Following the String from the Meg to the Mile Some time after writing the preceding piece about Megalithic Measure I was drawn back  into the world of the mathematicians of the Stone Circle era. The similarity that appeared  between some of the ancient measures and those of the British “Imperial” system of feet,  inches and yards created an interest in seeing whether there were other related survivals that  linked the mensuration work of four millennia BC to the end of the second millennium AD.  The most important concept of the “String of Ideas” piece was the Megalithic Hand (MH)  of 4.08” or 103.6mm. There are eight of these in 1 Megalithic Yard (MY). I argued that the  hand was was divided into 4 parts of 1.02” or 25.9mm a dimension I called the Megalithic  Thumb (MT). It was also divided into 5 parts of .816” or 20.52mm which Thom called the  Megalithic Inch (MI). It can be seen that the MT is very close to the modern Inch. Margaret  Curtis (Ponting) suggests that ¼ MI of 5.104mm is also very close to 1/5 of 25.9mm  (5.18mm) the M Thumb. My thought was that the name Meg, short for Margaret, or the  Megalithic Corn (MC) would be suitable for this small basic unit of length. For the purpose  of this piece I’ll call it the Corn or (MC).  I feel happier with the good old British system of feet and inches and will try to keep the  use of metric units to a minimum to avoid the confusion that might develop from having too  many overlapping systems.  My argument for the use of the Megalithic Hand is advanced  in the preceding piece and appears to show that the hand as a  unit of measurement for horses is a sort of living fossil from  ancient times. What we seem to have arrived at is that there  were at least four units of measure that were interrelated and  fit the quantum derived by Alexander Thom for the stone  circles and other constructions of early people in Western  Europe the Megalithic Yard. Although he identified the MY  and proposed the M Inch as one fortieth of the MY together  with the M Rod of 2 ½ MY he didn’t consider any other unit,  not even the ½ MY. © Jon Appleton 1987 - 2010 under construction Jon Appleton This site brings together a kaleidoscope of ideas derived from 60 years of enquiry: it shares insights into fields as disparate as:- Archaeology, Landscape alignments, Megaliths, Henges, Prehistoric measurement, Astronomy, Mythology, Calendars of the past and Seasonal celebration. Click here to contact Jon    You can download a copy of this series as a pdf file by click here