The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland

Front Cover
Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, 1994 - History - 216 pages
This revealing text describes the exciting discovery and deciphering of the 5,000-year-old stone chambers and standing stones of pre-Celtic Ireland. At midwinter sunrise, Martin Brennan and his research partner observed a beam of light shining into the central chamber at Newgrange, illuminating a series of glyphs on the back wall. They went on to observe significant solar and lunar events at other chambers and stone complexes in the Boyne Valley and Loughcrew Mountains. Through a combination of careful observation, analysis of the astronomical alignment of the sites, and personal insight into the meanings of megalithic symbols and carvings, Brennan demonstrates conclusively that the passage mounds and chambers are actually sophisticated calendar devices, and that the abstract wheels, spirals, zigzags, and wavy lines are symbols of solar and lunar timekeeping.
 

Contents

IV
10
V
18
VI
25
VII
32
VIII
37
IX
46
X
51
XI
55
XXV
109
XXVI
110
XXVII
112
XXVIII
114
XXIX
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XXX
119
XXXI
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XXXII
122

XII
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XIII
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XV
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XVI
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XVII
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XVIII
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XIX
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XX
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XXI
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XXII
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XXIII
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XXXIII
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XXXIV
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XXXV
128
XXXVI
130
XXXVII
135
XXXVIII
158
XXXIX
179
XL
206
XLI
214
XLII
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About the author (1994)

Martin Brennan trained in visual communication at Pratt Institute. He has travelled extensively in Mexico where his interests in prehistoric rock inscriptions, ritual, and traditional art developed. Spending more than a decade in Ireland engaged in active research on megalithic art, he tapped into some of the earliest methods of recording numbers and the fundamental beginnings of writing, and reported these startling discoveries in his critically acclaimed The Stars and Stones, later reissued as The Stones of Time. He is also the author of Hidden Maya. He lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado.

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