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Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

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Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#151

Post by buildsjets »

smeej wrote: post #68
Archelaos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people would actually use and see: a 2D map The expert used spherical mathematics. This was quite widespread knowledge required to build proper sun dials and in the Late Medieval period for long distance navigation. Some were able to use analog computers, called "armillary spheres", for the calculations, which were known since Antiquity.[1] [1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillary_sphere

Most people aren't experts. If I'm setting up a bunch of churches in a line to make a point, I'm doing it to make a point to the vast swath of common people in them, not the handful of experts.

You have made the assumption that the line-up was done for the sake of human people, whether common or expert. When choosing the site to build a religious facility, would not the sake of the deity(s) being worshiped be a primary consideration?

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#152

Post by mikhailfranco »

Archelaos wrote: post #34
logtempo wrote: post #13

Are they aligned because they are famous, or are they famous because they are aligned? Or are they aligned because if I pick 7 famous monuments aligned I can draw a line, look over my shoulder and say "ho look, if we draw a line it match!" From wikipedia, the list of St Michael churches: St. Michael's Church (disambiguation) Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel (es), San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato Mexico World Heritag…

This Wikipedia list has a lot more St. Michael's churches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael%27s_Church Around 150 in Europe alone. For the next hackaton: Write a programme to find all possible approximately straight lines between any 7 of these churches.

There really are many more. I know of 3 in a small area of Somerset not on the list, but 2 of them are ruined, and hence not currently dedicated:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St_Michael_and_All_A...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrow_Mump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastonbury_Tor

Churches were often dedicated to St. Michael when they were built over pagan sanctuaries, because St. Michael could fight the old heathen devil. Another example would be in Brent Knoll, next to the iron age hill fort:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Michael%27s_Church,_Brent_K...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Knoll_Camp

That is undoubtedly the case for both St. Michael's Mount (Cornwall) and Mont Saint Michel (Normandy) in the list of 7. They are both perfect defensive sites, on islands close to the shore, but accessible by causeways at low tide, and hence certainly occupied from prehistoric times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Michael%27s_Mount

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont-Saint-Michel

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#153

Post by willis936 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #73
willis936 wrote: post #8

Cathedrals are the highest tier of vanity projects of one of the most powerful institutions in written history. It's little surprise that the makers knew the top three most import factors for real estate value: location, location, location. Are they pointing to anything though?

Harvard has more wealth than the Vatican.

Did they 1000 years ago?

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#154

Post by denton-scratch »

How many other cathedrals/shrines are not "on" this line? If the surrounding countryside is peppered with shrines to St. Michael, then any line you choose to draw would pass through/close to a number of them.

That is: TFA seems to be ignoring the null hypothesis.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#155

Post by pyrale »

svieira wrote: post #121
karaterobot wrote: post #98

Are any of these actually cathedrals? I see some monasteries and sacred sites, I don't see any cathedrals in that list. The difference is that 7 cathedrals, all named after St. Michael, found in a basically straight line would certainly not be a coincidence. It would be like there being 7 Google complexes in a straight line spread around the world: something's going on here. But 7 random religious sites named after o…

The extra interesting wrinkle here is that each of the Burger Kings in the straight line are associated with an appearance of the Burger King himself explicitly asking for a shrine in the location, while the others are mostly random franchises stuck up by someone who decided they would like a fast food restaurant here and it might as well be a Burger King. (i. e. Mont Saint Michele the bishop who saw St. Michael orig…

> are associated with an appearance of the Burger King himself explicitly asking for a shrine in the location

...According to the guy trying to sell you a big mac or whatever they are called there.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#156

Post by larsrc »

egypturnash wrote: post #138
karaterobot wrote: post #98

Are any of these actually cathedrals? I see some monasteries and sacred sites, I don't see any cathedrals in that list. The difference is that 7 cathedrals, all named after St. Michael, found in a basically straight line would certainly not be a coincidence. It would be like there being 7 Google complexes in a straight line spread around the world: something's going on here. But 7 random religious sites named after o…

This is an interesting point. Wikipedia's page on St. Michael's Sword describes it as "monasteries and other sacred sites" and also notes that they are also "almost all located on prominent hilltops". Only four of the seven locations show up on Wikipedia's list of "churches dedicated to Saint Michael" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_(archangel)#Churches_d... ). Also worth noting: "[Michael's] churches were of…

I would say the next logical step is figuring out the probability that with this many points, what is the likelihood of 7 of them being this close to being on a line? We can assume a uniform random distribution on the unit circle or square for simplicity.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#157

Post by regularfry »

smeej wrote: post #72
regularfry wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be the core of it. If the underlying question is "was this alignment intentional" then you could start by asking whether there are extant maps with better cathedral alignment than Mercator. These places are old . Skellig Michael goes back past 823AD, Mont-Saint-Michel is about the same sort of age, and the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo goes back to 490AD(ish). San Michele Arcangelo is on top of a pre-Chr…

Why do we need to assume widespread maps for this? Or even maps of the entire globe? A regional map showing barely more than a rectangle with this as its diagonal would be sufficient to get the point across to the average layperson. Virtually everything in church design is meant to communicate truths of the faith to illiterate laypeople. That's part of why pictures feature so prominently. They're telling stories to p…

The line is long enough for the curvature of the earth, and the subsequent distortion in the map projection, to be relevant. Notice that they're closer to a straight line on Mercator than to the geodesic: that means if you were to use purely local referencing to align the sites, they wouldn't end up where they are. You only get them to line up when you distort the natural geography with a projection of some sort, so if you want to make an argument that they were intentionally built on a line, you also have to account for the systematic deviation from the geodesic. And that prompts the question of whether that's remotely feasible given what we know of the history of cartography.

What I'd want to know is how old the story of St Michael's Sword actually is. Not the churches, but what's the earliest reference to them being in a line. My bet is that it's well after Mercator, and probably safely after the 18th century, when chunks of Europe got geodetic surveys done.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#158

Post by jfengel »

arethuza wrote: post #108
jfengel wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna be driving along most of Loch Ness early this autumn. Anything in particular I should look out for with respect to the Great Glen Fault? Any less-obvious geologic features?

Not related to the Great Glen Fault but the Parallel Roads in Glen Roy are fairly close and worth a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Roy#The_Parallel_Roads_of... Edit: Also have a look at the Lochaber Geopark: https://lochabergeopark.org.uk/

Thanks! I'll keep an eye out.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#159

Post by hef19898 »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #132
margalabargala wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As this article found, the answer to that question depends heavily on the map projection you use.

Perhaps we have yet to discover the real St. Michael's sword, which would, of course, be aligned along a geodesic line.

Yeah, spherical geometry exists. But using various projections makes for better click bait.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#160

Post by ImJamal »

willis936 wrote: post #153
mensetmanusman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvard has more wealth than the Vatican.

Did they 1000 years ago?

Harvard didn't exist 1000 years ago so obviously not. You could also argue that the Vatican has only existed since 1929. Prior to 1929 the Vatican wasn't independent and prior to that it was part of the Papal States (aka its own country)
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