The Druidical temples of the county of Wilts / [Edward Duke].

  • Duke, Edward, 1779-1852.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Druidical temples of the county of Wilts / [Edward Duke]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were the geometrical figures of this early and sagacious race. Before I enter on the subject of the cycles sym- bolised by the details of the temple of Saturn, I say a few words on its fosse. In this an extraordinary circum- stance presents itself; the temple enclosed within its centre bears the same relative proportion to the sur- rounding fosse, as the planet Saturn does to his ring, that is, as one to three. Supposing it will be objected, that the knowledge of this as to the planet would have required the telescope, and that the ancients did not possess it, I then discuss the problematical point, and through the medium of Sir William Drummond, in his et Origines,” I cite a passage from Strabo strongly demonstrative that they did possess the telescope. I then inquire around the temple, and I find the stones to speak in plain and intelligible language. From them I learn, that here are represented the cycle of the years of Saturn, or the emblem of the race of man, that the 30 stones incumbent on these 30 uprights, are denotive of eternity, and the orb of Saturn as inclusive of space and time. The cycle of the planets also pre- sents itself, and within that, the celebrated Metonic cycle, or lunar cycle of 19 years. Innermost of all in this temple of Saturn, as in the womb of time, an arrange- ment exhibits itself typical of the ovum mundi, the mundane egg, the germ of universal nature. I find also that the trilithons denoting the planets and the circular range of imposts, which surround the temple, present in combination a most curious astronomical feature,
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