Written In Stone and Space takes an in-depth look at the role of measure in monumental art and architecture. Ancient builders were more than skilled masons and engineers. Evidence of a highly developed knowledge base survives in the geometry and dimensions of their great works. Follow along with the authors as they reconstruct, step by step, the lost language embedded in the pyramids, tombs, and artifacts examined in this anthology. Participation in the discovery process promises the reader a glimpse into the realm of the wordless sublime--modeled in stone and space.

Key to reading the language of the ancient architect is the recovery of a system the authors refer to as the “canon of measure.” This system evolved over generations of observation of the patterns that link all of nature with the cycles of the heavens and the rhythms of the human body. Historical documentation of the canon is scant, but fragments of its metrological DNA can be traced to modern systems. Written in Stone and Space supplies the missing links between conventional units of measure and their ancient canonical roots. 

Written in Stone and Space also delves into the opaque qualities of “sacred” architecture. The discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun, Howard Carter, once asked if there were some “mystical potency” that informs ancient art and disposes it to be perennially revered. Traditional rhetoric, though lofty, says little on the subject. In addressing this mystery, the authors define ten attributes that distinguish iconic architecture from the mundane. Their findings, drawn upon detailed examples from the Great Pyramid, the Tomb of Tutankhamun, the Washington Monument, and other well-known sites, will challenge archaeology to reappraise ancient art in light of its intelligent content. Modern builders may likewise be inspired to restore the power of architectural design to its rightful station—as an instrument of communication and repository of knowledge. Written in Stone and Space commences that restoration.

Bernard I. Pietsch, archaeo-metrologist and independent researcher, has spent over six decades exploring the geometry and dimensions of the world’s greatest stone monuments. Before his foray into ancient art, Pietsch was investigating how changes in the Earth’s magnetic field affected the behavior of living organisms. He observed pendulums and gyroscopes and studied earthquakes, tornadoes, and astronomy. In the living sciences, he surveyed everything from the vagaries of mass migrations to microscopic changes in blood sedimentation rates. From this wide perspective, his focus turned to how data from various scientific domains were cataloged and graphed. 

 “After surveying many fields,” he recalls, “I could see that events occurring in Nature defied prediction. I wanted to know what gave rise to so many anomalies. Clearly, an unaccounted factor was at work. I began to ask if perhaps there were another kind of framework or time sense that would more clearly resonate with Nature’s time—a single, reconciling dynamic to which all was responding.

“By the spring of 1971, I had drafted some promising explanations for these questions and was able to formulate an innovative, general statement about frequency expressing a natural law. About that time, and quite accidentally, my attention was captured by a book on the Great Pyramid—a diversion that would last for decades. By the fall of that year, l was deep into the geometry and measurements of the Pyramid. I realized that it confirmed, supported, and upgraded my derived concepts. It seemed as if all my research into astronomical cycles and biological rhythms had prepared me to read what I came to call the “book” of the Pyramid. I discovered in its architecture a geometric idiom that expressed insights I had gleaned from mathematics, psychology, epistemology, and Nature—the Pyramid was a cosmological model.”

Nearing the century mark at the time of this writing, Bernard Pietsch is no stranger to the boundaries of convention. His willingness to challenge, if not violate the rules of practical mathematics has enabled him to use the functions of number as an artist would—in complete freedom. As a result, the novel insights and “coincident correspondences” documented in his work are not random or serendipitous. They are evidence of an order implicitly revealed through the plasticity of number. 

Pietsch doesn’t claim to have discovered anything, only that he has recovered the language of ancient artists who expressed in their work, a level of harmony we moderns do not yet enjoy. “I just read well,” he says. “If a work is allowed to penetrate and inform our sensibilities, we may be fortunate enough to contact within ourselves, an experience of understanding modeled  by the work.” 

Pietsch has tapped into those models and left guideposts for the rest of us to follow.