Older than the calculated Hebrew creation date, the Cairn of Barnenez in Brittainy (France) according to Reader's Digest The World's Last Mysteries. "... may well contain among its 11 remaining megalithic tombs the oldest man-made structure still existing on the face of the earth."

Ancient stone monuments, stretching along Europe's Atlantic coast with the majority being in Spain, Brittainy and the British Isles, numbered in the tens-of-thousands.

It's likely a religious sect of astronomer-priests, perhaps proto-Druids, dealing with the spiritual rather than the temporal, who directed the hundreds-of-thousands needed to extract, transport, chisel and erect the mammoth stones. A feat accomplished in pre-historic times when only stone tools were available.

When one considers the engineering skills required, one is quite astounded. The stones covering the massive passage-grave at New Grange, Ireland, circa 3200BCE, were cantilevered or corbeled as they say in the old sod. Constructed without mortar, passage-graves contain a passage and inner chamber, covered by large boulders or piles of stone. The ancients had to figure-out how to lay the ponderous stones so they overlapped on the inside edge of the stone above, supporting the one below. Grooves cut into the roof to dispense rainwater has kept the passageway dry for over 5,000 years. Quoting from a pamphlet supplied by the Bru na Boinne Tourist Office:

A most remarkable feature ... is the roof box over the entrance. ... it's precise location and alignment reveals the incredible depths of knowledge which this ancient civilization possessed. ... it is aligned so as to catch the first rays of the rising sun on the morning of the winter solstice on the 21st of December.

New Grange's engineering is equal to that of the stone circle at Stonehenge circa 2850BCE that took a thousand years to complete. The Salisbury Plain slopes downward 18 inches, yet the level of Stonehenge's ring of lintels varied very little. The immense slabs on top were precisely chisled to form a continous curve then secured to the uprights by pegs and sockets an old carpenter's trick). The precise dimensions suggest that a standard unit of measure had been employed. These engineering feats by stone age people would challenge today's architects and builders.

For 3,000 years European ancients engraved magnificint montifs and erected massive tumulus. Then stopped.
From circa 1500BCE forward, there were no more megaliths raised anywhere in Europe.




Coligny Calendar

In 1897, almost 3,400 years since the last of the Megaliths, 73 copper alloy fragments were discovered near Coligny, France. J.Monard, a French archaeologist, after studing for years, determined the pieces were the remainder of a Celtic calendar, originally 1.48m wide and 0.9m high (5 feet by 3 1/2 feet). It's believed to have been made about the time Caesar finished his invasion of Gaul.

Something the size of this calendar, and the metal used to ensure its endurance, had to have been made for a very special purpose ... perhaps to teach Druidism to students.

Henri Hubert, in his The History of the Celtic People, remarked about Sir John Rhys' translation, "If these arguments hold good, we have a document and a most important one, establishing the use of Goidelic words in Gaul at the time of its Romanization."

Although there are almost as many Celtic languages as there as Celtic groups, it is generally catagorized as being either Goidelic (Q-Celt) spoken in Ireland, or Brythonic (P-Celt) spoken in England and Gaul. Hubert's comment leads one to wonder if the Coligny Calendar originally came from the British Isles, making another justification for establishing there as the origin of the Druids. I might make mention of an adnormality in Jean Markale's The Celts. It's the only book I've read on the ancient Celts that doesn't mention the Coligny Calendar. I included this bit of trivia to provide some comic relief.

• The Calendar contained 40 different Celtic words inscribed in Latin text.
• Calculated time in 62 lunar month increments.
• From the fragments, only two months could be completely complied SAMON with 30 days and DUMAN with 29 days.
• Months and days within a month were designated as being either good ( mat) or bad (anm).
• Each month was also divided into good and bad.
• An intercalary month was inserted twice in the five year period to adjust for the differences in the rotations of the moon and the sun.
• The sacred festival days Samain, Imbolc, Beltain and Rivos were noted.

Imagine being a student of the Druids and using mnemonics to commit your religious feast days to memory. This is how I described such use in Celtic Invasion of Rome:

Hostile beings remonstrate at their birth.
Too much we take from poor Mother Earth.
Cold, dark nights are a sign of protest.
Samain is the time when all claim their rest.

As we eat last year's bounty,
Oh goddess of fertility.
Milk begins to secrete.
Imbolc is the first sign of relief.

Massive bond fires welcome Beltain
to drive the evil from all we obtain.
Earth begins to waken its seed,
refreshed to grant all that we need.

Fruit ripens upon the apple tree.
Warm is the air that lets us run free.
All that is wrong is for once set right.
At Rivos, we beseech the god of light.

A recent 4200-year-old finding in Peru has been declared the New World's oldest calendar; whereas, the Hebrews rightfully lay claim to the oldest Calendar-system.

"Circles, spirals and waves are the favorite ornamental motifs of primitive peoples everywhere. The Irish passage-graves particularly abound in them, ... but if they have any further meaning for their builders that meaning is now lost." The Irish World published in 1977.

The above quote illustrates how little attention had been paid to the monolithic art adorning many of the kerbstones surrounding Ireland's passage-graves ... until quite recently.

Knowth resembles New Grange in both size and shape, but, with its two passages and 17 satelite tombs, is more complex. According to the Bru na Boinne Tourist Office over 1,600 boulders, each weighting one or more tons, were used in its construction. The mound is surrounded by up to 150 giant kerbstones (according to the tourist bureau, although others put the number at 127), many of them beautifully engraved.

Although,the site's initial excavation began in 1962 as alluded to earlier, serious study hadn't begun until 1980.

Martin Brennan in The Stars and Stone suggested a lunar connection in addition to one with the sun. I won't venture further into the findings at Knowth, since my only interest concerns the Calendar Stone.

To provide the reader with a visual image, below is an enlarged drawing by Sean Judy.

Sean's illustration was never intended to be an accurate depiction. However, if one were to count the circles, semi-circles plus the peaks and valleys in either A.Murphy's illustration or that of Martin Brennan, (both on Mythical Ireland's website -linked below) one would obtain a count of 62. The same number of months that's on the Colginy Calendar.

Is it a quantum leap of faith to connect the knowledge inherent in these two ancient works?

When one considers the dispersion of the astronomical megaliths that sprouted up along the Atlantic seaboard eons ago; one would be foolhardy not to consider the ancients sufficiently intelligent to plot lunar time over 62 months. Furthermore, one cannot help but believe that an enduring, religious community inspired them. Given that, one should easily be able to accept the premise that this knowledge had been passed down through the ages until it reached the time of Caesar.

This community of astronomer-priests could easily have been an early version of Druids.

The following links with other websites are included for those readers who wish to persue further interest in Knowth's kerbstones:
Mythical Ireland
The Lunar Maps of Knowth by Phillip J. Stooke