Re: Group's 2nd dig at Touro Park supports astronomical claim - or so the reporter said.

On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 17:39:02 -0800 (PST), Tom McDonald
<kiltmac@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Nov 22, 6:49 pm, Eric Stevens <eric.stev...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:02:49 -0600, Tom McDonald



<kilt...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Peter Alaca wrote:
"Eric Stevens" <eric.stev...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:k1rbk3pkna823kmoj56khi11km1vk235u5@xxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:03:13 +0100, "Peter Alaca"
<p.al...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Eric Stevens" <eric.stev...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4iv6k3h2bstdhm779o9m0eu9l0ssf5gqst@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.newportdailynews.com/articles/2007/11/20/news/news5.txt

Group's 2nd dig at Touro Park supports astronomical claim
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEWPORT - The initiator of two digs at Touro Park, the second of
which
was completed last week, has concluded that the Old Stone Mill was
used as an astronomical calendar and most likely was built during the
12th century, although no artifacts from earlier than the 1600s were
found at the site.

Great,! organize an exavation and then ingnore the results

They haven't even ignored the results, so much as changed the subject
to something else. The comment about seasonal alignments has set me
hunting and I have found there may be some truth to their suggestion
that the alignments built into the church can be used to determine
"all the dates of solstices and equinoxes used to calculate movable
feasts, such as Easter, and when farmers should plant and harvest."

I was aware from the work of Penhallow that many alignments of varying
probability were built into the structure but Janet F. Barstad's
suggestion possibly ties the construction of the tower to church
purposes.

Among other things I have found:

http://www.geomancy.org/resources/bibliography/archaeoastronomy/

"Heilbron, J. L. 1999. The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar
Observatories. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: Harvard
University Press. ISBN 0 674 85433 0.
This one's different. These are 17th century basilicas that were
used to accurately determine when Easter was by keeping track
of the Sun as it crossed the meridian each day throughout the
year. It is accurate astronomy in sacred spaces, but not for the
same reasons that it was done for in prehistory."

The book can be found at Amazon and a search of its contents reveals
that Barstad is more or less right except that it appears that the use
of alignments for determining Easter and feast days continued up into
the 1700s. In that case the presence of alignments of interest to the
church cannot be used to impose a limit to the most recent date that
the Newport Tower was built. It certainly doesn't impose a most recent
date of 1457 as she suggests. Nevertheless it is interesting that it
appears to establish a possible connection with church purposes.

As an engineer, not withstanding its similarity to the Chesterton
windmill, I have never accepted that the Newport Tower was built as a
windmill. I hold this opinion for the simple reason that even when
bonded with mortar the strength of rubble masonry (Newport Tower)
cannot be compared with that of well laid ashlar masonry (Chesterton
Mill). If Barstad is correct the Newport Tower may have been built for
another purpose altogether.

There were already good clocks in the 17th c, you know

The Barstad person said that the alignments thought to be present
(but not proven to be intentional) in the tower would have been
available in almanac form after the mid-1400s; and therefore
people could only know when astronomical alignments occur by
building big-ass towers. Or some such.

And she considered that only Scandichoovians from Europe by way
of Greenland could possibly have needed to know these
astronomical dealies; and therefore no one other than them could
have built the thing.

IOW, start with the conclusion: get money to dig up
irrelevancies; ignore the irrelevancies; conclude that the
pre-concluded conclusion was right, because the archaeology
didn't turn up a scroll saying 'I, (state your name), built this
tower in 16..; and have left this brand-spanking-new coin, an
engraved brass plaque with the date and the name of the current
King, Governor of Providence Plantation, and the winner of this
year's Super Bowl'.

Wotta surprise!

Now that's not a very scholarly response.

It was not intended to be.

In fact it is down-right
demeaning.

It was intended to be.

When archaeologists ignore their own archaeology, they deserve to be
demeaned.

Hell, it can be understood when non-archaeologists, engineers, say, go
haring off after the odd theories (not intending to refer to present
company, but to the observed behavior of many engineers who decide
that the archaeological problem they see *must* be a nail, because
they have this here very cool hammer), and ignore archaeology.

But when archaeologists do it with their own investigations--that
needs to be laughed to scorn as much as is humanly possible.

And so I do. Ha!

You seem to be making the mistake of thinking that archaeology
consists only of what is dug out of the ground or, in this case, what
isn't dug out of the ground.

You seem to be ignoring that in the Newport Tower we have a very
tangible man-made artifact with clearly observable properties. That
they cannot yet be explained in the terms of what has been found by
excavation around it is a problem which cannot be solved by ignoring
the tower.

For the record, there are many theories as to the identity of those
who built the Newport Tower. You will find them listed on or linked to
http://www.redwoodlibrary.org/millmenu.htm I don't think there is one
for which there is not some supporting evidence. Selectively
accepting, rejecting or denigrating particular evidence is not the way
to go.



Eric Stevens
.

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