A Glimpse Of The Great Beyond
March 5, 2010 - 1:33 am
There has been so much material published on this site in the last few months, by way of posts and contributions, that I plan to make this the last lengthy feature for a while, not least because I want to carefully read again what others have sent in concerning other subjects and respond, if I can. However, one theme in particular has struck me, and that’s the way in which some people perceive the world of the ’supernatural’ and incorporate it into their view of Stonehenge in prehistory.
I get the impression that some observers acknowledge the notion that our ancestors believed in supernatural entities and in the power of certain individuals to divine the future, but they keep their acceptance of this prehistoric mindset separate from their other considerations. For me, the boundary between ‘this world and the next’ can often be so blurred as to be almost invisible, so perhaps it’s worth spelling out why this should be; in the process, perhaps I can more clearly illustrate one of my beliefs about what took place at Stonehenge in prehistory.
I was introduced to the world of Greek mythology as far back as the 1960s; as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I was lucky enough to see the incomparable Jason and the Argonauts in the cinema, an experience that made a lasting impression on me, while my mother very kindly brought me various books on the Greek and Roman myths to nurture my interest.
It was all enthralling, mesmerising stuff, but if one thing above all the others captured my imagination, it was the notion that some gifted individuals, such as Phineas, could utter prophecies about the future that more often than not came true.
In the course of time, I went on to study Latin, Greek and Ancient History at school, where I learned of Tyresias, another blind prophet, the enigmatic Veleda and numerous others. I wasn’t in a position to emulate these individuals by inhaling mephitic vapours or chewing laurel leaves for inspiration, so I graduated towards an interest in other more accessible means of divination in the twentieth century; I never possessed the mathematical ability to be any good at astrology, but I don’t mind admitting that I had a great interest in palmistry and Tarot cards.
Of course, these were early days and it was inevitable that I should get some things right under less than controlled conditions. However, I’m sure it’s equally inevitable that if we choose to immerse ourselves in the study of a subject – and the study of Stonehenge is as good an example as any – we will eventually experience one or more revelations or insights that really make us sit up and take notice.
And so it was that two events took place that profoundly shocked me and continue to do so to this day, but the details are unimportant. What is important, I think, is that the precise nature of the prophecies involved made it seem impossible that they could ever be fulfulled. Before any fans and admirers of David V Barrett “Holmes” start spluttering with righteous indignation and writing in demanding an auto-da-fe, I should point out that the episode of the Witch of Endor was just one of many Biblical references to divination that spurred my interest in the subject of whether or not it was possible to foretell the future.
Aside from the aforementioned act of necromancy, there’s clear mention of palmistry in Proverbs 3: 16, in Job 37: 7 and in 1 Samuel 26: 18, not to mention a host of other prophecies. Acts 16: 16 specifically tells us of a girl with the spirit of divination and Genesis 44: 5 speaks of a silver cup used for the same purpose, so it’s not as if the Romans and the Greeks had a monopoly on such beliefs. Arguably the most famous prophecy ever made is that which concerns the Number of the Beast, so there’s more than adequate material in the Bible alone to spur a lifelong interest in and subsequent study of the practise of divination.
Biblical means of divination aside, I moved from Wales to London in 1979 to sing in various rock bands, but I kept up my interest in divination by the simple expedient of reading as many books on the subject as I could. At some point in 1982, I happened to be wandering through Covent Garden when I noticed a new shop called Mysteries; the small window was filled with paraphernalia such as incense, candles, crystals, books, and Tarot cards, so I went inside and fell into conversation with the owner, Matthew Geffen.
To cut a long story short, I became the first-ever reader at Mysteries, which has since gone onto become a vast, New Age emporium in the heart of London with Matthew still in charge. I had the time of my life, because when I wasn’t doing readings, I was free to study any of the books in the store and to talk with the many people who were drawn to the place. As for the readings, I wasn’t interested in personality analysis or going through the motions of predicting the ‘tall dark stranger’ coming into someone’s life, because I was solely interested in seeing if it were possible to predict what was to come, within a relatively short time frame.
So, this is what I did, day in, day out – without going into the mechanics of it all, I’m about as psychic as a house brick, so I simply concentrated on trying to make sense of the lines on palms and the configurations of images from the cards. In fairly short order, I had many repeat visits from clients, some of whom who had tape-recorded what I’d said to them, who were extremely pleased to later discover that I’d been exactly right in what I had to say. The truth is that it was all very, very simple indeed, once you realised exactly what you were and weren’t doing, so I went from success to success and after a while, a publisher got to hear of what was taking place.
And so it was that I became a co-author of/contributor to the book pictured below, which was published in 1983 by Arthur Barker and the Diagram Group. It wasn’t a bad book at all, because it contained detailed descriptions of many of the lesser-known means of divination, such as Austromancy, Ceraunoscopy, Chaomancy, Meteormancy, Pyromancy, Cromniomancy, Lampadomancy, Hippomancy, Ailuromancy and other equally obscure arts.
And what does all this have to do with Stonehenge? Well, please bear with me and all will eventually become clear. By the end of 1983, I seriously doubt that anyone could have told me anything new about the practise of divination, because I’m pretty sure that I’d seen and heard it all, most of it first-hand, while as the years went by, my sum total of knowledge on the subject increased. I was aware of the notion of telepathy, of body language and of how some readers concentrated on personalities rather than events, while I was also aware of how it’s possible to subtly dig for clues from a person…the list goes on, but I’m sure that anyone with even a passing interest in the subject will know exactly what I’m referring to.
And so it was that in early 1995, my affairs took me to a city in the north of England, where I found myself in an unfamiliar setting with a few hours to kill one afternoon. To my great pleasure, I came across a second-hand bookshop secreted away in a basement in an otherwise obscure alleyway off the beaten track. I found a couple of books that had eluded me for years, and when I came to pay for them, a couple of regulars were waiting at the counter and I fell into conversation with them.
As I recall, they were teenagers or slightly older, one a boy, the other a girl, and they asked me if I were interested in having my fortune told. I politely replied that I wasn’t really concerned, but they assured me that the lady working in back room was very, very good, so after a few moments’ thought, I reluctantly parted with ten pounds and I trooped in to see the lady in question.
She closed the door and sat down, at which point I asked her how she went about foreseeing the future. She cheerfully replied that she was a witch who used Tarot cards as a starting point, but she had a familiar or spirit guide who spoke to her and supplied details. All I said to her apart from this was that I was interested in anything and everything she might have to tell me, but that I wasn’t really interested in a character analysis.
She began by beaming at me good-naturedly and with genuine delight, saying that my wife and I must be very pleased that a baby boy was on the way. I nodded back and assured her that this was the case, but it was news to me, although a week later, my wife learned for the first time that she was pregnant and it wasn’t until September, when our son was born, that we had the faintest idea of whether we’d be blessed with a boy or girl. I should also point out that I didn’t wear a wedding ring, nor had I ever worn one.
The lady went on to tell me precisely which town I was from, to name and minutely describe a cat I’d once owned and been very fond of, and to tell me my birthsign, while it’s worth emphasising that she told me, rather than asked me. She told me the precise reason for my visit to the city, she told me where I currently lived in London and a great deal else besides, all of which was exactly correct.
I couldn’t help but be intrigued by all this, while I had the distinct impression that someone or some thing were showing off and enjoying the process, so I asked her to describe a future event to me. She paused at this, smiled, then told me that she could see me “…Dressed as Herne the Hunter, sat on a horse in ancient woodland in daylight, bathed in a pool of blue light.” I asked her to repeat this, which she did, whereupon I decided that I’d heard more than enough. I was disappointed, but I can still see the look of wry amusement on her face as I left.
If it’s not immediately obvious, I might as well make the reasons for my disappointment unmistakably clear. I had been staggered by the accuracy of everything else she’d said, not least because she’d barely glanced at the cards before her, paying heed instead to a voice I could not hear. However, I couldn’t foresee any circumstances whatsoever where I’d be dressed as Herne the Hunter, while the idea of being bathed by blue light in daylight in ancient woodland was completely out of the question.
However, the one feature that made the whole suggestion totally unthinkable was the idea of me sitting on a horse, with or without Herne costumes, ancient woodland or pools of blue light in daylight. A few years before, I had finally called a halt after spending six years touring around Britain, Europe, Scandinavia and Russia on a mediaeval jousting tournament and while it was a highly eventful period of my life, I’ll save writing 100,000 words or so by simply saying that I’d sworn that I would never so much as sit on one of these beasts again, and that was that.
Furthermore, I’d had a truly terrifying encounter in a wood in the south of England twelve months afterwards, which might be relevant when I next come to write about Silbury Hill, but I had no intention whatsoever of sitting on or riding a horse again. As a result, the prediction of me dressing as Herne the Hunter gradually faded from my memory.
In the summer of 1996, I had a phone call from a friend of mine named Dominic, with whom I’d worked on the aforementioned tours. Dominic was working on the BBC’s production of Ivanhoe and they were filming the jousting tournament scene; Ivanhoe himself needed an armourer, so as I’d done this kind of thing for years, there was work on a film set for a few weeks if I wanted it.
It’s relevant to make clear that all this was far more easily said than done, because I had to sign up with the agent who was dealing with the film, while it was fortunate for me that I was available at the time as well. There were plenty of horsemen around who could have done the job just as well as me, while the ‘vacancy’ had had to come to the attention of my friend Dominic, who had to check it out, phone me and so on.
Anyway, I ended up working on the jousting tournament scenes and I appeared in a few others as well, holding King Richard’s horse when he met Robin Hood and chopping down a tree to make a battering ram. So far, so unremarkable, but the day came when I was summoned to see the producer because one of the principal actors, whose name I forget, was ill, and they needed someone to stand in for him, while it was thought that of all the 600 or so people on the set, I bore the closest resemblance to him in looks and stature.
What I do remember is that the character was a hunter or gamekeeper for either King Richard or King John; it didn’t register at the time, but Herne was said to have been a huntsman employed by King Richard II, so the Ivanhoe character I briefly portrayed would have been Herne’s predecessor by a century or so. When costume and makeup had been finished, I was taken to a car and driven off to Burnham Beeches, one of the most ancient woodlands in Britain, but still, the light of realisation failed to dawn for me.
It was only when I arrived at the woodland set that I began to experience a sense of sheer disbelief, because my character was expected to meet an assassin in the clearing to pay him a purse of gold, and both men were to ride in on horseback. The stuntmen and the second unit director went through what was expected of me, as I was to ride a horse through the trees, then come to a standstill at a delineated spot, whereupon my ‘accomplice’ would emerge into the forest clearing. I had to throw him a purse of gold coins across a ditch or stream, then we’d both wheel our horses and go our separate ways.
There was no dialogue in this brief scene, which was fortunate because I was virtually speechless at the time. I don’t know if it was due to the cloud cover, the shade provided by the leaves and branches of the trees or some other more artistic consideration, but when I rode my horse to the appointed spot (in the mid-afternoon), I emerged into a pool of blue-tinged light provided by a huge lighting rig out of shot of the mediaeval setting. A year or so before, I had sighed in disappointment at learning of a witch’s vision of my future, yet here I was, in the most unlikely setting imaginable, and she’d been right in every last detail.
Naturally, I’ve wondered about this for a long, long time. Perhaps the most striking aspect, apart from the obvious, is how otherwise inconsequential this event was. I seem to remember being paid a few hundred pounds extra for the day’s work, but it didn’t enable me to retire. By the same token, there was nothing dangerous or ominous about the day, other than the stuntmen having to hold the horse’s legs out of shot to prevent us toppling down a steep bank into the stream, but we never came close to this happening.
The whole episode on horseback only lasted for about 10 minutes, so why did the woman from the north volunteer it to me? If she’d wanted to present a dramatic image, she could have spoken of the jousting tournament scene with the huge crowd and massed fights, but this was something I’d spent 6 years doing beforehand. It was either all a truly fantastic coincidence, which implies that she invented the imagery, or else the details were so striking to me personally that it was passed on as something for me to ponder long and hard in later years.
Of course, I’m under no illusions, because many of you reading this will dismiss it as ‘Post-Modern Hippy Twaddle’ or something even less complimentary. The art or arts of peering into the future are derided in our day and age, being regarded by many as mere party tricks, fraud, coincidence, delusion or ‘fortune-telling’, but it was not always thus.
As Robert Graves wrote in the introduction to The White Goddess “‘Nowadays’ is a civilisation in which the prime emblems of poetry are dishonoured. In which serpent, lion and eagle belong to the circus-tent; ox, salmon and boar to the cannery; racehorse and greyhound to the betting ring; and the sacred grove to the saw-mill. In which the Moon is despised as a burned out satellite of the Earth and woman reckoned as “auxiliary State personnel”. In which money will buy almost anything but truth, and almost anyone but the truth-possessed poet.” I suggest that we could very easily add the time-honoured practise of divination to his sorrowful list of degraded, once-sacred things.
Idle curiosity or simple boredom impels many people to read their horoscopes in the newspapers or visit fortune-tellers, but in an age before the internet, mobile phones, the Met Office and all the other modern manifestations of communication and what are disingenuously termed ‘forecasts’ by a professional elite, the idea of being allowed a glimpse of the great beyond must have had a definite survival value; failing that, it must have been a source of inspiration, hope and comfort to many, unless of course the prediction was something along the lines of “None of woman born may harm Macbeth.”
I’ve already mentioned several means of divination mentioned in the Bible, as well as certain characters from classical antiquity, but there have been many others whose prophecies have captivated their audiences – Nostradamus springs most readily to mind, but also Mother Shipton and St Malachy. Over and above all these, however, towers the institution of Delphi in ancient Greece, the seat of an oracle that commanded the world’s respect and admiration for centuries.
I’ve written about Delphi at some length elsewhere on Eternal Idol, so I won’t repeat myself, but it occurs to me that there’s far more than just a passing similarity between the famous Oracle in ancient Greece and the ruins of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain.
In an article for British Archaeology, the late Gerald Hawkins stated wrote “There seems to be no practical value in what was going on at Stonehenge. One does not need Stonehenge to know when to plant seeds or when to breed cattle. Perhaps part of the purpose might have been for the handmaiden of astronomy – astrology.
Astronomy has grown out of astrology, though we may hate to face that fact. Uncanny powers were placed on celestial objects, and predictions were made which directly related, whether they came true or not, to human lives and events. There may have been some prognostication at Stonehenge.”
Well, I’m not one of those who hates the fact that astronomy has grown out of astrology, but I don’t doubt for a moment that ‘prognostication’ took place at Stonehenge, perhaps in a variety of forms. Hawkins seems to think that any ‘forecasting’ may have taken the form of astrology, but it seems just as likely to me that our ancestors actively communed with the spirits of the dead, just as King Saul and the Witch of Endor did.
However, they may have been even more ‘pro-active’ in the course of seeking out what the future held for them. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve written about the Druid connection with Stonehenge, because it’s clear to me that this priesthood and their forebears frequented the place. Later accounts spoke of them being magicians, while Cicero and Strabo spoke of their powers of divination, but Diodorus Siculus left us with a far more graphic account of their endeavours to peer into the future:
“When they attempt divination upon important matters they practice a strange and incredible custom, for they kill a man in the region above the midriff, and after his fall they foretell the future by the convulsions of his limbs and the pouring of his blood…”
This is intriguing enough, but he concludes by saying “…a form of divination in which they have full confidence, as it is of old tradition.” How old, I wonder? Stonehenge is surrounded by a multitude of barrows, so I can’t help wondering how many of the occupants may have ended their days within the stone circle so that their fellows could acquire a glimpse of what the future held or what the gods had in store for them, a pastime described as ‘fortunetelling’ today, but a pursuit of the utmost seriousness and value in times gone by.
Well, the scenario I have in mind may or may not have been enacted with Stonehenge, but it certainly seems perfectly possible and even likely to me; furthermore, we even have a written suggestion that Stonehenge may have been a place of prophecy. As I’ve mentioned many times before, I’m as certain as I can be that the ancient Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia once visited Stonehenge, describing it as a circular temple where priests of Apollo constantly sang hymns. Apollo may or may not have been worshipped at Stonehenge – Pytheas may have learned of a deity that he equated with Apollo – but we know that while this god had many aspects, he was intimately associated with prophecy.
So, from the man who wrote Stonehenge Decoded to Pytheas of Massilia over 2,000 years before, we have strong suggestions of Stonehenge being used as a place of prophecy. I’m sure that the ruins had other functions in addition to being a place of divination, but I find it hard to picture a more perfect setting for what in prehistoric times must have been the most fearsome and rewarding endeavour man could choose to undertake; a lonely landscape surrounding an enigmatic structure deliberately designed to obscure what was taking place within, all beneath the dim light of the cold, distant stars.
Bluestonehenge Award for the Stonehenge Riverside Project
March 2, 2010 - 10:59 pm
The photograph above shows, from left to right, Professor Josh Pollard (Bristol), Professor Mike Parker Pearson (Sheffield) and Professor Julian Thomas (Manchester), of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. They are pictured on the steps of the British Museum with the award from Current Archaeology, sponsored by Andante Travels, for their discovery of Bluestonehenge last year.
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Catholic Herald Review of The Missing Years Of Jesus
March 1, 2010 - 1:25 am
Earlier today, I was told of the review of my book in the Catholic Herald by David V Barrett, something I read with great interest. Those of you who regularly read Eternal Idol may well be expecting a vitriolic response, but if I penned such a thing, it would be to miss the point. I can sense fear in the same way that a leopard can spot a gazelle with a limp 200 yards away, and so it is that I can say with complete confidence that Barrett’s ‘review’ exudes not just fear, but holy terror.
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The Darkness Drops Again
February 28, 2010 - 7:33 pm
My apologies to everyone who has tried to log in to Eternal Idol recently, only to draw a blank. I was away in London for three days, then upon my return, I discovered that ‘dark forces’ had been at work. Now, happily, normal service seems to have resumed, so I would like to thank everyone for all the emails, which I’ll try to respond to as soon as I can, while I was particularly interested to read those sent by the representatives of an otherwise ’silent readership’ of this site.
I was lucky enough to go to a singularly lively party last night, so when my hangover’s dissipated, I’ll begin work on another far more detailed post.
Post Scriptum: I had other plans for the next post, but I’ve just learned of this review of my book by the awe-inspiring, impartial intellect that is David V Barrett of the Catholic Herald. If anyone would like to have a good laugh at my expense, then please read it – in the meantime, I’ll be composing a suitably humble response ‘propter meas maximas culpas.
Sun, Moon, Mounds & Barrows
February 24, 2010 - 12:59 amIn my previous post, I discussed a suggestion by a Church of England spokesman that a study of some matters are perhaps best left to the academics. What follows, below, is an essay on certain aspects of Stonehenge written by Alex Down, someone who isn’t a professional archaelogist, although he spent some time working on the Stonehenge Riverside Project excavation that resulted in the discovery of Bluestonehenge.
I should point out that the CoE spokesman was referring to the historic person of Jesus, whereas Mike Pitts, as detailed in the previous post, suggested that anyone interested in ’solving the mysteries’ of Stonehenge should have a go at it themselves. Here then is Alex’s essay, which I hope you’ll enjoy – I’ll post up any commments when I return in a few days’ time.
Sun mound, Moon ring
Sometimes it seems the more we learn, the less we know. That seems particularly true of Stonehenge right now. An article “Introducing Stonehedge (and other curious earthworks)” in the March/April edition of British Archaeology reveals the results of a detailed non-invasive landscape survey of the monument by English Heritage. And, as its title suggests, there are some very puzzling findings.
Dennis has already discussed the Stonehedge in his “Stonehenge, the Gordian Knot and “Stonehedge” essay so, instead, I’ll concentrate on two of the other findings. Briefly, the North “Barrow” (which surrounded the most northerly of the Station Stones) appears to underlie the enclosure bank, so it seems it must predate the bank – and would thus be the earliest known feature on the site. We can call the second feature “Stonehill” or “Stonehump” as the survey shows a shallow mound that occupies a large area in the southern half of the stone settings. It measures 16m by 14m, slightly east of the central north/south axis, and appears to have been constructed as a smaller mound on a large plinth. The authors acknowledge that, while some or all of the mound could be geological in origin, it appears to be man-made. While the article doesn’t try to date the mound, it points out that the fallen Stone 12 lies over it.
But, without the need to be as cautious as professional archaeologists, we can be braver in our assessment and say that the sarsen ring and horseshoe both go through the outer mound, and it’s a reasonable assumption that the low-lying mound (now only 40cm high at the centre) was therefore already in place, and probably highly degraded. It’s unlikely that a vestigial mound would be erected around a highly significant setting of stones. The mound also includes bluestones.
A further piece of evidence helps to build a picture of a pre-existing feature. In spring 2008, Timothy Darvill and Geoff Wainwright excavated in the area of the mound to look for evidence to test their hypotheses about the bluestones. While the BA article dismisses their excavation as “at the margins of the mound”, careful examination of the photographic record of their dig [see below] shows that their trench was actually well within the mound, quite close to the centre. And a really interesting outcome of their dig was the discovery of charcoal that carbon-dated to 7200BC, firmly in the Mesolithic period.
Of course, there’s nothing to link the mound directly with the charcoal. But it’s tempting to propose that a mound that predates the stone setting and covers an area that contains Mesolithic charcoal is in some way connected to activities that predate Stonehenge’s known origins.
I have to declare an interest here. I find that I’m firmly on the side of archaeology that’s styled “post-processual.” To be labelled like this is a burden, but one I hope I can live with at my age. We discussed the meaning of the term in comments on Dennis’s Stonehedge essay (linked above), but we post-processualists (hmmm, guess I’ll get used to it eventually) recognize that we all let personal bias get in the way of an objective view, so we construct prehistorical “fantasies.” My bias is to believe firmly in the significance of symbolism to our Neolithic forebears, and particularly the symbolism of sun and moon. This ethereal pairing of two eternal travellers in the sky must have had an overwhelming influence on the lives of prehistoric people, to an extent that we find hard to imagine today.
OK. With that out of the way, my fantasy (although I prefer “hypothesis”) is that the Stonehump mound marks the site of a spot sacred to the people who lived in the area before Stonehenge, likely going back to the Mesolithic. (We know, from the radio-carbon dating of the Car Park post holes, that this spot was already marked in a special way by Mesolithic people 10,000 years ago.) The charcoal stems from fire ceremonies conducted at the spot which was eventually commemorated with the mound. And the mound covered the remains, “sealing” the spot and marking it as special, or sacred, to the people of the time.
So far, so hypothetical. We have an ancient mound that marks some special or sacred spot associated with fire ceremonies. And we also have another ancient feature, the North Barrow. This is not so much a mound as a ring ditch, described in the article as a mini-henge similar to that in the Fargo plantation. These two features appear to be very old (older than the Stonehenge we thought we understood) but not, of course, necessarily contemporaneous in their construction.
This is where I get really post-processual. Let’s suppose that the mound, Stonehump, is associated with the sun, marking fire ceremonies directed to the sun. And the North Barrow is a related monument that is associated with the moon.
What happens next? At around 3000BC, hundreds – probably thousands – of years down the stream of time, another monument, Stonehenge, is erected on the same site, by people who have a vivid and continuing memory of the significance of the site and its two features. They too want to honour the sun and the moon, and they construct a henge bank and ditch to represent their cosmos and honour their deities. The circular henge symbolically represents the unity of their world and everything in it. Their cosmos unifies the natural world with the supernatural realms of the ancestors (represented by the bluestones in what are now called the Aubrey Holes), and the sky deities. That world includes the sun, represented by the mound in the south orientated towards midday, while the moon is captured in its cyclic movements by the barrow in the circular bank/ditch.
After a further 500 years, the culture has developed, ideas have crystallized. In particular, concepts crucial to the people like life and death, night and day, male and female, are seen as complementary pairings of opposites associated with their two deities. Complementary pairings of binary opposites are, I believe, crucial to the understanding of the design of the sarsen settings.
I have long believed that the trilithons – those huge pairs of stones linked and unified by a single lintel – represented a pairing of complementary or opposite ideas. I was reinforced in this thinking by learning of Chinese gardens designed on yin/yang principles, where complementary opposites are paired to create a harmonious design. This Taoist principle dates from prehistoric times in China. And lately I’ve found that Palaeolithic cave art has also been interpreted as a binary code, composed of pairs of opposing elements. The primary pairing is of the horse and the bison or aurochs, representing the male and female principle respectively.
So, for prehistoric people, thinking symbolically from about 40,000BC (as Neanderthal peoples were unable to do), the world became a set of opposing forces that are still with us today. We still think in terms of ugly/beautiful, or experience good/bad, for experience is very rarely in-between. And we see the same in science, where every force has an equal and opposite reaction, every charged particle has an equal but oppositely charged counterpart.
I believe this binary view of the world informs Stonehenge. The NE/SW axis, along which the solstice sun rises or sets, divides the monument in two. The south/east (rising) side represents the concepts of sun, light and life. The north/west (setting) side represents the concepts of moon, darkness and death. The great central trilithon links winter and death on the north with summer and life on the south. The two trilithons facing each next to the central trilithon link sun and day on the south, and moon and night on the north. Sun/moon and night/day are paired complementarily across the central axis. My ideas on the other two trilithons aren’t relevant here.
The genius of the design is that the sun mound seems an integral part of this, incorporating the sun/day trilithon, and the Summer/Life upright of the central trilithon within its reach. Similarly, to the north, the moon barrow becomes part of a rectangle, defined by the station stones, whose long sides are significant lunar alignments.
The north barrow (stone 94) was the head of a pointer (with stone 91) to the major northern moonset. The barrow is on the “setting” side of the SH axis. Correspondingly, S barrow (stone 92) was the head of a pointer (with stone 93) to the major southern moonrise. This barrow is on the “rising” side of the axis, so these features fit nicely into a paired complementary-sides model.
Juris Ozols has pointed out that the centre of the mound lies almost exactly on the station stone diagonal joining the north and south barrows, as his plan shows. That raises interesting questions: could these three features have formed a triad? And do they all date from the same time?
While defined by their ditches, the two “barrows” do actually have very shallow mounds, so there does seem to be a potential relationship. But Stonehump doesn’t have a ditch and, on the basis that I believe that the Sun and Moon were seen as complementary opposites (night/day, warmth/cold), then it seems reasonable to suppose that the sun mound was complemented by a moon ring ditch (or two ditches.)
Hawley’s excavations early last century show that the south barrow was constructed quite late, because it cut into pre-existing Aubrey Holes. Quoting from SIIL, Hawley notes of the south barrow that “… the place had been made at the same time as Stonehenge [ie the stone settings] or shortly after.” So I think the most likely scenario is that just the early north barrow and sun mound together provided the inspiration for a sun/moon monument designed on complementary lines across an axis. Then the subsequent stones 91, 92 and 93 were constructed using 94 as an anchor point to define the lunar alignments. Finally, the builders used the rectangle formed by these four points to frame their solar/lunar temple.
Necessarily, I’ve had to simplify and shorten this description. But I hope I’ve given enough to show that it’s possible to derive some understanding of a monument that many regard as incomprehensible 5000 years after it was built. My view is what critics of post-processualism would regard literally as “fantastic”. But I’ve explained my biases, and you can create your own visions, based on your own preferred ideas. The more visions, the easier it will be to arrive at a consensus of the unbiased “truth”.
Stonehenge wouldn’t be the only place with a Sun Mound. Mounds are common in the US and, in Mississippi, the prehistoric Natchez Indians had a mound actually called the Sun Mound. The Natchez myth is interesting: “According to their origin story, the Natchez achieved their identity when a man and his wife joined a pre-existing community. The newcomers were so bright that they appeared to have come from the sun. The man told the people about the Great Spirit and instructed them in the proper form of worship. He also gave them rules according to which they should live. These rules included instructions for building a temple on top of a platform mound where community leaders could communicate with the Great Spirit, who would be represented by an eternal fire within the temple. The community leader would be called the Great Sun.”
Obviously there’s no connection but the possible intersection of some common early beliefs is intriguing. A subject for more debate in the future here, is the role of Silbury, the ultimate mound.
There’s another interesting outcome from the BA article, identified by Juris Ozols. He found that there is a mismatch between some of the Y/Z holes identified in the plans in the ultimate reference, SIIL, “Stonehenge in its Landscape” (Cleal et al, 1995), and the positions in the geophysics survey in the BA article. The Y/Z holes are generally regarded as being the last additions to the monument: Aubrey Burl talks of “a half-hearted attempt to enhance a tumbledown ring” nearly 1000 years after its triumphant completion.
It’s not really surprising that most of the mismatches are in the unexcavated area of Stonehenge (the NW side), but there is a major area of mismatch in the southernmost part, where there are no holes identified by geophysics, but SIIL incontrovertibly shows holes.
This is a real puzzle – which should one trust? Why didn’t the English Heritage authors identify the mismatch? But just suppose that the plan in BA is correct, and there are no Y/Z holes at that point. In that case, I believe it’s possible that the gap represents the existence of a southern avenue that entered the monument past the pint-sized Stone 11. There’s plenty to suggest a significant south-aligned entrance and avenue: a well-defined causeway in the henge, the “corridor” of post holes within the stone setting, the summit of Rox Hill 180 degrees exactly to the south, MPP’s suggestion that the natural route from Bluestonehenge would have arrived from due south (I reported on this in my notes on his lecture in October last year) and of course the gap in the Y/Z holes.
The more we learn, the less we know. There are puzzles here, as the title of the BA article suggested. But there is exciting new information too, that may cast light on the design principles behind Stonehenge, and there are other intriguing new possibilities to explore, like a southern avenue and connections with Silbury.
“Best left to the Academics…?”
February 22, 2010 - 11:51 pm
On page 299 of Mike Pitts’ book Hengeworld, he discusses the frustration felt by non-archaeologists at the apparent lack of concern expressed by professional archaeologists in solving the ‘mysteries of Stonehenge’. This was back in the year 2000, so as we all know, things have changed a great deal in the meantime, principally on account of the many Stonehenge Riverside Project excavations and the revelations they’ve produced.
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Stonehenge – What Lies Beneath?
February 17, 2010 - 6:05 pm
Judging from the correspondence I receive on Stonehenge, particularly the enquiries about the archaeological excavations done there over the years, there seems to be a great deal of confusion concerning precisely how much of the monument has been excavated. Well, thanks to the hard work and generosity of spirit of Juris Ozols and Alex Down, you can now see these details for yourselves, as shown in the larger diagram above, and the relative ‘close up’ below.
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Groves, Caves, Graves, Iron and Stars
February 15, 2010 - 6:15 pm
When I first heard of “Stonehedge” last week, I doubt I was alone in being taken aback by the nature of the discoveries at Stonehenge [see ongoing report below at the end of the “Gordian Knot & Stonehedge” post. I must admit that I didn’t realise that it was as far back as 1919 when a survey of the area was last conducted, so all this occupied my mind for quite some time.
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Cornucopia
February 14, 2010 - 2:53 am
I imagine that most people would expect that running a site on Stonehenge would be a relatively straightforward matter, if only due to a paucity of material. However, such is not the case.
I’m sure that those who write in with contributions on the various posts can manage perfectly well without me, but I read every single piece that’s written and I give them all as much thought as I can. If I don’t post up detailed and considered replies to each and every comment, rest assured that while the spirit is willing, there’s not always the time. The most recent post [below] inevitably turned into a detailed discussion of the recent discovery of what’s been termed “Stonehedge“, but alas, I’ve not managed to find the time to do this subject justice in an original post, even though Juris has very kindly supplied some illustrations and even though I’ve been sent some fascinating links and scans. All I can say is that the idea of ‘Stonehedge’ fascinates me, so I’ll try my level best to collate the information and post it up, along with my own views on the matter.
Otherwise, I received a wonderful letter accompanying a monograph detailing the study of an unusual spur on a hill in South Wales, so I was fascinated by this and honoured that the authors had quoted from my book “The Missing Years of Jesus”. I will of course be replying to them, while I have a backlog of intriguing material related to the subject matter of my book that I wish to post up.
I’ve also been corresponding with my publishers, as a paperback version of my book is being designed and I’ve been sent the proofs for approval. I’m very pleased indeed with what Hay House have come up with, so I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product. There are many other things going on, most of which have come about as a direct result of the existence of this site, so I’m confident that it will continue to be an exciting year, but it’s a matter of being able to keep on top of everything.
Finally for now, I appreciate that all the people who’ve written to me are well-intended, but I really am not in the least bit interested in being informed of links to Pete Glastonbury writing about me in the fashion he chooses to do. As for those members of pagan/Druid groups who have contacted me to say that they suspect he’s taking an interest in their affairs, then what can I say? If you choose to correspond with him in any way, then this is entirely your affair, not mine, and that’s the last I have to say on the subject.
More on Stonehedge to follow soon, hopefully.
