The people of Great Britain have long cherished an inheritance of "standing stone circles", dotting their landscape from the cold northern reaches of Scotland to the warm plains of Southern England. This enduring legacy in eternal stone is of such great age that little can be recalled regarding the ancient purpose of the stones themselves or those who, at some remote epoch, laboured so diligently to place them.
Whereas standing stone circles were once viewed as something unique to Great Britain, France or, to a lesser-known extent, countries further east in Continental Europe, they are now being located in many scattered regions of the greater world, including Egypt.
It is becoming increasingly evident that about 5,000 years ago, people in many climes and at many latitudes of the globe seemed preoccupied with the measurement of time and that standing stone circles somehow catered to this need.
One of the most remote countries where standing stone circles and other types of megalithic structures are being found in profusion is New Zealand, at the sub-tropical base of the South Pacific.
These out of time and place, anomalous finds are causing many researchers to rethink the supposed, "young" history of the country.
Figure 1: A large sharksfin-shaped stone of the Waitapu standing stone circle, where nothing was left "standing" after the site was destroyed by the warriors. The stones, thankfully, lie very close to their original positions and need only to be stood up again. The site has delivered up its former geometric layout through careful surveying.
Figure 2: Another large sharksfin lying in position. The Waitapu site has over 600 surviving stone components laid out in recognisable geometric patterns.
Figure 3: The author sitting between two important stones of the observatory. To the left of the picture is the Southern Hubstone. The stone to the right was an important sight-over stone from a series of down hill station positions. The surrounding long grass hides several hundred components of varying size, all of which were hauled to this dirt hill and purposely set in place.
WHO WAS HERE BEFORE THE POLYNESIAN / MELANESIAN MAORI?
New Zealand archaeologists and historians, when confronted with dissenting points of view that challenge their official, sanitised and "politically correct" version of regional history, generally respond with a standard, "off the shelf", comment: If anyone was here before the Maoris then where's the proof? In what must be the most blatant example of, not seeing the forest for the trees, the answer lies in the totality of Maori culture itself.
The proof is in the carvings, the symbols, the canoes, the nets, the weaves, plaids, mokos (facial tattoos) buildings, fortified positions, sculptured hills, trig marker mapping systems, canal and drainage systems, greenstone artefacts, oral traditions and ruined stone structures, such as standing stone circles, covering the length and breadth of New Zealand.
A few centuries ago the former civilisation was overwhelmed and annihilated by the Maori warriors and all possessions were taken over by the conquerors.
Burial caves all over New Zealand contain the remains of red, brown or blond haired Indo-European skeletons.
Note: We have testimony from eye-witnesses and participants, that the New Zealand authorities have ordered that particular caves, known to contain non-Polynesian / Melanesian skeletons and artefacts, have their entryways covered & concealed... and in one instance, by bringing in a bulldozer.
Figure 4: A trussed burial of a small stature non-Polynesian and typical of burial methods in Megalithic Great Britain. This skeleton was located in the Awamoko limestone rock shelter of North Otago, New Zealand. The picture comes from pg. 79 of "Prehistoric Rock Art", by Michael Trotter and Beverley McCulloch (A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1971). Much of New Zealand rock art shows no Polynesian / Melanesian Maori attributes, with South Island examples being of very remote age.
Figure 5: This is one of 11 mummified heads repatriated to New Zealand in 1998 by Minister of Maori Affairs, Tau Henare. Is this the head that a British Museum was reluctant to include, as they felt it was European and should remain with Europeans? The Maori warriors sold these heads to whalers about 200 years ago and the individual was born about the time of Captain James Cook's second exploratory voyage to New Zealand. The light complexion, reddish hair and facial contours suggest a person of European descent. These people, who were once numerous, were referred to, by Maori, as "kiri-puwhero" (light complexioned skin) with hair that was "Uru-kehu" (reddish, golden tinged). Note the spiral pattern to the side of the nose. These pre-colonial mummified heads, many of which still reside in foreign collections, should be subjected to DNA analysis.
Many researchers can readily see the glaring similarity between Maori and pre-Celtic design, sufficient to show that both art forms stem from the same origins. These artistic expressions were used equally by the Pictish, Hebrew, Assyrian, Mayan, Mycenaean and Scythian civilisations.
Figure 6: The enigmatic artefacts of Maoridom carved in distinctly Northern Hemisphere styles. The Maori Hei-Tiki greenstone artefact design is found in Lima Peru and Mexico with other examples seen on ancient pillars in Jerusalem. How did Maori fashion incredibly hard greenstone to such tolerances and finesse, without metal tools, having had no prior experience with the hardstone in their Islands of origin? Maori oral tradition says that the greenstone treasures were plundered from the children of Poutini, a light complexioned greenstone folk who were the offspring of Tangaroa.
ORIGINS OF THE EARLY MAORI MOKO (FACIAL TATTOO).
Maori oral tradition tells us how the art of facial tattooing and design was learned from the former inhabitants called the Patu-paiarehe, who fitted the description of Europeans. Recent finds of Caucasian mummified remains in China, with "moko-like" designs painted onto the faces, show us that early era Indo-Europeans adorned the faces of their dead with the "double spiral".
Figure 7: This well-preserved Caucasian mummy from Ürumchi, China shows a "double spiral" design painted on the face adjacent to the nose. The unravelling spiral straightens then crosses to the nose. An identical spiral, unravelling in the same clockwise direction, is fashioned on the opposite side of the face. Archaeologists assessing these 3000-4000 year-old mummies, recognise that the people were Sun worshippers and the designs painted onto the faces of the dead were in veneration of their Deity.
The double spiral design has been used by European peoples since before megalithic times, as one of the foremost symbols of antiquity. It was prominently displayed in Megalithic Great Britain until the Iron Age, when its usage began to diminish. It persisted, however, in New Zealand as the predominantly important symbol and evidence would suggest that successive New Zealand populations retained pure, Megalithic Age cultural idiosyncrasies until recent centuries. In terms of maintaining the selfsame, ancient British versions of religion, modes and symbols, New Zealand was a land, "where time stood still".
Figure 8: Two "spiral" incised boulders at opposite ends of the world. The one to the left is at Raglan beach in the North Island of New Zealand. The one to the right is in Northumberland, in Northern England. Of the many examples of single spiral, double spiral or triple spiral designs incised into New Zealand boulders or cliff faces, a large number exactly duplicate the general symbols of Northern Hemisphere, spiral design boulders.
Long after Northern Hemisphere British peoples had replaced their "round house" or beehive house styles of construction with rectangular domiciles, the older stone construction methods persisted in New Zealand.
Figure 9: Mysterious humps like this dot the forest floors of New Zealand in their thousands. This collapsed in Beehive house (stone dome igloo) is located at Maungatapere in Northland and is only one hump in a cluster of about 200.
Late era migrations of peoples from the Northern Hemisphere introduced rectangular, wooden building concepts, but the copious usage of the single and double spirals or chevron patterns of the Megalithic Age remained and were adorned upon ornately carved lintels, fascias & panels. This following 19th century examples has many features which code the Sabbatical calendar system, including 52 panels...the 52 weeks of 7 days in the 13 months of 28 days (364 day year) Sabbatical system.
Long after the Northern Europeans had their former Sun aligned religion supplanted through ruthless Christianisation, the selfsame pre-Christian beliefs, far beyond the reach of Rome, remained intact and unthreatened in New Zealand. Although enforced amnesia terminated age-old astronomical knowledge in the North, it persisted pure and undefiled at the base of the South Pacific...until the coming of the Pa or fortress Maori warrior/ cannibals.
Evidence would suggest that the "double spiral" represented the Sun sitting at a Solstice position (the innermost part of the spiral), then winding out of that position to the Equinox and continuing yet further to the other Solstice position. The distance travelled in Sun's annual journey down the horizon and back depends on the latitude where the observer resides. At Stonehenge the Solstice positions (mid summer and mid winter) are about 79 degrees apart on the horizon. In the North Island of New Zealand the two positions are about 60 degrees apart. Inasmuch as early Europeans, either in the Mediterranean Basin or in the far-flung colonies, used the Sun as the vicarious representation of their spiritual God RA, the annual movements of the Sun were of tremendous religious significance.
Figure 10: Portrait of a young Maori Chieftain, painted by British Artist George Angas in 1846. Note the use of the double spirals, in miniature, on each side of the nose and larger spirals on each cheek. The cheek spirals are marked by double lines, which track the Sun's movement inward to the centre of the spiral (Solstice) where it turns and moves toward the Equinox (marked by the bridge of the nose). The Sun then continues its journey to the other Solstice position on the opposite side of the face. Maori oral tradition states that the art of facial tattooing was learned from an earlier, light complexioned civilisation, which Maori refer to as Patu-paiarehe or Turehu, amongst many other regional names.
The Maori Moko shown here is of a type, which is a sophisticated solar calendar. Virtually every part of the design celebrates the movements of the Sun God RA, who, in pre-colonial New Zealand was known by that exact name and vocal rendition. The endless journey of RA is shown again in the design around the mouth, with the Vernal and Autumn Equinoxes occurring at the position of each nostril and the Sun's Solstice change of direction occurring each side of the chin cleft.
On some carved wooden artefacts attributed to Maori, the double spirals are notched, as if to indicate a calibrated reading of the passage of days, weeks and months. In a sense they're not too different from the design painted onto the face of yet another mummy from Urumchi.
Figure 11: The right temple and cheek spiral occurring on the face of "Cherchan Man". The spiral is divided up into a series of individual lines (calibration) and it would be practical to assume that there are, here depicted, a total of either 26 or 28 calibration lines, indicating days in a month (28) or whole weeks between equinoxes (26) under their 13 month Sabbatical Cycle calendar system.
The Sabbatical cycle system was in use at Stonehenge on the Aubrey circle, with its 56 posts (2 X 28) representing counting positions. The same system was encoded into the base measurements of the Menkaure and Dahshur Pyramids of Egypt. The Aubrey Circle was also used for lunar cycle calculations.
We will momentarily explore Northern Hemisphere calendar methodologies, and then return to a discussion on how the same system is incorporated into the Maori Moko of George Angas's painting.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The British Standard inch, foot (12 inches), Celtic common cubit (18 inches), etc., are very ancient and not a recent innovation, as some isolationist/ classicist historians would have us believe. Precise surveying work, related to the distant positions of ancient markers, undertaken by former military surveyor, David Wood and his team at Rennes-le-Chateau in Southern France, verifies this beyond question (see Genisis, by David Wood). The same measurement standard is found within New Zealand and Pacific region structures. The Pyramids of Giza and Saqquara were built to this increment standard and this can now be proven mathematically. The Dynastic Egyptian Royal and common cubit rods (20.6" & 17.7" approx.) were not used as incremental rods for building the pyramids, but worked as memory devices, with their most important mnemonic function relating to the size of the Earth.
Figure 12: The 14-pointed star used for calculating the Sabbatical Calendar at Stonehenge. The system was built around a 13-month year, with each month being exactly 28 days in duration (364-days). This means there was a deficit error of close to 1.25 days per annum, when compared to the true solar year. Rather than disrupt society by making annual corrections to the calendar, the system was allowed to run for 7 years until the Sabbatical year. At the termination of the 7th year, there was a festival of 8 days and the calendar was corrected. The cycle then recommenced.
In the above ground plan of Stonehenge 2 overlaying stars, each of 7-points, are placed into the geometry. Star-rays at 90 degrees azimuth and 270 degrees azimuth point toward the equinoctial sunrise and sunset...(true east-west). The solar year was measured from equinox to equinox and this allowed the astronomer/ mathematicians to detect any error in the true calendar position. The actual calendar itself was allowed to drift into marginal accumulative error during a seven-year period, before the insertion of 8 intercalary, corrective days. Under this age-old system originating in Egypt, each 7th day was a Sabbath, each 7th month was a Sabbatical month, each 7th year was a Sabbatical year and the 7th Sabbatical year was special, inasmuch as major correction occurred then, before commencement of the 50th or Jubilee year. One of the functions of the 56 Aubrey posts was to count out a full Sabbatical cycle, such that all would be correct and running true before the outset of a Jubilee year. The count aspect was done within the confines of a 7-pointed star pattern. Based on the ground-perimeter calibration assigned to the Menkaure Pyramid, the 56 post, Aubrey circuit worked like this:
(A). Commencing in the space between post 56 and 1, move 7 spaces. Each interval was assigned a value of 357 days (51 weeks...12.75 months).
(B). The 7 posts encountered in this segment, dividing spaces 1 - 7, were assigned a value of 7 days each and the combination of 1 space and 1 post added up to 364 days per space/ post interval (52 weeks...13 months of 28 days each).
(C). The count would move through 7 spaces and 7 posts, culminating in a passage of 7 years or 2548 days (13 Sabbatical months...of 196 days duration each). This meant that an error of 1.25 days had built up each year, for 7 years (based on the heliacal rise of Sirius...365.25 days) and the calendar was now 8.75* days in arrears... 8 full days and 3/4 of a day.
(D). The 8th space had no value, but acted as a division between one Sabbatical Year period and the next. However the 8th post (which was a star-ray point) was assigned a "catch-up" value of 8 days and this was added to the 2548 days already accrued. The new Sabbatical Year, therefore, commenced on the 2556th day with only .75 of a day of deficit error. The process was then duplicated through each span between star-ray points, with posts 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 and 56 all providing the 8 intercalary days to correct the calendar before commencing a new Sabbatical period.
(E). At the end of the 7th Sabbatical period (49 years) the last of the 8 intercalary days were added at the post 56 position (the 7th star-ray point), plus an additional 5 days (13 days total). The 5 additional days were the result of the .75 of a day of deficit (based on the Sirius Year count of 365.25 days) per sabbatical period X 7 such periods (5.25 days actual). The .25 of a day beyond 5 days was sacrificed to render the 49 year average at 365.244898 days per annum. The precise figure sought after was 365.2420 days (Mayan Year) and the margin of error, after 49 years, was less than 4 hours...based on nothing more than counting posts. A major check and balance system for precise reckoning existed in observing the equinox rises and sets, but the 56 posts could be used to teach initiates the mathematical basis of the Sabbatical cycle concept.
*Footnote: The 8.75 days of error that had accrued by the termination of a Sabbatical Year, is eternally coded into many sites. One way that this is done is by a ratio difference occurring between the dimensions of widely distributed structures. The ratio difference in the coded circumference of the Sarsen Circle, outer rim, at Stonehenge and the base perimeter of the Great Pyramid, is exactly 1: 8.75...(345.6 feet to 3024 feet).
