You Were Told Maths Began Elsewhere. This Yorkshire Grave Says Otherwise 🇬🇧

You were told mathematics began with the Greeks or the Arabs. Three carved chalk drums from a Yorkshire grave might prove otherwise. 🇬🇧 In 1889, archaeologists opening a Neolithic barrow at Folkton in North Yorkshire found the burial of a child around five years old. Beside the body lay three small carved chalk objects, shaped like drums and decorated with stylised faces and patterns. They went into the British Museum, and for 130 years nobody knew what they were for. Then in 2018, researchers measured them. The proportions appear to encode a standard unit of length. Wind a cord ten times around the smallest drum and you get what archaeologists call the “long foot”, about 32cm. The same unit researchers believe was used to lay out Stonehenge. A fourth drum later turned up more than 200 miles south, near Lavant in Sussex. Same measurements. The chalk versions were likely replicas of working tools originally carved in wood, the everyday kit of people who were laying out monuments with real precision. They were not buried in a king’s grave or a treasury. They were buried with a small child, so the knowledge would be remembered. British people were measuring the world before England had a name. Long before we had a name, this island was measuring the world. Help us make sure that is never forgotten again. 👇🙏 👉 proudofus.co.uk/support 👈 Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏 0:00 You were told it began elsewhere 0:11 A child's grave at Folkton, 1889 0:35 130 years, no answer 0:48 What the measurements revealed 1:09 Buried with a child, not a king 1:21 Measuring the world before we had a name #BritishHistory #FolktonDrums #Stonehenge #Neolithic #ProudOfUs