Slit megalith at foot of Mt. Senge
This is a report by S. Tokuda on another slit megalith on Mt. Senge. On October 1st of this year 2022, S. Tokuda and K. Sugisaka headed to Mt. Senge for observation photography. The megalith of this report #3 is located at the foot of Mt. Senge, not at the top as the megalith in the previous report. It is located on the line connecting the upper two slit stones and Mt. Kasagi. See previous post. In other words, the equinox sun setting behind Mt. Kasagi also shines into the slit of this megalith. Height 3.7m, width 4.7m, depth 4.8m, average slit spacing 20m.
The photo below shows what the slit megalith looks like; photo taken in the spring of 2021.
This year, 2022, we took this photo at sunset, as the sun was sinking toward Mt. Kasagi.
As we gaze at this scene, we may think: The Jomon people may have also watched the sun setting on Mt. Kasagi like this.
As announced previously, this survey has so far found similar megalithic groups in 16 locations along an east-west line of about 48 km from Nakatsugawa City to Seki City. The point of this investigation is the alignment of megaliths that advances east-west in a band of width approximately 100m (latitude 4s = 88m). I am pondering the mystery of the “Jomon compass.”
Editors Note: Ms. Tokuda is making a reference to the unusual Jomon indigenous way of defining a compass by carefully measuring a reference east-west line. A line perpendicular to this line will determine the north-south direction without having to take recourse to sighting the north pole star, a difficult task in mountainous terrain.
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Iwaya-Iwakage of Kanayama Megaliths 