Stonehenge - ('Stan-enges' - Henge-Circle).

Probably the best known (and most expensive) stone circle in the world. The site is known to have been constructed over several different phases, highlighting its importance over a period spanning several millennia. It has been shown to have functioned as an astronomical 'observatory' (3), as well as being geometrically connected to several other significant megalithic sites (see below). There is no doubt that Stonehenge played an important part in the prehistoric search for knowledge.

Description of the site.

The Avenue - The outermost element of the site is the Avenue that runs straight down a gentle slope for 530m (560yds) into Stonehenge Bottom (River Avon). The Avenue consists of twin banks about 12m (40ft) apart with internal ditches, and it begins at the entrance to the earthwork enclosure. The first part of the avenue is aligned to the summer solstice sunrise, supporting the idea that the site was astronomical in nature.

The Heel-Stone - (See Photo, right) - At 20ft long (4ft underground), around 8ft wide by 7ft thick (3), this stone is a classic example of an outlier, standing at the entrance to the earthworks, and in line with 'the Avenue'.  The 'Heel-stone' is a large upright, un-worked sarsen (hard sandstone) which lies immediately adjacent to the A344 road. The nearest source of stones of the size represented by the large sarsens at Stonehenge is on the Marlborough Downs, near Avebury, about 30km to the NE.

 

Extract from Burl - 'The heel-stone is popularly thought to stand in line with the midsummer sunrise but it does not and never did...astronomical analysis has shown instead that the stone is in-line with rising of the moon halfway between its northern minor and major positions' (11).

The 'Heel-stone is actually one of an original four stones that once stood at the entrance to the henge. In 1620, Inigo Jones sketched all the original original sarsens in-situ. (see diagram, left).

 

The Ditch and Bank - Moving inwards from the Heel Stone is an earthwork enclosure that consists of a ditch and an interior bank, the height of which was calculated by Professor Atkinson as being about 1.8m (6ft). It is known that there were at least two entrances, the one now visible (facing NE) and one to the south.

The Slaughter Stone - Lying within the entrance is an un-worked and now recumbent stone, stained a rusty red caused by rainwater acting on iron, and known as the Slaughter Stone. This stone is about 21-ft long, and although it was originally upright, it is now fallen and has now sunk so deep that only its upper end shows. Hawkins (3) makes note that while all the other stones were either bluestone or sarsen, the so called slaughter-stone is 'of fine-grained pale green sandstone, containing so many flakes of mica that its surface, wherever freshly exposed, shows the typical mica glitter'. This stone seems to have come from the Cosheston Beds, composed of old red sandstone, at Milford haven on the coast of Wales, some 30miles to the southwest of the Prescelly quarries.

The Station Stones - Arranged around the inner edge of the earthwork bank were originally four small uprights: the Station Stones, of which two are still visible. The 'Station-stone-rectangle'  - Has a perimeter the same length as a side of the great pyramid (4). The only latitude where the four station stones which determine lunar and solar alignments can form an exact rectangle is at the latitude of Stonehenge (14)

The Aubrey Holes - (Assigned a C14 date of 2,000 BC +/- 275 yrs). Immediately adjacent to the bank is a ring of 56 pits, known as the Aubrey Holes, marked by circular concrete spots. The Aubrey holes were suggested by Prof. G. Hawkins (3), to have been used for calculating the phases of the moon and also for predicting the month of the year in which eclipses would take place. The area between the inner edge of the bank and the outermost stone settings includes at least two further settings of pits: the Y and Z holes.

The Y and Z holes - Almost every one of these 59 holes had a fragment of bluestone placed into it (3).

The Sarsen Stones - In its complete form the outermost stone setting consisted of a circle of 30 upright sarsens, of which 17 still stand, each weighing about 25 tons. The tops of these uprights were linked by a continuous ring of horizontal sarsen lintels, only a small part of which is now still in position. The stones in the sarsen circle are carefully shaped and the horizontal lintels are joined not only by means of simple mortise-and-tenon joints, but they are also locked using what is effectively a dovetail joint. The edges were smoothed into a gentle curve which follows the line of the entire circle. (Other ancient masonry techniques)

The Sarsen-ring (whose official inner diameter is 97ft or 1162.8 primitive inches), has a circumference of 3652.4 primitive inches. As well as indicating a knowledge of the Solar year, it is also exactly one 'quarter-aroura', as measured in ancient Egypt (1). 

 

The pictures above illustrate the sophisticated construction techniques applied to the sarsen circle 

The Bluestones - As many as 85 of the 5 ton bluestones were erected around the centre of the old ridge system, with the stones being placed 6 ft apart and approx 35 ft from the centre point. It appears that the stones formed a double circle, with a pattern of radiating spokes of two stones each. The stones were transported at least 200 miles to the site, from the eastern end of the Preselly Mountain in Wales. (9) (The distance from the quarry to Stonehenge is only 140 miles as the crow flies (10), and various routes have been suggested both over-land and by sea; So, until the exact route is known, the exact figure cannot be given).

The radius of the 'Bluestone' circle (39.6 ft) is the same as the diameter of the 'Bluestone horseshoe'. The Bluestone circle has a diameter of 79.2 ft, and earth has a diameter of 7,920 miles (4).

The Sarsen Horseshoe - Inside these two circles lies the sarsen horseshoe, consisted originally of five sarsen trilithons (a Greek word that means three stones), each comprising two uprights with a horizontal lintel. Although now fragmentary, the arrangement shows the careful grading of the five trilithons, the tallest of which is 6.7m (22ft) high above ground level. Enfolded within this massive horseshoe lies a smaller horseshoe arrangement of upright bluestones.

Fact - The tallest upright stone at Stonehenge is 6.7m (22ft) high, with another 2.4m (8ft) below ground = 9.1m long

 

Chronology

Chronology - Current archaeological research shows that this site was constructed and modified on various phases, spanning several centuries.

Pre-Stonehenge - 7,000 BC - Three (See photo, right), large wooden posts were erected where the car-park is now. They were aligned approximately east-west. Archaeological evidence shows that just under a thousand years later two more posts were erected only 350 metres away, also aligned east-west (16). 

Burl has the following to say on the matter:

'When  the car park was extended in 1966 three, large and deep postholes were noticed about 250 metres north-west of the circle. Their positions are marked by white rings today (now concrete posts). They had held tall posts and aroused much enthusiasm. The late 'Peter' Newham, author of an excellent, highly regarded booklet on the astronomy of Stonehenge, wrote, 'These can be regarded as the most positive "astronomical" discovery yet made at Stonehenge...they align on sun and moon setting positions with an extreme accuracy'...

 

...'The solution lies in the unpublished Carbon-14 dates for the Stonehenge postholes. One was for 6,140 BC (uncorrected), and the other for 7,180 BC (uncorrected), long before Stonehenge...If the posts near Stonehenge were Mesolithic, erected several thousands of years before the henge, then their extreme astronomical accuracy was entirely accidental'. (1)   (Give it up Burl...)

 

Stonehenge 1 -  (3,200 BC) (11): construction of the circular bank, the ditch, and the 56 Aubrey Holes, and perhaps the station stones. (At this stage, the elements of Stonehenge indicate a lunar observation).

At this stage 'The sun, apparently, did not interest the henge builders' (11)

Stonehenge 2 - (From 2,550 BC): Widening of the old ditch-bank (3) with pottery, animal bones, and cremated human remains placed in ditch; cremations deposited in some of the partially filled Aubrey Holes; complex of posts in interior and in entrance causeway. Addition of at least 82 bluestones, weighing up to 5 tons each, were set up in two concentric circles around the centre.

Stonehenge 3 - (From 2,100-1,700 BC), Double circle of bluestones taken down and replaced with '81 or more' sarsen stones, weighing between 40 and 50 tons each. Horse-shoe of five trilithons erected in centre. These were quarried from the Marlborough Downs about 20 miles north. (9).

'There is strong evidence that they (the builders of Stonehenge III) were in communication with the great contemporary Mediterranean civilisations of Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece, Egypt, and the ancestors of the travelling-trading Phoenicians....Atkinson inclines seriously towards this theory, stressing the importance of the evidence of the dagger carvings and ax carvings as well as Mediterranean artifacts found in the burials of Stonehenge, and pointing out that Stonehenge is is unique not only in the elegance of its construction but also the fact that it is the only stone monument built by the Wessex people.' (3)

 

The latest edition of the archaeology journal, Antiquity (Volume 81 No. 313 September 2007), link to summary) contains an article by Mike Parker Pearson et al entitled “The age of Stonehenge”. It is a summary of progress so far on the Stonehenge Riverside Project and the Beaker isotope project, and contains some interesting and important revelations about the Stonehenge and its landscape.

It is now thought that the trilithons were erected not circa 2300 BCE, but between 2600-2400 cal BCE, making them contemporary with Durrington Walls. They now predate the earliest Beaker burials in Britain, shaking our understanding of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age

 

Traditions, Myths and Legends - Early mention of Stonehenge was made in 1135 by chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth, who claimed that it was brought by a tribe of giants from Africa to Ireland, and from there flown by the wizard Merlin across the sea. Another legend claims that the stones were stolen from an Irish woman by the Devil, and re-erected on Salisbury Plain by Merlin for Ambrosius Aurelianus, the King of Britons.

Didorus Siculus writes in 50 BC - The moon when viewed from this island appears to be but a little distance from the Earth The account is given also that the god visits the island every 19 yrs, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished There is also in the island both a magnificent sacred fane of Apollo, and a notable temple (14)

 

Archaeo-Astronomy -  The earliest evidence of construction at Stonehenge is the 'Car-park post-holes', which are accurately aligned east-west, and can therefore be considered likely astronomical in nature. As well as this, the alignment formed by the 'Avenue' and Heel-stone', continues in both directions to connect numerous prominent megalithic sites along the azimuth of the summer solstice sunrise (see below). More recently, Prof. Hawkins (3), determined that the Aubrey holes' were placed so as to calculate lunar eclipses, which suggests that the site has always functioned as a 'celestial observatory'.

 

Alignments  - Stonehenge is aligned with several other ancient sites

• Stonehenge, Avebury and Glastonbury form a right angled triangle, of which the line from Stonehenge to Glastonbury also passes several other important sites which include St Michael's church tower on Glastonbury Tor, St Michaels, Gare hill, Maiden Bradley priory, and Shere church to a tumulus in Deerlap wood near Dorking in surrey.

• Sir Norman Lockyer, the Astronomer Royale, noticed that Stonehenge, Grovely Castle and Old Sarum formed a near-perfect equilateral triangle, with each side 6 miles in length. The Stonehenge-Old Sarum alignment continues south past Salisbury cathedral (built 1220 AD), Clearbury ring and Frankenbury (6). The Stonehenge-Grovely castle alignment extends to the North-East beyond St Peters mound, Inkpen beacon, and the Neolithic 'Winterbourne camp'. To the South-West the line continues past Grovely Castle, Castle ditches and the 'Cerne-Abbas' giant to Puncknowle beacon on the South coast.

• Stonehenge is also a part of the great Landscape 'Decagon' discovered by John Michell.

• 'The Sanctuary', near Avebury (and Approx' 17 miles north of Stonehenge), is on the same longitude of 1° 49' west.

(Click here for more on this subject).

References:

1). Peter Lemesurier. The great pyramid, your personal guide. Element books. 1987.

2). A. Burl. Rings of Stone. 1979. Book Club Assoc.

3) Prof. G. Hawkins. Stonehenge Decoded. 1965, Doubleday.

4). Bonnie Gaunt. Stonehenge and the great pyramid. 1993. (ISBN 0-9602688-309).

5). Alfred Watkins. The old straight track.

6). Sir Norman Lockyear. Stonehenge and other British stone monuments astronomically considered

7). A. Service & J. Bradbery. Megaliths and their Mysteries. 1979. Macmillan.

9). Rene Noorbergen. Secrets of the Lost Races. New English Library. 1977.

10). Glyn Daniel. The Megalithic Builders of Western Europe. 1958. Hutchinson.

11) A. Burl.  The Stone circles of the British Isles. Yale.

12) A. Burl. Prehistoric Henges. 1997. Shire publications

14). Nigel Pennick. The Ancient science of Geomancy. Thames and Hudson. 1979.

16). C. Knight & R. Lomas. Uriel's Machine. Century. 1999.