Last Wednesday, 12 July at 8.25 pm, traffic on 34th Street in New York City came to a halt and out came the cameras. It was the moment of a bi-ennial event, the so-called 'Manhattanhenge' with the setting sun over New Jersey becoming angled between the skyscrapers of NYC. On a more miniature and definitely prehistoric scale at the Callanish Stones, on the Isle of Lewis, the alignment of the moon with the distant heights of Clisham supposedly has a lunar significance. It is an Old World / New World comparison.
Scottish Islands Explorer - its publication is a bi-monthly event
It's strange to think how ordinary people have been conscious of exact timings only since the introduction of railway services and timetables - under 200 years ago. Yet ancient monuments were often aligned with light patterns that had both precision and purpose.
ReplyDelete