The Search for the "Elementary First Steps, the Basis of the Design":

In 1993, I came across a copy of Henry Lincoln's book The Holy Place. Written several years after his co-authorship of the 1980's bestseller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, it describes his apparent discovery of a series of alignments, grids and various geometrical figures on the 1:25,000 scale map of the countryside around the village of Rennes-le-Château, in the south of France. The geometry, he claims, may found by connecting the location of the very old churches, chateaux and certain mountain peaks in the vicinity. Although there is little or nothing to be observed in the landscape itself to suggest the existence of such geometry, The Holy Place presents a wealth of examples taken from the map to support his assertion. 

Although it is a slim volume, there is a large mass of fascinating material in the book. By sheer volume of evidence alone, the reader who follows Mr Lincoln through his presentation is left with the impression that something, indeed, must hover behind his fantastic claims, though whether it is the invisible megalithic temple stretched out across the countryside which he suggests remains an open question. For one thing, it is impossible to verify the alignments for oneself from the book itself, as the size of the 1:25,000 source map precludes its inclusion in the text. Further, Lincoln himself freely admits that whatever underlying structure or design may order his tangle of alignments and circles and other shapes, he is himself unable to discern it. In the end it is a book which poses more questions than it is able to answer. The author is admirably open and honest about this however, and he frames his conclusions more as a call to further researchers to take up the problem than any kind of final word on his discovery. For example, he writes:

"For me, however, the essential task remains the hunt for the elementary first steps of the construction, the basis of the design - a quest, perhaps fruitless, for the doorway to an easier understanding." (page 134)

Although I lived a long way from France at the time, (or perhaps because of it!), I decided that I would obtain for myself the 1:25,000 scale maps of the area, and set myself the task of independently verifying whether or not Lincoln's claimed alignments held true. When the maps finally arrived, I had them mounted and laminated, and began quietly tracing out his alignments in my spare time. Once I had begun to be familiar with the lay of the land, several impressions slowly formed in my mind. The first was that, for the most part, Lincolns claims about the alignments actually held true. There were indeed many striking examples of significant sites on the map in satisfyingly straight lines over relatively short distances. The circle of churches which he described (details below) was laid out as he claimed, and was accurate enough. There were, certainly, occasional alignments which I came to decide were outside of a small margin of error, but given the sheer number of lines he cites, these did little to put a dent in his overall claim.

Many of his claims about distance and angle measures were, however, not of quite the same quality. It became clear to me that his use of the term "exact" was, on occasion, a little too strong. Those familiar with the book may be interested to hear for example that the "pentagram of mountain peaks" does deviate very slightly but significantly from "exact": a perfectly regular pentagram of the size and orientation he describes misses the stipulated peaks by a margin of error of several millimetres on the map. This may be small enough to still qualify the five peaks as a remarkable configuration of physical geography, but exact means exact, and this pentagram was not.

On the other hand, it was not long before I was finding examples of both alignments and measures for myself which were not shown in The Holy Place, so despite the small number of fuzzy data points, I was still able to come to my own conclusion that there was indeed something remarkable about the distribution of the churches and mountains in the Rennes district. I had set out to confirm or refute Lincolns claims, and to my own satisfaction at least, came to the conclusion that he was on to something.

I remained just as baffled as Lincoln , though, when it came to making sense of what I was slowly uncovering. If there was an overall design it remained hidden from me behind a forest of lines ruled on the map.. From time to time I would pull the map out, re-trace the lines, scratch my head and wonder why and how and what did this all represent?

The question I returned to over and over was this: did the geometry on the map imply that the geometry necessarily exists in the landscape? How was it possible that one could exist without the other? Or in other words: before the modern 1:25,000 scale map came to be drawn and published, how could any landscape geometry have been discerned, let alone designed or implemented? How could it have existed without this map; but equally, how could this map have existed back then?

It was to take me several years of quietly thinking about it all before I made four crucial discoveries which opened the doorway to an understanding of what was going on. Along the way, I collected a bewildering array of observations about the many indisputable alignments and angles which connected the various sites marked. These only served to deepen both my fascination and frustration with the elusive design which seemed to hover over the map, until, armed with the four keys, as I called them, the way in was found. The keys turned out to be "so simple and yet, so unexpected", and to give such a satisfying insight into the origin, nature and purpose of the geometry, that I knew I had found the basis of the design.

Here then, in sequence, are presented the series of discoveries I made in the map geometry, which led to the breakthrough .:

The First Key: The Length of the Bugarach Baseline

I eventually had decided that if this puzzle was capable of a solution, then the geometry must be based on some unit of measurement which it should be possible to discern and identify. I resolved to find such a unit. By this time, I knew the map more thoroughly than I knew the map of my own town. I set out to convert every significant length on the map into every possible unit of measure I could come up with. I decided that I would not disqualify any measures due to any historical assumptions about when particular units were first supposed to have been used. I had read enough on the history of metrology to be convinced that most of the standard stories of the origin of measures were highly dubious anyway.

I did have an intuitive feel for what I was looking for: I wanted to find a prominent length in the design which was resolvable into a round number, preferably with lots of zeroes, of whole units. I was looking for a combination of a marked distance and a unit of measure which would give a clear and unambiguous signal that the line had been purposely laid out. One day, I found just such a line.

Lincoln had observed (on pp136/137 of The Holy Place) that the distance along the line he calls the "Bugarach Baseline", between Bugarach Church (BC) and "Combe Loubiere" (CL) was divided into 3 exactly equal lengths by the mountain peak named La Soulane, and by the intersection of this line with the Sunrise Line, which he had labelled Point Q. In this case, his use of the term exact was perfectly justified. This line is exactly divided into three lengths as he claimed. This seemed like a promising line to work with.

I measured the distances on the map carefully, and found the BC to CL distance to be 457mm. I checked the divisions of the line into 3 segments, marked by Point Q and the Sunrise line, and found them to be very slightly longer than 152mm each.

Simple calculation showed that, on a 1:25,000 scale map, a distance of 152.4mm on the map would correspond to 150,000 inches in the landscape. Three lengths of this, or 450 000" on the ground, would therefore correspond to 457.2mm on the map. As this result was practically indistinguishable from the distance I had measured for the full length of the Bugarach Baseline, I took this figure of 450,000" to be a useful, accurate description of the total length. It satisfied by intuitive criteria for a satisfying round number of whole units, although clearly this did not necessarily imply that it had been originally designed or intended as such. Nevertheless, I felt that a tentative first step in the dark had been taken, and emboldened by this minor breakthrough, I persisted to search the map for significant distances. 

Was the Inch known to the Ancients?: (left) Temple of Karnak, Luxor (below) Temple of Luxor Both images show regular markings which exhibit the inch measure. These are by no means isolated examples.

The Second Key: The Radius of the Circle of Churches

I then turned my attention to the measure which seemed to be one of the most critical in the design: the dimensions of the so-called "Circle of Churches". This is a circle on the map whose circumference passes through no less than six churches or chateaux. . It was first pointed out by David Wood, in his 1985 book Genisis. In the landscape, it has a diameter of just under 6 miles

Both David Wood and Henry Lincoln give values for the radius of this circle in terms of the units which they prefer.

David Wood completely rejects the application of known units of measurement, ancient or modern, to the Rennes complex. Instead, for reasons which he describes in his books, he settles on a unit of his own devising which he calls the Ancient Unit, or AU, very nearly equal, as it turns out, to the inch. (The conversion rate is 1 AU = 1.0047 inch).

Wood gives the radius of the circle of churches as 185 410 Ancient Units (with further decimal places following). This length in the landscape corresponds on the map to a radius of 189.2mm.

Lincoln settles instead on the pole or rod of 198 inches. He gives the radius of the circle as 933.586 poles. Although he attempts anexplanation of the significance of this 933.586 figure in terms of the value of phi, or the golden ratio, I found this section of his book unconvincing. Measured on the 1:25,000 map, this 933.586 pole value scales to 187.8mm.

The discrepancy of a little over a millimeter between these two authors estimate of the radius of the same circle is explained by the fact that the centre of the circle is not marked by any explicit point, and the small circles which indicate the positions of the various churches on its circumference are themselves of the order of a millimetre in diameter. Hence it is possible to draw circles of slightly different diameters and still achieve a convincing and satisfying fit to the marked points of the churches. My own best estimate of the radius came to a figure of 188 mm neat, a little more than Lincolns and a little less than Woods.

However, as both Lincoln and Wood's values represented incommensurable numbers, it seemed to me that their results would have made little practical sense in terms of physically marking out such a circle. I felt that the length should have a value in a particular unit in which it could be readily and easily laid out, or measured off, or at least described; in other words, a whole, or commensurate value.  

I set about converting the radius of the circle into other units of measurement. It did not take long to find a candidate which met the critera I had set. It was the Egyptian royal cubit.

Slightly varying values are given in different places for this unit. This issue will be explored in detail elsewhere in this study, but for now, taking the value arrived at by Sir Isaac Newton of 1 RC = 20.61 inches, or 1.717 feet, it is found that 9,000 royal cubits corresponds to a radius on the map of 188.45mm.

In other words, 9 000 Royal Cubits was as close a value for the radius as any of the estimates to date.

When I realised that this implied a diameter for the circle of 18 000 RC, it astonished me to think that David Wood has not noticed this. His whole thesis revolves around the symbolism of the number 18 as symbolic of the Goddess Isis. Had he realised that the diameter of the circle was marked with her number in Egyptian units of Royal cubits, he surely would have dropped his fixation with rejecting existing units of measure. His AUs were, in any case, so close in value to the inch that the difference was virtually negligible anyway. His circle radius value of 185,410 AUs (in the landscape) could be expressed in units of inches, ie as 185,410 inches, and still represent a perfectly acceptable value for the circle radius of 188.37mm on the map. There was no doubt that this figure of 185410 inches was an interesting number; as Wood had noted, is the value of the expression 3/phi, where phi is the golden ratio, multiplied by 10,000.

In any case, with the three 150,000 inch equal segments of the Bugarach Baseline, and the 9,000 royal cubit circle radius, I now had two measures which gave satisfying whole number values for two critical distances on the map, neither of which had been noted in any of the published accounts.

I was still no closer to an understanding of the substance of the geometry, but was beginning to feel I might be on the right track, in particular, evidence for Egyptian involvement, or at least someone working with their measures,

The Third Key: The mr Triangle

The next important breakthrough came from a passage near the end of Professor Steccini's masterly essay on ancient measures included as an appendix to Peter Tompkins Secrets of the Great Pyramid. As has been noted, he describes how the Egyptians held a special reverence for the 36° right angled triangle, known to them as the mr triangle. This particular geometrical figure has already been met in Part One as the origin of the name of To-Mera, or Ancient Egypt, and in Part Two as the clue to identifying the figure representing the constellation Crux in the zodiac at the Temple of Hathor in Denderah.

The 36° right angled triangle has many unique and useful properties which make it a basic building block of sacred geometry. It is the unit triangle of the pentagon for example, and by extension, of the dodecahedron, as its sides are in ratios governed by phi, the celebrated golden ratio, or 1.61803+.. Professor Stecchini notes also that, conveniently, the mr triangle has sides of lengths which are readily memorised: to useful accurate approximation they may be quoted as, respectively, 100, 72 and 123.

The side measuring 100 is considered to be exact, while the other side and the hypotenuse both have a decimal remainder.

The length of the hypotenuse of a 36 degree right triangle, as drawn above, is 200/phi, or expressed as a decimal to seven figures, 123.6068…

One day, I realised that two of the numbers that had occurred in the discussion of the first two keys stood in the proportions of two sides of this mr triangle. Specifically, the lengths of 150,000 inches, and 185,410 inches were the two sides of an mr triangle, enlarged by 150% on the dimensions given above, and laid out in thousands of inches.

In other words: one can construct a 36° right-angled triangle with sides of 185,410" for the hypotenuse, and two shorter sides of 150,000", and 108,000".

Here then were the two numbers which had emerged from the geometry related in a single figure known to have been used and highly revered in the sacred geometry of the ancients. Now I had a growing feeling that I was getting somewhere.

(As an aside, Lincoln had almost noticed this, without quite seeing what was going on. He had observed, on page 138 of The Holy Place, that dividing the distance from Combe Loubiere to La Soulane, (i.e. two-thirds of his Bugarach Baseline), by phi, resulted in the circle radius measure. Expressed in poles, such an expression would seem to make little sense. Expressed in inches however, the veil is lifted: as we have seen in the First Key, two-thirds of the Bugarach Baseline, that is, two segments of 150,000 inches is equal to 300,000". Dividing this number by phi results in the 3/phi expression (ignoring factors of 10), which as we have seen in the Second Key gives an acceptable measure of the circle radius, specifically 185,410". )

The Fourth Key: This Map IS the Territory

‘Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
But we’ve got our brave Captain to thank’
(So the crew would protest) ‘that he’s brought us the best -
A perfect and absolute blank!.’

- Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark 

This was to prove the simplest and the most stunning of the insights, and to unlock the door to understanding the true nature of the geometry.

After several years and countless hours of poring over the map, one day it suddenly occurred to me: on a 1:25,000 scale map, the length of 150,000"in the landscape (the now familiar Bugarach Baseline segment measure), will be represented by a length of 6 inches!

Up until that moment, every measurement I had made on the map had been in millimetres, for obvious reasons. However, I quickly hunted around for a ruler marked in inches (no common item in a metric country these days!).

Sure enough, as I knew it must be, the distance from Bugarach Church to La Soulane, the one-third segment of the Bugarach Baseline, was precisely 6 inches on the map! The other two segments were the same. The complete distance from Bugarach Church to Combe Loubiere was 18 inches! There was not the slightest discernible distance between the marks on the map and the lengths of the ruler. The geometry on the map was laid out in inches!

All of a sudden, my 99% perspiration was crowned with 1% inspiration: I saw in a flash that the map of Rennes is a Blank Map! It is a piece of geometry, laid out in inches on a piece of paper to form a 1:25,000 scale map. The map geometry preceeded the landscape geometry!

By an extraordinary co-incidence, the scale of the map which we use today happens to be precisely the same scale as the plans upon which the original geometry was originally assembled. This amazing fact had remained hidden from all investigators to date because they, like myself, had all used rulers marked in millimetres to measure distances on the map, in the mistaken assumption that the scale of the map we use today could not possibly bear any relation to the original measure and scale of the construction. The true scale of the map, indeed the existence of the geometry as a blueprint or plan of the Rennes complex, had been overlooked for want of an inch rule.

Another quotation from Steccini sums up an analogous situation perfectly:

For now however, it suffices to observe that but for the persistence into modern times of the inch, virtually unchanged in dimension (details discussed elsewhere), and for the fact that we still today happen to use the same mapping scale of 1:25,000 as did the ancients, this might never have been noticed..

To restate: the Map of Rennes is a piece of geometry laid out in inches on paper, and exists prior to and independently of the fact of the design being marked out in the landscape in the South of France, and possibly elsewhere. It shows a forgotten method of making maps: as a sequence of geometrical steps which may be followed to reliably create an accurate map of a region. Such a map is truly portable; once learned and committed to inner memory, it may be recreated as required on whatever materials are to hand. The geometry is drawn using an inch-rule, and it becomes a 1:25,000 scale map, or better still, blueprint, of a region to be marked out, or calibrated, with the same design.

The revelation that the geometry on paper marked in inches precedes the geometry marked in the landscape led me inescapably to the conclusion that it might somehow be possible to construct the entire "map" using the methods of ancient geometry, a sequence of steps by which all of these lines could be drawn, using no more than a compass and straightedge, symbols of the Freemasons and tools of the ancient geometer. To these however, I realised that it must be necessary to allow the addition of one "magic ingredient": a ruler or measuring stick marked in whole numbers of inches. Later, I was to find confirmation of this initial discovery; not only distances marked out in whole numbers of inches on the map, but an entire grid system based on inch squares. Having decided that such a method must exist, I then set out to find it. I had as tools the knowledge now of the units involved, the undoubted presence of the MR triangle, and an inner certainty that I was seeking not an arbitrary set of lines which might by co-incidence fit the map, but instead: the rediscovery of the original Method by which the Builders had proceeded to erect the map-geometry.

Next: The Method: Constructing the Map of Rennes-le-Chateau

Related Pages:

The Eighteen Royal Cubits: The Giza/ Rennes connection

Grid Construction of the regular heptagon

Hidden Geometry in Art:
Pierro Della Francesca:
Fra Angelico 
Fra Luca Pacioli
Denderah Zodiac

Geometrical Analysis of the East Meon Crop Circle

©Simon Miles 1999