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The Pharaonic Egyptians had a triangulation they called mr
(mer in Indo-European Latvian e.g. means "measure").
Tompkins in Secrets of the Great Pyramid,
Galahad Books, New York, 1971, new ed. 1997, p. 377, wrote:
"If a right triangle has an angle of 36 degrees and the longer side
is 100, the hypotenuse is 2 / phi 100 = 123.6068, the other side
being 72.6542." This is as close as horseshoes to the Salisbury
triangulation when we use the three hill figures of the Cerne Giant,
the Long Man of Wilmington and the White Horse at Uffington.
How do we reconcile the Salisbury triangulation?
The great circle distances between the hill figures
are approximately as follows
From the Long Man to the Cerne Giant ca. 116.5mi.
From the White Horse to the Long Man ca. 92.7 miles
From the White Horse to the Cerne Giant ca. 66 mi.
As the Enc.Brit indicates, the later mile of 5280 feet
derived from the 5000 Roman mille passus "a thousand paces"
which was equivalent to 4840 English feet in Roman days.
See "mile" in the Enc.Brit.
Since you can convert meters to yards by multiplying the meters by 1.09, it is of interest to note that 5280 / 4840 = 1.090909, an ancient conversion, so that, if a mile of 4840 English feet was used, these were metric feet.
If we look at the length of the triangulation of
Salisbury plain in terms of "rods and chains" then the length of the
shortest line (66 miles) is 5280 chains long, i.e.
5280 chains x 66 feet per chain = 348480 feet = 66 current miles.
This might be taken as evidence that this is a "surveyed" distance.
If we divide that figure of 348480 feet by the English mile of 4840 feet,
mentioned above, then we get 72 miles (of 4840 feet) for
this triangulation distance instead of 66 miles.
This is about the length of one longitude at the latitude of Stonehenge.
Horse of Uffington to the Cerne Giant
66 current miles of 5280 feet = 348480 current feet
ca. 70 Roman miles of 5000 Roman feet is the same distance
exactly 72 English miles of 4840 feet = 348480 current feet
White Horse of Uffington to the Long Man:
92 current miles of 5280 feet = 485760 current feet
100 (72 + 28) English miles of 4840 feet = nearly 484000 current feet
(retaining the 92.688 figures, this would mean that the actual
measured distance is exactly 1 mile too long from what one would expect if this value were intended to be 100, i.e. 484000/5280 = 91.67 miles). Maybe they measured to Wayland's Smithy which is closer.
The Long Man to the Cerne Giant:
117 current miles of 5280 feet = 617760 current feet
128 (100 + 28) English miles of 4840 feet = nearly 617760
(retaining the 116.638 figures, this would mean that the actual
measured distance is off by 2/3 of a mile from what one would expect
if this value were intended to be 128, i.e. 619520/5280 = 117,33. Here again, a measurement to Wayland's Smithy might account for the discrepancy.
The linear sum of the lengths of the
shortest and longest lines of the triangle 72+128 = 200 miles
would be twice the length of the linear length of the middle line of 100 miles.
The Long Man, the Cerne Giant and the White Horse of Uffington
of course are not themselves the triangulation points,
but they were edged in chalk to mark where the nearby triangulation points were.
E.g. the "trendle" above the Cerne Giant contains a large hole which
is wide and deep enough for a gigantic megalithic obelisk
to have been placed in it as a geodetic marker.
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