With 25 years of experience excavating and interpreting Scotland’s Neolithic and early Bronze Age monumental landscapes, Dr. Kenneth Brophy is a senior lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow.

Kenny and I first met way back in 2002 when he was a young archaeology student excavating standing stones in my homeland of CaIthness, on the north east coast of Scotland, where I was field walking, searching for flint arrow heads with one of his colleagues.

In this episode Kenny discusses his fresh academic approach to the controversial 1970s maps of Harry Bell, the renowned Glaswegian lay-hunter who in the footsteps of Alfred Watkins proposed a network of geodetic alignments connecting prehistoric sites encompassing Glasgow and central Scotland.

We also discuss a significant lunar latitude spanning northern Scotland from which every 18.6 years, at the lunar minima, the moon fuses with landscape offering witnesses an awe inspiring cosmo-mythological spectacle.

And as Scotland’s leading authority on the long straight cursus monuments that lead to Neolithic standing stone settings, based on his findings on the western Isle of Arran, Kenny shares his ideas on their ritualistic functionality.

Stabbing at the meaning of Scotland's geometrical carved stone balls, and the motivation of early death in Neolithic architecture, this is ancient Scotland according to the case files of Dr. Kenneth Brophy.

Kenneth Brophy Professional Bio: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/kennethbrophy/

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Show Notes

Neolithic Lunar Minimum

From Learable Hill and Callanish the moon travels along the horizon every 18.6 years, at the astronomical Lunar Minimum. Learable: 58.191° N -3.886 W. Callanish: 58.197° N -6.745° W
The variable from a common latitude is “15.2 meters” over 408.28 kilometers. The Dounray fan represents the northernmost latitude from which this phenomenon can be witnessed.

Glasgow Cathedral Ecclesiastical Equinox Line

7th c. Govan Old Church: 55.864° N, -4.313° W 12th c. Glasgow Cathedral: 55.862° N, -4.231° W15th c. Rosslyn Chapel: 55.855° N, -3.160° W. Note: these churches were built in different centuries, but the “modern templar” claim is that this “ecclesiastic equinox line” was founded in Govan in the 6th century, extended to locate GLW cathedral in the 12th c, and extended again in the 15th c. with the building of Rosslyn Chapel, which is a miniature version of GLW cathedral. These three sites demonstrate a variable from common latitude of “223” meters, over 140 kilometers.

Earl’s Seat to Deil’s Wood Meridian

Deil’s Cairn: 55.754° N -4.299° WEarl’s Seat: 56.025° N, -4.296° W. The variable from the common meridian is “26” meters, over 45 kilometers.