Professor Thom found several shapes of which these plans were accordingly built to. These shapes included the true circle, ellipse, circle flattened on one side, and the circle elongated on one side.1 All of these shapes could be built using stakes and a rope to draw the arcs with. Usually, there were right-angled triangles placed in the center of the shape with its points used as the centers for the arcs.
The
megalithic yard was
re-found by statistical analysis and it could be traced back to when it
was a standard building unit used in Britain. One megalithic yard
equalled to 2.72 feet. Thom also found the megalithic rod which equalled
to 2.5 megalithic yards (6.8 feet). These findings leads to the approximation
of p to be
22/7. So, diameters which are multiples of seven will lead to circles
with whole numbers as their circumferences. These findings, altogether
show that the triangles found in these shapes were pythagorean.2
| Instruments of measure | Length in MegalithicYards | Length in Feet | Length in Metres |
| Megalithic Yard | 1 | 2.72 | .829056 |
| Megalithic Rod | 2.5 | 6.8 | 2.07264 |
As
far as astronomy
was concerned, Thom's theorizes that the stone circle builders were studying
the moon, sun, and the first magnitude stars and possibly the planets.
The last item in the above list is in high doubt because if the planets
were visible, almost every point on the horizon could mark a movement of
a planet, and there are not so many markers in the present day monuments
to support this possibility.3
Thom finds that their main reason for studying the sun was to make a calendar,
which if so, comprised of sixteen months where each month included twenty-two
to twenty-four days. Their study of the moon was to understand its
movements and complex motions to predict eclipses. The stones used
were time indicators where the southern stones marked midday.4
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