User:Marke Pawson/The whole view on the megalithic yard

It is usually believed that Professor Alexander Thom rediscovered the megalithic Yard (Thom, Megalithic sites In Britain, Oxford, 1957).However, in an appendix (p 104) to Bligh Bond and Lea, Gematria, third edition 1977, first published about ninety years ago, Bligh Bond concluded that there must be a "yard" of 33 inches and Thom's conclusion was that the Megalithic Yard is 0.829 metres or 2.72 feet, while 33 inches is 32.65 inches, confirming Bond's conclusion.

Charpentier,in his book The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral (English edition, RILKO 1972, pp. 89 and 179)concluded that there was a "unit of measurement" of 0.82 metres present in the dimensions of the cathedral, again the Megalithic Yard. Charpentier showed that both the orientation of the cathedral and its dimensions were derived from a neolithic long barrow underlying the medieval building. The French edition of Charpentier's book came out in 1967, the same year as Thom's Megalithic Sites in Britain.

Lyle Borst who was professor of physics at the University of New York at Buffalo at this time, showed (Nature, October 1959) that a number of English cathedrals and churches were based on megalithic henges. For example, the Lady chapel at Wells Cathedral is based on what Thom called a "Type 2 Egg" (see Critchlow, Time Stands Still, Gordon Fraser, 1979,p. 72).This egg shape is derived from two overlapping circles, one of 5 and one of 7 M Y (Megalithic Yards). All the main dimenions of the Medieval building are based on these proportions, confirming Charpentier's work at Chartres.

Perhaps the most astonishing example of the use of the M Y is in the plan of the church of St. Sulpice in Paris which has an internal length of 386 feet, excluding the later arcade at the west end. But 386 feet is approximately 142 M Y, suggesting an overall length of 144 M Y. Frank-Marie (Rennes-le-Chateau, Etudes Critique, pp.124-5) shows that the plan of this church is based on a six-pointed Star of David, in which the sides of the two interlocking triangles which make up the star determine the width of the church and this is 72 M Y, so that the plan forms a 2 x 1 rectangle of 144 x 72 M Y.

Using the proportions of this star, Frank-Marie shows the proportions of the plan in terms of the Golden Mean ratio (Phi), but he fails to give any measurements relating to these proportions. However,Frank-Maries's 1/N related to the internal width of the Lady Chapel and this is 13 M Y. This forms the basis of a Fibonacci series, in which each successive number relates the the next in the series as the propotion 1 : 1.618, the Golden mean proportion and all these, 1/N, N-half and N, can be expressed as integers of M Ys. The foundation stone of this church was layed by Anne of Austria, Louis 13th's Queen, in 1642, making it probaly the most recent example of the use of the M Y.