John Schofield wrote:
> I wonder if anyone is aware of anything like this having been done
> already, either on modern material culture or more ancient stuff.
Dear John -
The most famous archaeological example must be William Stukeley's suggestion (in 1740) that, contra Inigo Jones, Stonehenge was built not with the 'Roman foot' as a unit of measurement, but the 'Druidic cubit' (and therefore not built by the Romans...). Stuckley's Druidic cubit was larger than a 77.5mm-wide coffee cup, coming in at 20-and-four-fifths inches.
Stuckley's idea inspired much 20th-(and 21st) century archeo-numerology, such as searches for 'the megalithic yard'. On which see Christopher Catling's fun contribution to Current Archaeology in 2010, which also includes a brief mention of the non-random spacing of Woolworths stores in Britain, which is perhaps relevant here -
http://www.archaeology.co.uk/blog/chris-catling/numerologists-triumph-jacquetta-hawkes-aliens-and-woolworths-ley-line-hunting.htm
D
........................................
Dr Dan Hicks MIfA, FSA
University of Oxford
http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/DH1.html
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