On 11/02/2013 05:46, David Dalton wrote:
What is known of the ancient druids' knowledge of
astronomy? And that of the peoples that preceded
them in the British Isles, e.g. those responsible
for Stonehenge and other stone circles?

They were pretty well clued up with empirical observational knowledge of
the position of sunrise and lunar months and clearly a had a working
understanding of the calendar in relation to these observed phenomena.
Probably still the best book on the subject although in parts
speculative and now dated is Stonehenge Decoded by Gerald S Hawkins.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stonehenge-D.../dp/0880291478

The alignments at the solstices are a clear demonstration that they
really knew what they were doing and the post holes are suggestive of a
means of doing other computations and tracking calendar date.

Certainly stonehenge can be used to compute eclipses and track the Saros
but deciding whether or not the druids did this is hampered by the fact
that they did not leave us any written records.

The Babylonians did and so get the credit for discovering prominent
eclipse cycles (which were later named Saros by Halley)

Woodhenge is much less famous but probably more useful if you want to
play about making astronomical observations with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodhenge

Stonehenge is a heavily policed tourist trap next to a huge car park. It
may be a world heritage site but it isn't all that nice to visit.

And do modern druid organizations require their
members to have some degree of astronomical knowledge?


Most of them don't even know which way is up.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown