Stonehenge
 Prehistoric Britain |
The most famous prehistoric monument in Britain and the greatest temple of its kind in Europe, Stonehenge has been standing in much its present form for 3500 years, and is the culmination of three major phases of building and alteration going back 1300 years beyond that date. From humble beginnings as a simple, though fairly unusual henge (circle) monument, with a causeway entrance, Stonehenge gradually developed into the majestic and unique complex that stands before us on Salisbury Plain. It existed for about 16 centuries before the Romans arrived, for centuries before the construction of the Great Pyramid and has transcended time by being the focus of as much awe-inspired admiration today as it must have been at its conception those thousands of years ago. When the Beaker People (so called after the pottery drinking vessels they used) arrived in Britain from the continent between 2500-2300 BC they brought with them the ability to work in bronze, which expertise gave its name to the Age they ushered in; they had use of flint battle axes and arrow heads and copper and bronze daggers.
Britain was heavily forested before their arrival. Soon forest clearance began exposing large swathes of land that eventually grassed over and shepherds took note of sun, moon and stars as well as their flocks, wondering at their movements above the new, permanent grazing grounds such as Salisbury Plain. The era of great prehistoric engineering feats was commencing: the Dorset Cursus (racecourse), Avebury's 32-acre circular earthwork, Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe. While mathematical knowledge was being written down in ancient Egypt in about 1600BC (Rhind papyrus), the Beaker People recorded theirs differently - in a living language of stones, positioned over generations of recorded observation.
The construction of Stonehenge is now considered to have occurred over a period of about 1800 years, separated into five building phases (three major ones), the first beginning around 2800BC. The sacred henge area is bounded by a circular earth bank, originally 20ft wide and 6ft high with a ditch enclosing it; this ditch is not thought to have been defensive, rather the quarry resulting from construction of the bank. The causeway entrance was to the north-east beyond which stands the mysterious Heel Stone, a leaning 35-ton pillar, intriguingly aligned today so that the sun's rays brush over it at midsummer when viewed from the centre of the henge. Interestingly, when the Heel Stone was placed there, the sun in fact rose to the west of it, thereby sabotaging the theory of a solar alignment at midsummer being its original function. The Heel Stone, for whatever purpose it was placed there, is the only extant stone erected in phase 1. Postholes discovered within the henge during this phase may be evidence of a small timber building at its centre, much like Woodhenge lying two miles to the north-east.
There is very little to see at Woodhenge except markers indicating the position of posts, which appear once to have supported a large circular wooden building, possibly with an open courtyard in the middle. Built about 2300 BC the building was orientated to the midsummer sunrise. Close by this site is Durrington Walls, where there is even less to view, but it was once occupied by an extremely large henge, built around 2550 BC. Possibly, together with Woodhenge at a later stage, this represented the palace and court of a dynasty of kings or priest-kings who originated the building of Stonehenge. Interesting finds and displays related to the Stonehenge area and other Wiltshire sites can be seen at the Devizes and Salisbury museums.
For years Stonehenge 1 must have been overshadowed by the far grander complex at Avebury, but in about 2100 BC phase 2 began. The Double Bluestone Circle is the centrepiece of this phase, which involved the transportation of 80 bluestones, each weighing about 4-tons, over 240 miles from another sanctuary in the Prescelly Mountains in south-west Wales. This prodigious effort involved each stone being shipped, probably on rafts, along the coast of South Wales and up the Bristol Channel to where Avonmouth is now. The likelihood is they were then transferred to boats and poled up the Rivers Avon and Frome, dragged overland on sledges to the Wylye and the Salisbury Avon, which would bring them almost to Stonehenge where they were eventually erected inside the henge in a double circle. This endeavour remains a peculiarity to Stonehenge as no other known stone circle in Britain used anything other than local stone. The Altar Stone was set in place during this phase, originating from the Milford Haven area.
Very soon after the arrival of the bluestones there occurred a critical change of direction at Stonehenge, a major planning upheaval that heralded in phase 3 about 2000BC. Whoever instigated the design of this phase was intent on making a grand gesture, perhaps in response to nearby ‘rival' Avebury. The bluestone circles were removed and 77 enormous sarcen stones, each weighing between 25 and 50-tons, were dragged some 20 miles to the site from near modern Marlborough. These stones formed the famous Sarcen Circle, inside of which stood the monumental Sarcen Horseshoe, these pillars stand up to 30ft in height. All of the Sarcen uprights were capped with interlocking lintels kept firmly in place by mortise and tenen joints beneath, and tongue-and-groove each end. Before erection, the megaliths (large stones) were dressed; much cutting and shaping resulted in the extraordinary tapering upward of the pillars, while the massive lintels are curved and inclined to allow for foreshortening when viewed from below. The mighty Trilithons (three stones) making up the horseshoe open directly north-east along the axis with the Heel Stone, 4 of their number remain standing of the original 10. Of the original 30 pillars comprising the Sarcen Circle, 17 are still upright; only 5 of the original dressed lintels remain in situ.
During this phase the building of the barrows (grave mounds) around Stonehenge also commenced; the eight barrow groups totalling some 460 graves, mostly located to the south of Stonehenge, resemble a churchyard. These tombs of chieftains and aristocrats, found with their bronze daggers and ornaments of gold and amber, suggests that it was the Westminster Abbey of its day; a place of worship for pilgrims from all over Britain, and even abroad, to which the great and the good were taken for burial. One of the largest concentrations of barrows, with examples of almost every type, is found at Normanton Down half-a-mile south of Stonehenge.
Sometime during the later two phases leading up to 1550BC, the Altar Stone was re-errected at the centre of the complex. In addition, a horseshoe of bluestones was set up inside the Sarcen Horseshoe and open along the same axis, and a circle of bluestones placed between the Sarcen Horseshoe and the Sarcen Circle - 17 bluestones remain erect. A sixth phase has been debated involving the extension of the Stonehenge Avenue southwards toward the River Avon, which means that the site was still in use for some purpose about 1100 BC. The Avenue, its parallel banks being 70ft apart, leads away from Stonehenge from the north-east entrance causeway, running due east for about 860 yards to the summit of a hill, then drops gradually toward the river. In 1923, aerial photography clearly revealed the Avenue and the division of its course, one branch running to Radfyn, an ancient ford of the River Avon, the other to the Stonehenge Cursus. Radfyn has long been considered the probable landing place for the Welsh bluestone, if this is so then the Stonehenge Avenue may well have been a processional way. The Cursus is another mysterious construction located near Stonehenge, an earthwork made up of two parallel banks running approximately east to west for more than one and three quarter miles. Discovered in 1723 its function has variously been considered to be for funeral games, horse racing or celebratory processions.
Most of the stones employed in construction were only roughly dressed at their source, no doubt to reduce the weight carried, the final ‘finish' occurring after arrival at Stonehenge. Each stone smoothed and shaped by pounding it with very hard with stone hammers or ‘mauls', of which many have been recovered from the site. Transported manually by a combination of sledges and rollers, dragged and pushed employing timber levers and leather or cowhair ropes, prehistoric man endured. The uprights were placed into prepared holes and levered/pulled upright, afterwhich the lintels were attached on top by hoists, earth ramps or layered staging placed up the side of the uprights.
Stonehenge was in use for between 15-1700 years then fell into ruin and became obsolete, a dead thing belonging to the past. No Roman historian mentions it, though their legions laid straight roads nearby, nor does the Norman Domesday Book make any note of it. Stonehenge had descended into oblivion, a relic of a long-forgotten knowledge of the heavens and earth never before attained; the last heirs of the oral tradition of the old astronomer-priest had gone.
It seems very likely that Stonehenge 1 was chosen from amongst several other similar observatories in England for further development after the unique property of its latitude was discovered. It is so sited that the extreme northern and southern risings and settings are at right angles to each other; a few miles north or south would not be the case. This reinforces the feeling that Stonehenge was deliberately sited where it is on the basis of accurate astronomical knowledge and a high regard for order, precision and symmetry - hence the need to drag the huge stones to the site rather than build the temple twenty miles further north. The Heel Stone was most probably a moonrise indicator, unconnected with the summer sunrise, as there is good evidence that Stonehenge 1 was a lunar observatory. The central line of the Avenue, dating phase 2, is however a summer sunrise alignment. The later phases when bluestones and sarcens arrived appear to have less astronomical significance, apart from the midsummer sunrise alignment. A controversial theory suggests that the henge acted as a calculator as well as observatory, designed to predict eclipses of sun and moon. As Stonehenge is impressive proof that megalithic man was capable of observing the rising and setting of sun and moon extremely accurately, we might believe he could interpret his results so as to predict the terrifying disappearance of sun and moon in an eclipse.
That people without modern machinery should have been able to build a construction of this kind challenges the conventional viewpoint of prehistoric man as inferior savage. An object of melancholy beauty it has withstood the rigours of time, the ravages of nature and modern man's grubby imprint remarkably well; in the latter case being the victim of its own popularity and our fascination with all things ancient. Stonehenge is a mystery that may never be solved, pushing-up the earth like ancient bones revealed for man to wonder at and be eternally absorbed with and mystified by its very presence, defiantly remaining midst the solitude of a blasted heath exactly where it was placed those many thousands of years ago.