Egypt has the Pyramids, Mexico has Chichen Itza, Kampuchea has Angkor, England has Stonehenge, Wales has Bryn Celli Ddu... What?

You’ve never heard of it before? I must confess, that neither had I until recently, when I read the book “Uriels Machine” by Chris Knight and Rob Lomas.

Bryn Celli Ddu is a mound, which is in the middle of a field, approachable only on foot along an unmade farm track and close to the RAF base at Valley on Ynys Mon (Anglesey). Is it any wonder that few people have heard of it? At first glance, it is a large grass topped mound with a stone entranceway leading to a 27 feet long passageway and end chamber. Quite unremarkable really, although the bones found inside do suggest that this was the burial place of somebody of high standing in the community.

What is remarkable about the structure, is its estimated construction date and its true purpose. Dr. Julian Thomas of Southampton University has dated it as far back as 3,500 BC, putting it in the region of 5,500 years old. This dates Bryn Celli Ddu to the same era that the main stones of Stonehenge were erected and up to 1,000 years before the Great Pyramids of Egypt were thought to have been built.

Is this a burial mound? No, absolutely not a burial mound, write Chris and Rob. This megalithic period structure is the high-tech solar and planetary observatory and calendar planner of its era. Its builders, 5,500 years ago, had astronomy skills which can only be matched by today’s expensive, sophisticated, high-power, computer controlled, radio telescope systems.

Through its precisely placed stone pillars containing a sunlight entry slot, and down its long corridor to the end chamber, the builders were able to plot on internal pillars, the arrival of the summer and winter solstices and the two annual equinoxes. At these times only, sunlight would shine through the slot, travel in a narrow beam down the corridor to the end chamber where it struck a quartz crystal dish and reflected onto the marker pillar which corresponded with the event being viewed.

Have you ever seen the planet Venus at night? After the moon it is probably the brightest object in the night sky but is only visible at certain times of the year. The builders of this observatory built in a Venus tracking system, using the light from the planet entering through the same slot but being reflected by a different set of crystals onto another marker pillar. Using this system, the builders were able to track and predict with pin-point accuracy the 8 year rotational cycle of Venus.

The question is ‘why did these ancient people need to understand the movements of the sun and Venus so precisely?’ Knight and Lomas state that, “Venus is the most accurate indicator of the time of year in the solar system. Over 5 Venus cycles – i.e. every 40 years – it synchronises the solar calendar, the lunar calendar and the star calendar to within a few seconds. Knowledge of the Venus cycle enables the three main calendars to be regularly realigned and allows detailed predictions of the tides and lunar eclipses to be made.”

An even bigger question for me is… if 5,500 years ago the level of maths and astro-physical knowledge was working at this very sophisticated level, why did it disappear until Galilleo and Da Vinci re-discovered some of it in our recent past? The authors of the book offer one very interesting scenario.

Now, I’m going to wait for a nice sunny morning – preferably June 21st – to visit the site. See you there.