THE CLANDON BARROW LOZENGE AND THE FOLKTON DRUMS.

A commentator writes the following about these 3 chalk drums found in a small child's grave:

'Although these beautiful objects were found in Yorkshire (several hundred miles from Wessex) they are yet another remarkable example of the art of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. What is the significance of the owl-like face? Is this just another display of the artist's love of symmetry or does it represent an animal or some long forgotten deity?'

http://freespace.virgin.net/philip.dunn/sites/artefacts.htm

Let's look at the totality of design work displayed upon the drums:

http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/folkton.htm

The full designs around each drum are shown in these pictures. Strangely enough, there seems to be a relationship between some pictorial representations occurring on the drums and the identifiable geometry of the Clandon Barrow Lozenge... Perhaps descendants of the Wessex folk can see this as readily as can this descendant of French/ Basque sheepherders from Southern France's Languedoc province.

THROUGH THE EYES OF THE OWL

It's very evident that the Clandon Barrow Lozenge was first set out according to circle geometry, prior to any inscribing of the precious metal surface.

The Clandon Barrow Lozenge is made up of 6 sets of lozenge diamond patterns diminishing inward. The innermost of these has its own set of cross and chevron/ lozenge patterns. The station or fulcrum position for the circles (shown above) is the inner point of the 6th inward lozenge. With each expanding circle, dynamic ancient numbers or ratios are positively identified in the measurements achieved...based upon the (so-called) British Standard inch, which was used in Sumeria and Egypt at yet earlier epochs. Let's identify each coded length.

SECTION 1.

SECTION 2.

SECTION 3.

SECTION 4.

SECTION 5.

Although the Clandon Barrow Lozenge would have been fashioned to the greatest visual precision possible and could achieve excellent relative accuracy in larger dimension readings, it was, essentially, a memory device. The purpose of the lozenge was to be a repository or library of important, much used ratios and other mult-use numerical values. Frequently, the owner of the lozenge would need to refer to the device for recall of codes encrypted into each station. If a principle was forgotten, it could be retrieved with a set of calipers, extended between stations, which would then be placed against a finely calibrated ruler. Astute scientists would need to, periodically, hone their skills to keep the multitude of codes in memory and pass on the valuable information to initiates of the mathematical and navigational arts. The greatest known repository of these "out of Egypt" codes resides within the 3000 standing stone positions at Carnac (Le Ménec), Brittany, France.

The observant researcher will begin to recognise a design methodology emerging, which shows offsets of the lozenge lines (left to right) or amidst the innermost pattern lines to make them comply to the diminishing circle geometry. Here is an explanation of the codes found on each lozenge point within this quadrant:

SECTION 1.

SECTION 2.

SECTION 3.

SECTION 4.

SECTION 5.

Let's now combine the circle geometry, top and bottom to form the "Owl Eyes":

Based upon clues found on the Folkton Drums, concentric circles were sent out from 2 fulcrum points to stations within 2 quadrants of the Clandon Barrow Lozenge. The clear result of sending out these circles of specific, coded diameters, was to discover the ancient artisan's method, used to mark the overall lozenge pattern prior to inscribing. We have now completed 2 of the 4 quadrants, using the Folkton Drums' blueprint as the key or clue for "how to proceed".

The foregoing lineup of special numbers and ratios is indicative of the amount of mathematical information that has been encrypted into just 2 sections of the Clandon Barrow Lozenge. For many readers of archaeological information, seeking for the most part to be entertained, dealing with this kind of analysis is difficult and perhaps even painful. These cold, hard, clinical, but measurable attributes within the lozenge are most definitely inbuilt, and can be extracted by anyone who cares to scale the device and test its dimensions. No apologies are forthcoming from this researcher...if you truly want to know what these precious lozenge devices were built for and how they worked, then you've no option but to deal with the numbers..."no pain no gain."...and some of you thought that these trinkets were only built to look pretty...ha! It's time for everyone to raise the stakes of the analysis game.

Damage to the lozenge in particular sectors might have blurred a few codes slightly. Future sophisticated computer analysis, which mathematically maps and "straightens out" the somewhat dented lozenge surface might lead to marginal reappraisal and adjustment of conclusions... or the elevation of some codes from one category to another. This researcher feels that the listed numbers will remain, for the mostpart, the finalised, encrypted values.

For those who retreat to the position that the long tails of decimals listed in some numbers would have been impossible to visually detect or mark, the short answer is: The ancient owner of the lozenge "memory device and teaching aid" didn't have to visually detect the exact numbers encoded into each station, only know the theory leading to the creation of the numbers. An adept user of the device would know the significance of each station and the multiple, calculable numerical progressions each represented, from "micro-scale" to "macro-scale". In an age when it was difficult to create volumes of paper for books, such that profound scientific principles could be recorded, there was very heavy reliance upon memorising. As Julius Caesar said, concerning the Druids of Britain in his day:

'They do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in all other matters and in their public and private accounts they make use of Greek characters. I believe that they have adopted the practice for two reasons- that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the cultivation of memory; and, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of memory...They also lecture on the stars in their motion, the magnitude of the Earth and its divisions, on natural history, on the power and government of God; and instruct the youth in these subjects' (see De Ballo Gallico, VII, 15, 16.).

The late era Druidic schools that Julius Caesar commented about, undoubtedly, had a pedigree back to similar schools maintained during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. British historian, Isabel Hill Elder, commenting on the Druidic schools, writes:

'The students at these colleges numbered at times sixty thousand of the youth and young nobility of Britain and Gaul. Caesar comments on the fact that the Gauls sent their youth to Britain to be educated...It required twenty years to master the complete circle of Druidic knowledge. Natural philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, jurisprudence, poetry and oratory were all proposed and taught-natural philosophy and astronomy with severe exactitude' (Elder refers to Strabo I IV, page 197. Caesars Comm. Lib V. Sueotonius, V Calegula. E. Campion, Accounts of Ireland, pg. 18.).

And some of you thought the pre-Roman Brits were wild, uncivilised, unkempt savages, dressed in animal skins and generally running amok ...ha! When Julius Caesar did a sea invasion of Gaul at the Loire estuary in 55 BC, the "Celts-Britons" turned up with 220 beautiful swan ships...pity the wind died to nothing on the day or history would be very different.

A LOST CHILD WANDERING THROUGH THE DARK MISTS OF THE AFTERLIFE.

There is nothing more heart rending for a parent than having to bury one's children. Those who interred a small child in Yorkshire during the Neolithic Age placed 3 carefully carved chalk drums into the grave to accompany their loved one beyond the portals of mortality. This gesture seems to have been considerably more than just the compassionate act of adding some nice toys or trinkets as play things for the afterlife. The very nature and style of marking on the drums infers navigation and guidance principles.

The Wessex folk seem to have had an association with the Minoan/ Mycenaean culture of the Mediterranean...the forerunners to the Greek civilisation. We know something of the religious beliefs of the Minoans and Mycenaeans or how their ideas formed the basis of the latter Greco-Roman religion and its developed concepts of the afterlife. The religions of the Mediterranean were, undoubtedly, much influenced by earlier belief systems of India, Sumeria, Babylon and Egypt.

Where a concept of "heaven" existed amongst these civilisations, it seemed to be descriptive of a specific location that one had to navigate toward. Wandering off in the wrong direction was dangerous and one could fall foul of malevolent entities or eternally disadvantageous circumstances. A number of early cultures considered Orion to be the heavenly home... the place where Osirus dwelt. To find Orion one initially looked to the dog star, Sirius, the pointer of the way (a navigational beacon). Sirius was also a primary target at Stonehenge and there was an annual event, on the day of the vernal equinox (circa 3000-2000 BC), to watch Sirius alight on the grand trilithon lintel...with the observer positioned at 45-degrees azimuth on the Avenue & rim of the Aubrey Circle. This was to check how close the equinox day was to drifting off-line (in the "precession of the equinoxes") and whether or not it was time to adjust the calendar by a day.

There seems to be a large amount of Clandon Barrow Lozenge or Bush Barrow Lozenge pictorial symbolism on the Folkton drums artefacts...everything from multiples of lozenges within lozenges, intersecting diagonals, knop calibrations or marked counts on raised relief lines, the Union Jack geometric configuration (to be explained as we proceed), triple raised relief lines side by side (consistent with the incising method used on the Bush Barrow and Clandon Barrow gold lozenges) and intertwining, diminishing circles fanning out from two or more fulcrum positions (the owl-eyes). These "owl eyes" on the drums were, undoubtedly, a metamorphosised religious development, derived from the circle geometry used to set out precise stations on the lozenges.

The priest/ overseer/ surveyor/ mathematician/ astronomer/ engineer/ assayer/ judge/ advisor/ teachers, using advanced scientific skill and knowledge, guided the Wessex folk in every facet of life, from the cradle to the grave. Through their skill, society was optimised and working harmoniously with the natural cycles. The land was kept abundant through the application of excellent agricultural techniques, as well as by the acquisition of scarce resources that could be sourced from far off locations. Many European/ Mediterranean civilisations of the time had the ability to traverse the world's vast oceans and return to a safe haven.

One wonders if haven became synonymous with heaven.

If there were any concerns related to the journey of the afterlife, the natural tendency of the Wessex folk would be to ask their priests for guidance and assurance. The venerated lozenge calculators would be, quite naturally, symbolically/ religiously pressed into service for the last great journey...from whence no traveler returns. Those venturing into the unknown, seemingly, needed the spiritual assurance of a tried and true navigational aid in order to find "heaven". Lozenge depiction's were marked onto beakers or other funerary objects and, traditionally, placed into graves of the Wessex folk. The "religious belief" inference is that the correct, desirable destination had been forechosen, the course spiritually charted with exactitude and that powerful navigational knowledge resided in the lozenge symbols that accompanied the dead on their journey.

With prayers and supplications to the Mother Goddess, offered from those waiting on the shores of mortality, the soul of a lost Yorkshire child was conveyed through the darkness and past the pitfalls of the afterlife... to a safe haven with D'anu.

For those of us trying to understand the profound astronomical/ navigational sciences of the Wessex folk, our journey of discovery has hardly begun.....

CONTINUE