Stonehengeology

Picture 1. This image is based on a photograph taken by Mark Bettles in 2002, while standing in the middle of Stonehenge’s solstice doorway between pillars 1 and 30: The "Grand Entrance," as William Stukeley called it. This photo shows how the sun on solstice morning has surpassed Stonehenge's axis by around half a degree. It was even more than this when Stonehenge was built. According to the astronomer, the late Professor John North, first flash of the sun at Stonehenge, in 2,500 BC, was around 48.5-degrees, some one and a half degrees to the north of Stonehenge's axis.

The cardinal points of the compass, north, south, east and west were no mystery to the Stonehenger's, who pinned them down with great precision. These were a people who travelled the length and breadth of the land, and were troubled by the different alignments of the sun and moon, depending upon where they lived. So they did something about it.

After pinning down the cardinal points, the next thing they did was to divide the horizon into 36 lots of 10-degrees. And that's why Stonehenge was given an exact 50-degree axis. It's also why Stonehenge was not perfectly aligned on any of the solstices.

As we shall see later, by our researches into Avebury and its cove, Stonehenge was built as a "Hall of Mirrors" designed to capture sunlight and amplify it like a modern laser. The intention was for the sun to come into line with Stonehenge's axis at its most powerful point when well clear of the horizon. We shall also learn of a Stone Age wish to replicate the sun.

Picture 1 conveniently demonstrates how the moon exceeds the sun every 18.61 years by travelling at least nine degrees further north. The most northerly position of the moon is called the Major Standstill.

So: the sun goes nowhere where the moon hasn’t already been.

2. Arminghall Henge, Norfolk, probably built around or before 3,150 BC and is less than two miles southeast of Norwich city.

This henge was discovered by Flight lieutenant Insall when flying over it in 1928. Then, seven years later, in 1935, the henge was partially excavate by G. Clark.

The inner ditch of the henge is plain to see in the above picture by the ring of nettles that grow on it. What a pity, though, that a garden hedge blocks the view south to where the southernmost sun sets, the southernmost moon too.

3. Professionals have made several attempts to establish an axis of symmetry based on Arminghall's eight timber posts set in the shape of a horseshoe, yet despite the fact that there is no axis of symmetry to be found, got together and agreed on an azimuth of 223-degrees. (223-degrees clockwise from north) Their postulated axis is five-degrees south of the southernmost sun (setting winter solstice) and is further still from the 18.61-year southernmost setting of the moon.

Here we will propose an alternative solution.

A careful study of the landform south of, and beyond what is actually a spur known as Chapel Hill, proves that three separate peaks just manage to appear above that spur, seen in picture 5. Two of these peaks, together with the spur, produce a pair of notches in the horizon through which the southernmost sun and moon could come to ground when viewed from the centre of the henge. A third notch forms a 40-degree west of south alignment (220 azimuth) with the henge.

This monument raises the likelihood that a German tribe, possibly the Michaelsburger’s - the inventors of long-necked beakers - entered the country via Yarmouth and the river Yare. The Michaelsburger's went missing when the Rhine changed its course, which left their mountain retreat exposed and made it difficult to tend their crops.

I would have to call the Arminghall Henge - the Woodhenge of Norwich. However, one does wonder what the original builders called it, especially since the archaeological term ‘henge’ converts to Womb – believe it!

The Arminghall Henge (we still have to call it that) is of course famous for its eight massive posts in the shape of a horseshoe placed in the central area. Probably standing at least 3 metres high, the averagely one-megalithic-yard-diameter posts needed long tapering ramps to help in their erection. They were also probably topped with lintels similar to Stonehenge.

Much recent work has been done to figure out what this arrangement of posts actually points at, especially since the winter solstice sun could once be seen to slide down the side of Chapel Hill as if to take a drink from the river Yare.

Timber posts apart - the central area was found to be clean of debris with no trace of a grave. Not so the ditch, which contained copious amounts of charcoal, broken pottery and knapped flint.

4. Arminghall Henge post positions shown together with a pair of upright’s (coloured brown) to demonstrate how those alignments were made - and it’s every bit as accurate as the sights of a rifle.

At ground level, alignments between pairs of posts is tangential to their diameters, but due to the natural taper of tree trunks, a narrow gap appears between them which increases further up. Stonehenge, with its mortice and tenon and dovetail joints, which were obviously based on woodwork, took this idea on board by tapering its sarsen-stone pillars as well.

Some describe the Stonehenge tapering as entasis, named after the tapering stone columns of Greece that make pillars look taller than they really are, but the idea of tapering Stonehenge’s sarsens, which reduced top weight and helped in their erection, actually originated in Britain.

Since Arminghall's posts divide the points of the compass into 10-degree lots, it makes sense to suppose that the henge also follows suite with this order of 10s by aiming an exact 40 degrees clockwise from south, as well.

5. Chapel Hill Spur. This picture of Chapel Hill was taken nearer than from the henge and is unfortunately off a little way to one side. Nevertheless, it does tell us all we need to know.

A deep cutting passes right through the middle of Chapel Hill spur for carrying a train line, and as this cutting is approached from the west, a raised embankment matches it. The embankment, seen on the right and below a distant roof-top through a gap in the trees, prevents the sun from reaching ground level these days. (Have they no respect?)

Of greater importance is a distant landmass that appears to the left of, and just below the peak of the hill that the 40-degree alignment of the monument points at. This landmass appears beyond the row of telegraph poles, and again can be seen through a gap in the tree-line.

It is hard to make out in this photograph, but the busy A47 passes over the flank of Chapel Hill on the left of the picture and is where we can once more see a distant landmass. This is where the southernmost setting of the moon - one of her four major standstills - will come to ground in 2024.

Burgh Roman Castle AD 280. And those German tribes kept on coming back.

Burgh Castle is one of a chain of forts that were built along the east coast of Britain to keep Germans out. This one was built alongside the River Waveney, a contributor to the Yare.

So, after sailing inland up the Yare for several miles, it seems that these visitors from the Rhineland had hoped to avoid capture by taking a left fork to enter Britain by the Waveney, instead. Hidden from view until the very last minute, Roman Burgh was built to catch them out.

Many years later and after the romans had left, these German visitors became known as Anglo Saxons.

Lets return to Stonehenge...

6. Breaking the rule book (well, nothing is ever that simple!). The front face of the Heel Stone, seen in the left foreground, points about 11-degrees more northerly than Stonehenge's two axis - Yes, it does have two axes - and therefore at the Major Standstill of the moon. The proof, which no one seems to have noticed, can be gleaned from John Wood’s 1740 survey of Stonehenge.

The last time the moon visited her northernmost position was way back in 2005/2006. The next Major Standstill will therefore take place around the middle of 2024. The good news is that, when the time comes, she will stick around for a year or more and, weather permitting, should put in a showing or two.

Hopefully, photographers will be allowed to enter Stonehenge during the many unsociable hours needed to get those pictures of the northernmost moon. But I doubt it. if not, photographers should get themselves off to some other monument instead - there are plenty more good targets mentioned in these pages.

In a search to find the answer to Stonehenge we should be looking for ways in which Stonehenge brought the sun and moon, and the stars together. That goes for other monuments, too.

8. Before English Heritage got around to placing its vastly over-exaggerated and false information boards alongside Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, visitors to the more obvious Woodhenge site would often ask, “Where is the massive henge known as Durrington Walls?” Both monuments are shown in the above picture.

With modern concrete posts representing what were once massive tree trunks several feet tall, Woodhenge can be seen entering the picture from the right, whereas the snow-covered horizon marks Durrington Walls’ far bank. More of Durrington Walls' bank can be seen on the left but it’s not snow-covered. Durrington Walls' downhill slope is also obvious in this photo.

The snow was left behind by the ‘Beast-from-the-East’ - a cold snap that came across from Siberia in 2018.

Durrington Walls’ near bank, or what is left of it thanks to many years under the plough, is just beyond the line of parked cars. This too is marked with snow. Note the red vehicle on the extreme right of this picture, because the next photo was taken from alongside it.

Beyond the trees to the right of the picture can be seen another section of Durrington Walls' bank. This too, is highlighted with snow. Cutting through those trees is the Countess Road, built in 1965. This new highway is elevated several feet above the pan-shaped valley, or combe, which early folk had cordoned off to build Britain’s largest henge. Note the blue farm vehicle parked beneath the embankment of the new road, because that vehicle very nearly marks the centre of the timber monument known as the “Southern Circle,” found and partially excavated by Wainwright in 1966/7. Unfortunately, two-thirds of the Southern Circle was buried beneath the embankment and became lost to us when the new road was built.

9. The old road, little more than a track, can been seen to pass over Durrington’s denuded bank, before taking a dip through the centre of the valley.

Much of Durrington Walls has been completely flattened due to ploughing. This was fortunate in some ways because loose chalk and hill-wash covered the monuments lower down and protected them - especially so the Southern Circle of timber. Prehistoric remains at the top of the combe, who lost their cover, were not so lucky.

Imagine for a moment what the above landscape would have looked like when Durrington Walls' was new. Built from gleaming white chalk taken from a 5-metre deep internal ditch, made a bank so high that it would have blanked out most of the sky in the above picture.

Now note the footpath in the right foreground, because a little further along it is where the next photograph was taken from.

10. The river Avon, to which the Southern Circle was connected via an avenue of hard-packed chalk with flints, can be seen behind the van and through the trees. This view of the Avenue (superimposed onto the photograph) almost gives one the idea that perhaps the Southern Circle was meant to slide down and into the river.

The Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2003 found five houses alongside this avenue, and all had been covered over and buried beneath Durrington Walls' bank. These houses were small square affairs measuring 6 by 6 megalithic yards. Their positions are marked in the picture with small splodges of snow, seen behind the bushes.

Hoping to solve the age-old mystery of when folk had gathered to celebrate at Durrington Wall's - i.e. was it summertime or winter - Britain’s top archaeoastronomer Professor Clive Ruggles of Leicester University was invited to find out exactly what the Avenue points at.

Clive proved the Avenue's axis to aim at where the sun sets in June beneath Durrington’s north-western bank. This also agrees with the alignment found by the astronomer Professor John North, sometime previous to 1996.

So, the Stonehenger’s celebrated the setting summer solstice at Durrington Walls, not the winter. Pigs borne in October were brought from all around the country to be slaughtered at Durrington when 9-months old. Those pigs, or piglets, whose short lives represented the human gestation period, were obvious offerings to the sun and moon.

If you want a job doing right, do it yourself. So, on solstice day 21st June 2018, you might have seen me standing close to the blue tractor which marks the position of the Southern Circle while I waited for the summer sun to set.

It came as a bit of a shock to find that the sunset can no longer be seen from the place of the Southern Circle because of bushes growing alongside the old road. So, a hurried leaping of a few fences were made to get into a better position.

I did manage to get a beautifully clear picture of the sun going down beneath Durrington’s north-western bank, but this alone was not enough to help determine the azimuth of the Avenue. The final determination was achieved by superimposing the sun's position onto both Professor Wainwright's original plans and satellite images from online Bing.

The sunset at Durrington Walls is a spectacle that must be seen. Especially so for the feeling you get when climbing out of the henge to find its still daytime!

12. The so-called ‘Sex-Pit’ found in the middle of the Avenue held a female pelvis of natural flint, together with four male phalli and several pairs of flint balls. As far as I am aware, an in-situ picture showing these male and female artefacts together, has never been published. And for obvious reasons!

Furthermore, it could be argued by many, me included, that the avenue leading to the river has long been expected to exist. Professor John North for another, when in 1996 he wrote - The distance between the centre of the Southern Circle and the river is 200 megalithic yards.

However, we now know that the Southern Circle, like its neighbour Woodhenge, was a collection of several eggs.

13. We have already mentioned that the sun rose approximately 48.5-degrees clockwise and set 48.5-degrees anticlockwise from north at Stonehenge, but that's because Stonehenge overlooks a relatively level horizon. Its actually about half a degree.

However, the summer sun sets much earlier at Durrington Walls for having to look uphill at it by some 4-degrees. Seen from the 'Avenue', the sun sets 60-Degrees anticlockwise from north, and the moon sets at 50. It's almost as if the sun and moon have swopped places.

15. An old picture now, but this image proves the posts of the Southern Circle to be placed in families of three. That's what makes it so extremely difficult to analyse the underlying geometry and astronomy of the eggs that Durrington Wall's Southern Circle were based on.

A vital discovery is the finding of a clear break in the outer circuit to the north-east. That break is at the very point where a midden, replete with beaker and other pottery sherds, plus numerous animal bones, axes and flints, were found together in a mass of burnt ashes and charcoal a third of a metre thick.

This midden was packed with stone age ingredients and appears like an eye dropper that patiently waits to dispense its fertile contents into the circle at the time of the setting moon.

When is charcoal, charcoal, and when is it simply the ashes of burnt timber? There's a big difference between the two, and Wainwright's report does not make it clear. If it was real charcoal, then people of 2,500 BC had the ability to melt copper. If not, they didn't.

Archaeologists accept that the Southern Circle is connected to Stonehenge; first by the avenue that goes down to the river Avon, then along the river until it reached a circle of stones situated on the north bank of the river and near to the town of Amesbury.

This circle of stones, known as the 'West Amesbury Henge' was the original Stonehenge. Stonehenge MK1.