. This, in turn, is the circumference of a circle with a diameter of 52.38 meters. So what? Why all the fooling about? The southern azimuth on the day of the summer solstice for the position of Gavrinis is precisely 52 degrees 38 minutes. Do I still need to mention that the passage grave is of course aligned with the solstitial point? Can things become any more confusing? Oh yes, they can. These coincidences are only the beginning. We only divided the number 3456 by 21 because it appears on the 21st monolith. The result was 164.57. That turned out to be a circle with a diameter of 52.38 meters. What happens when we divide the two numbers? Grab your calculator; it has to be 164.57 ÷ 52.38 = 3.14. The famous number pi.

Pure chance, the skeptics cry, and numbers can prove anything. They are right, but in the case of Gavrinis, chance is excluded. The engravings keep indicating, to anyone willing to see, how to proceed or which numbers to use for division.
Image 174
shows the “ax” and to its left indicates the number to be used for division. The number of monoliths and their position was also intentional:

a. The right side of the passage has 12 slabs.

b. The “burial chamber” has six slabs.

c. The left side of the passage has 11 slabs.

The two numbers in a + b fit into the pattern, because adding them gives 18 and that is the number of “axes” engraved on the 21st monolith. But what about the monoliths on the left side of the passage? The number 11 does not fit into a series of six in any way.

One moment, please! The recurring basic figure was 3456. Divide this number by 11, because of the 11 monoliths on the left side. The result once again is the pi number 314.18. If we place a point between 3456 and divide 34.56 by 11, we can of course only get the result 3.14.

And it keeps going on like that. Gwenc’hlan Le Scouëzec has demonstrated it beyond dispute in his comprehensive work
Bretagne Megalithique
. Gavrinis turns out to be a treasure trove of numbers, in which three different, mutually independent calculation systems are integrated which can, however, be combined: a senary system with its multiples, a decimal system, and a base 52 system with the sub-magnitude 26. (The Mayan calendar is based on the base 52 system.) The senders of the numerical message of Gavrinis thought of everything. No matter in which calculation system future generations would be working, they could not avoid stumbling on the solution, whatever the case. The Pythagorean theorems are also integrated into the mass of data of Gavrinis—long before Pythagoras!—as well as the number for the synodic lunar orbit (down to the decimal point!), the spherical shape of the earth together with its diameter, as well as the length of the earth year at 365.25 days.

Gwenc’hlan Le Scouëzec, who cracked the mathematical code of Gavrinis, concluded his considerable achievement with the words: “It is quite possible that in the many calculations some are less certain than others which are truly of key significance. On the other hand, there are too many coincidences for the key common features to have arisen by chance.”
²

All just gimmickry and random chance? Before I add examples from the Stone Age, which have nothing to do with number games but only with astronomy, I wish to make the point that the passage grave of Gavrinis was created fully intentionally for recipients in the far distant future. First the Stone Agers leveled the site, then they carted thousands of stones there, cut the monoliths for the floor and ceiling slabs to size, and chiseled the engravings
before construction
. Once the work was done, they covered the artificial hill with sand and earth, so that grass and bushes would grow on it. The megaliths prevented the interior from being damaged. In the far distant future, human beings would notice that the hill did not fit into the landscape. We
have
noticed. The message has arrived.

The next example has nothing to do with numbers but with the relationship between the earth and the sun.

For the last 5,165 years—calculated backward from 2012—to the present day, the same miracle has taken place in Ireland each year. It happens once again in a “passage grave”—although here, too, a corpse has never materialized. The place is called Newgrange, and it lies 51 kilometers northwest of Dublin or about 15 kilometers west of the town of Drogheda. There, in the county of Meath, in a loop of the river Boyne, the original inhabitants of Ireland set a grandiose memorial into the landscape. It is a technical miracle from the Stone Age. It is not simply a grave surrounded by stones to prevent animals getting at the corpse. Newgrange is a masterpiece of surveying, a lesson in astronomy, and a transport phenomenon. It was built at a time when, according to orthodox archeological opinion, Egyptian history had not yet happened, there was no pyramid on earth, and the cities of Ur, Babylon, or Knossos did not yet exist. Presumably the impressive stone circle of Stonehenge had not yet been planned when unknown astronomers built the passage grave of Newgrange.

For thousands of years, no one paid attention to the round hill above the river Boyne, until in 1699, when the road worker Edward Lhwyd swore mightily. A boulder blocking the line of the road would not budge. When it had been half-freed from the earth, the swearing road worker noticed two engraved spirals and some rectangles on the recalcitrant block. Now everything became clear: “Another one of those damned graves.” The message reached the next pub. Newgrange had been discovered. (
Image 175
)

Thorough excavations did not begin until the 1960s. In 1969, the lead researcher Professor Michael J. O’Kelly from Cork University discovered a right-angled artificial opening above the two monoliths at the entrance. It was only 20 centimeters wide, but that was enough for the scholar to see the light. (
Image 176
) On the day of the winter solstice in 1969—and again one year later—O’Kelly seated himself right at the back of the vault. Here is his eye-witness account:

Exactly at 9:45, the upper edge of the sun appeared on the horizon, and at 9:58 the first shaft of direct sunlight appeared through the small roofbox above the entrance. The beam of sunlight then lengthened along the passage into the burial chamber until the beam reached the edge of the basin stone in the niche. When the beam of light had widened into a 17-centimeter ribbon and flooded the floor of the chamber, the reflection illuminated the grave so dramatically that various details both of the side chambers and of the vaulted roof could be clearly seen. At 10:04 the ribbon of light began to narrow and precisely at 10:25 the beam of light was abruptly cut off. So for 21 minutes at sunrise on the shortest day of the year sunlight penetrates directly into the burial chamber of Newgrange. Not through the entrance but through a specially constructed narrow slit above the entrance to the passage.
³
(
Images 177
and
178
)

As a cautious academic, Professor O’Kelly did not at the time want to give a final answer to the question whether the light show was accidental or intended. The question has meanwhile been ticked off by others.
⁴

The two Irish scientists Tom Ray and Tim O’Brian from the School of Cosmic Physics set up their instruments in the burial chamber on December 21, 1988. Precisely 4.5 minutes after sunrise,
the first beam of light appeared in the rectangular opening above the entrance. After a short period, the shaft of light widened into a 34 centimeter ribbon which was however—horror of horrors!—abruptly reduced to 26 centimeters by a slightly inclined monolith. (
Image 179
) The chamber was still illuminated, but no longer to the full width of the original beam. What had happened?

Tom and Tim set their computers to work. In the course of the millennia, the earth’s axis performs a slow wobble, as a consequence of which “east” 5,000 years ago was not precisely where it is now. But 5,134 years ago—the computer calculations say—the full width of the sunbeam had lit up the vault through the opening in precise alignment with the compass and had unfolded its lightshow on the rear wall at a distance of 24 meters. Even taking account of the wobble in the earth’s axis, there is little change in the lightshow. The only factor to influence the light beam today is the slightly inclined monolith. Random chance was excluded. The builders of Newgrange had planned the magic lightshow. Now some questions need answering.