In the first place I may state that although many of the alignments to which Mr. Spence refers in his pamphlet on Maeshowe prove to be very different from those he supposed and drew on the map which accompanies his paper, the main point of his contention is amply confirmed.
I give a [copy] of the Ordnance map showing the true orientation of these and of other sight-lines I have made out.
The alignments on which Mr. Spence chiefly depended were two, one running from the stone circle past the entrance of Maeshowe to the place of sunrise at Hallowe’en (November 1), another from the same circle by the Barnhouse standing stone to the mid-winter sunrise at the solstice.
Although the map gives these sight-lines, I shall show that they had not the use Mr. Spence attributes to them; but still observations of the sun were provided for on the days in question, and the circles and outstanding stones were undoubtedly set up to guide astronomical observations relating to the different times of the year. Of course, as I have shown elsewhere, such astronomical observations were always associated with religious celebrations of one kind or another, as the astronomer and the priest were one.
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Fig. 39.—Copy of Ordnance Map showing chief sight-lines from the stones of Stenness.
I shall not refer to all the sight-lines indicated, but deal only with those which I have without local knowledge been able to test and justify by means of the 25-inch Ordnance map.
Not only does calculation prove the worship of the May and June years, but I think the facts now before us really go to show that in Orkney the May year was the first established, and that the solstitial (June) year came afterwards, and this was one of the chief questions I had in view.
I will begin with the May year. I have already shown, [p. 22], that the half-way time between an equinox and a solstice is when the sun’s centre has a declination approximately 16° 20′ N. or S. In Orkney, with the latitude of 59°, assuming a sea horizon, the approximate amplitude of sunrise or sunset is 33° 6′, the corresponding azimuth being 56° 54′.