Further work to refine the geometry and form of the stone setting that once surrounded Avebury’s Cove, has proved to be based on Professor Thom’s egg-shaped circle type 2, seen in 'Megalithic sites in Britain,' by A Thom1967, page 29. The sides of the pair of triangles, from which the geometry was generated, measures 24, 32, and 40 megalithic yards—an eight times 3, 4, 5 triangle.

 

Centred on the inner side of the easternmost stone of the Cove that I have always claimed to be male, this egg was based on the simplest of all Pythagorean triangles. Professor Thom found no less than 10 of them, so no wonder this type of egg was emulated throughout the land! This one makes eleven. I now find its alignment slightly more anticlockwise than previously stated, and perhaps by as much as 1.5 degrees. Well, no one said resolving it was going to be easy!

Same Cherwell Hill: different moon.

I made a mistake with todays Avebury entry - Sorry. The egg that surrounds Avebury’s Cove is aligned on the equinox.  Different alignment and time, yes, but the equinox is when the moon slithers down the northern slope of Cherhill when seen from the Cove, not the minor moon as stated.

Avebury’s egg must surely have been the motivator that caused the Stonehenger’s to copy and align the Stonehenge Great Cursus on the equinox too.

AVEBURY’S EGG.

Elsewhere on this blog can be found an analytical plan view of Windmill Hill, showing how two of its axes are aligned on Cherhill Hill to track the sun as he approaches the winter solstice, and also to observe the moon as she comes up to her minor standstill.
      Avebury’s Cove is aligned midway between the summer solstice of the sun and the major standstill of the moon. That we know. What is little known is that Avebury’s Cove stands inside a setting of stones that take the shape of an egg. Clearly sticking to the traditions started on Windmill Hill, the builders also aligned Avebury’s “egg” on Cherhill Hill.
       Recent geophysical surveys and parchmark evidence have confirmed that the setting of standing stones here (the northern inner circle) is far from circular, enclosing what can best be described as an ‘egg’ shape with its long axis aligned north-east-south west (Ucko et al. 1991, 221 Bewley et al, 1996) in AVEBURY: Gillings & Pollard.2004.
        I make Avebury’s egg azimuth to be 269-degrees; so if some of the present day buildings were removed, we would be able to see the minor moon as she goes to ground sliding down the northern side of Cherhill Hill.

 

Avebury’s geometry presented here is an amalgam of Professor Thom’s survey co-ordinates combined with the stone positions produced by the Ordinance Survey.
      All measurements are in megalithic yards. (= 0.8297m) Also, I make the Southern Circle 126 My diameter, not the oft-published 125.