2. A balsa model of Stonehenge - Looking along its 50 degrees from the north axis.
This model portrays the possible appearance of Stonehenge after its construction, assuming it was ever finished. However, evidence indicates that building Stonehenge was a complex and challenging task, leading some to believe it was never fully completed.
This is supported by the oddly shaped and out-of-place stones that seem to have been added later and the strangely odd positions of the Y and Z holes surrounding the Sarsen circle (not shown here) as if to shut Stonehenge down.
Thankfully, we possess sufficient data to create a meticulous ground plan for Stonehenge that is akin to a blueprint. Combined with our balsa model, we know the Stonehengers' aspirations. This detailed analysis is further explored in the section under 'Stonehenge Geometry.'
Stonehenge Winter Solstice...
To reiterate: Stonehenge's axis is angled 50 degrees clockwise from the north (Azimuth 50), as is the straight portion of the Avenue that leads from Stonehenge down to 'Stonehenge Bottom' and the lowest point of the 'Stonehenge Great Cursus' that occasionally collects water.
The summer solstice at Stonehenge is Azimuth 49. Therefore, the sun takes a little while before coming into line with Stonehenge's 50-degree axis and is higher in the sky when it does.
It's well-known that the winter solstice is precisely opposite the summer solstice at Stonehenge. So, the azimuth of the winter solstice is 229. (49 plus 180)
Nothing prevents high-altitude summer solstice sunlight from reaching the centre of the sarsen circle and the Altar Stone. But the same cannot be said of the winter solstice, which was blocked by bluestone 67 when standing. So why should archaeologists lie about it?
Stone 67 was a formidable presence at Stonehenge, measuring thirteen feet long by a megalithic yard in width and eight feet tall. This was the tallest bluestone at the head of the 'Inner Bluestone Oval' (formally described as a horseshoe) and was brought down when Stone 55 of the Great Trilithon collapsed on top of it. Stone 67's size was sufficient to cover the 15-megalithic-inch gap (12 imperial inches) between stones 55 and 56 of the Great Trilithon. While the rays of the winter sun managed to penetrate this gap and illuminate the rear face of 67, those rays could not reach the middle of the complex.
The conclusion is that Stonehenge ground plans show that no one could have walked up the Avenue to observe the winter solstice sunset, as some top archaeologists claim. This is a Red Herring to divert attention away from Stonehenge's true purpose while ignoring that the winter solstice was blanked out. Contradictory arguments are endemic in today's archaeological world.
The Altar Stone is likely skewed nine degrees from Stonehenge's axis to reflect sunlight onto the male-type Stone 49. This stone and its female counterpart welcome solstice sunlight that enters through the 'Doorway’ between uprights one and 30.
The “worked slim” Bluestone 49 identifies Stonehenge as a male monument. Together with its naturally bulbous female partner, Bluestone 31, this pair were positioned to welcome high-altitude sunlight into the complex shortly after midsummer solstice sunrise.
When looking for further proof of the boy and girl stones argument, there is no better way than to visit the long barrow known as Waylands Smithy to view the black and white photograph of the entrance to its chamber. This onsite photo shows the boy and girl stones before Atkinson and Co. reconstructed the chamber. It is nothing like the original. This photo can be found on our companion website... AveburyDecoded.com
3. Arminghall Henge 3,150 BC. This is where Stone Age folks first divided the horizon into 36 lots and set up the Stone Age 10-degree Rule. Note the possible relevance of numeric 36 to Stonehenge's diameter.
Located less than two miles southeast of Norwich city centre in Norfolk, this monument played a significant role in ensuring that the axis of Stonehenge would point precisely 50 degrees clockwise from the north. The principles established at Arminghall were also adopted at Avebury, Woodhenge, and numerous other sites.
In 1928, Flight Lieutenant Insall made a ground-breaking discovery when he found the Arminghall henge, a timber structure similar in some ways to the more famous Woodhenge near Stonehenge. However, it was not until five years later that G. Clark, in a meticulous excavation, began to uncover the secrets of the Arminghall henge. Despite his thorough search, he found no evidence of a burial, adding to the mystery of this ancient monument.
The inner ditch of the henge is now wholly levelled, but it is easy to spot due to the ring of nettles that has grown upon it. Unfortunately, the garden hedge obstructs the view towards the south, where the sun and moon would set behind Chapel Hill. It is sad to think about the many natural views, once available to our Stone Age ancestors, which are now blocked off; some of these blockages may have been intentional!
This henge was excavated again in 2021, but it is unknown what for or whether anything of interest was found.
4. Professionals have attempted to establish an axis of symmetry based on Arminghall's timber cove in the shape of a horseshoe, oval, or open-ended egg. Yet even though they failed to find a symmetrical axis, they agreed on an azimuth of 223 degrees.
Here, we will propose an alternative solution.
Chapel Hill is located on the northern part of a larger landmass that extends southward. A detailed study of this area and its southern terrain revealed that three peaks are visible from the henge - two of which create notches in the horizon, signifying the location where the southernmost sun and moon touch the ground when viewed from the henge. The third notch is 40 degrees west of south (Azimuth 220) from the henge.
This monument further raises the likelihood that a German tribe, possibly the Michaelsburgers—those users of long-necked beakers—entered the country via Yarmouth and the river Yare. Unfortunately for them, the Rhine changed its course, leaving their mountain-top retreat exposed and separated from their agricultural land, which made it difficult to tend their crops. So they moved away and became lost to history.
I would call the Arminghall Henge - The Woodhenge of Norwich - after Woodhenge near Stonehenge. However, one does wonder what the original builders called it since the archaeological term "henge" converts to mother or womb – believe it!
Stonehenge is an exception because it is not a henge!
The Arminghall Henge, famous for its horseshoe-shaped setting of massive timber posts, is somewhat similar in style to Stonehenge's trilithons.
The Arminghall monument featured posts at least three metres high with a diameter of nearly one megalithic yard (32.664 inches/0.83m). The posts were so large and heavy that they needed long tapering ramps to be erected. Once in place, they were probably topped with lintels to provide stability, much like Stonehenge.
As mentioned earlier, extensive research has been conducted to determine the significance of the arrangement of posts. This is particularly intriguing because, during the winter solstice, the sun appeared to descend down the side of Chapel Hill to drink from the river Yare.
Whilst the area inside the timber setting was level and free of debris, the ditch contained copious charcoal, broken pottery, and numerous flints.
5. Arminghall's early geometers come astronomers erected timber posts in pairs to define the cardinal points of the compass along with several 10-degree divisions. Those alignments are every bit as accurate as rifle sights.
Since Arminghall's posts divide the compass into 10-degree lots, it is logical to assume that the primary alignment also follows this order of 10s. Furthermore, a careful study of the terrain proves that it does!
So, our early geometer/astronomers had found that no matter where they lived, from John O'Groats to Lands End, the angle between north and east could be made to present an angle of 90 degrees, as did the other three-quarters of the compass. The problem was that the sun refused to conform to these precise angles.
6. Chapel Hill Spur.
Due to a garden hedge south of the Arminghall Henge, this photo had to be taken further south and is slightly off to one side of the monument's axis. Nonetheless, it provides us with all the necessary information that we require.
Presently, a railway cutting runs through the middle of the spur. When this cutting is approached from the west (to the right in this photo), the rail is elevated to match its height. This is seen through a gap in the trees and below a rooftop. Sadly, the cutting obstructs the sun from reaching ground level and the river Yare. Unfortunately, the railway authorities do not consider the monument's significance when carrying out such activities.
Of greater importance is a distant landmass that appears over the top and to the left of the peak of Chapel Hill, forming a notch that the monument's 220-azimuth axis points at. This landmass can be seen beyond the row of telegraph poles and through another gap in the treeline.
It's impossible to make it out in this photograph, but the busy A47 passes over the third landmass to the left of the Chapel Hill spur, and this is where the southernmost setting moon will come to ground in 2024/5. So please get out there, somebody, and photograph it. The latest news is that English Heritage plan to do just that but at Stonehenge. However, judging by past history EH will feed us the usual red herrings and only tell what they think we ought to know!
So, a lot will happen in the run-up to Christmas 2024 because this is when the moon will attain her four most extreme positions on the horizon. These four positions are known as 'Major Standstills' or 'Lunar Standstills,' which occur every 18.61 years.
The northernmost moonrise at Stonehenge is azimuth 40 degrees, some nine degrees further north than Stonehenge's axis. Later in the day, the moon will set at an Azimuth 320.
Two weeks later, the moon will rise and set furthest south, azimuths 140 and 220.
This is something that I wrote and forgot about in my 2007 book "Stonehenge Secrets." Sorry, but it is out of print...
Far more significant than Arminghall, an array of timber posts, 24 in all, and designed on similar 10-degree principles, was found not far from Norwich at Godmanchester. Presumably discovered during gravel extraction, Godmanchester and its cursus were dated 3,800 BC. I want to follow up on Godmanchester one day, especially if I can wrest its coordinates from the authorities.
Meanwhile, consider this essential fact . . . STONEHENGE IS AN INTERNAL DEVICE.
QUOTE: "The main concern of the builders was to produce a presentable finish on those surfaces which would be seen from the interior of the site - the exception being the great trilithon." Stonehenge, Page 121. Atkinson R, 1956.
Avebury is an internal device, too.
The following quote is from William Stukeley's book "Avebury, a Temple to the British Druids."
"I observed further that as these stones generally have a rough and a smoother side, they took care to place the most sightly side of the stone inward, towards the included area."
Stukeley W 1727.
7. Castle Rigg Stone ring, Cumbria. A survey by Professor Alexander Thom found in "Megalithic Sites In Britain, Oxford University Press, 1967, p 150."
Professor Alexander Thom's manipulation of his many surveys is and was designed to hinder the progress of Stonehenge research. Archaeologists are permitting this obstruction to keep Stonehenge as a profitable mystery.
Professor Thom was a fine engineer and surveyor who allowed himself to become corrupt to suit the wishes of the state. He knew that stone circles were internal devices and did nothing about it. So, while his ground plans are accurate, his suggested profiles, which pass through the centre of the stones and not to their inside faces, are wrong.
What is more, he did not resolve the Megalithic Yard this way.
8. Castle Rigg Resolved.
Through a meticulous process of highlighting standing stones and carefully disregarding the displaced and fallen, we can confidently assert that Castle Rigg is a geometric egg, not a flatted circle, as Thom claimed.
This geometric egg is composed of three arcs and a blend radius - a type-style reminiscent of the outer rings of Durrington Walls’ Southern Circle, neighbouring Woodhenge, AND, the solitary egg of Scottish Callanish.
9. Castle Rigg Stone Egg, Cumbria.
Notably, this unique egg structure aligns with a distinct notch and the most southerly setting moon - a major standstill. At the same time, its axis points towards the 715-meter-high peak of Lonscale Fell beyond the River Greta that feeds into Derwent Water, underscoring the significance of its orientation.
10. My survey of the moon-egg Holme I, also known as Seahenge:
It's been a year or two since taking my sister to visit the Seahenge mock-up in the Kings Lyn Museum, Norfolk. We took a tape to measure the length of its central axis so I could produce a survey to reveal its underlying geometry. Unfortunately, the measurement obtained from the mock-up was an unhelpful 7.25 Megalithic Yards.
Well, that's all in the past because the plan produced by Maisie Taylor, which scales to 8.2 MY and is seen above, is more accurate. However, this does not change that the archaeological survey, produced jointly by the Time Team, is corrupt. Starting the count from 10 ensured the posts were one short and did not give the 56 needed to represent the moon. So, here again, we have misrepresentation. My numbers shown in red are correct.
The geometry...
Seahenge was based on a pair of back-to-back half-size 3:4:5 Pythagorean triangles and the Megalithic Yard. Equally important is the likely 0.3 offset from which the 4MY-radius arc is cast. 0.3 MY is 12 MI, further proof of the Megalithic Inch.
Holme II (Seahenge II), placed elsewhere on this site, also proves the Megalithic Inch.
11. The Stonehenge hypothesis.
At its core, Stonehenge was a product of human curiosity. The idea sprouted from the notion that sunlight could be reflected off stones, potentially highlighting the moon. This intriguing concept originated 18 miles north of Stonehenge, at Avebury, the assumed source of Stonehenge's sarsen stones.
Fascinated by the achievements of the people at Avebury, the Stonehengers pondered the possibilities of standing several megaliths in a circle and bouncing high-intensity sunlight around their polished surfaces.
However, the Stonehengers' ideas did not end there. They built a complex timber monument consisting of six eggs similar to ‘Russian eggs’ a little way south of the Durrington walls henge and aligned those eggs on the northernmost rising moon - a major standstill. This egg was to be fertilised by summer solstice sunlight with the help of a four-year-old girl child buried at the centre. Therefore, Woodhenge was female – a moon egg.
The builders of Stonehenge, like those of Woodhenge, harboured a deep hope that their creation would come to life with its dedications, alignments on the sun and moon, and the Durrington Walls' womb, to which it is connected via the River Avon.
In the final analysis, Stonehenge was a baby sun that promised warmth and light to people's lives. The circles and eggs of wood and stone were the ancient people's attempt to achieve an everlasting summer. The idea of perpetual sunshine seemed to offer Britain's first farmers the opportunity to cultivate their crops throughout the year and enjoy life to the fullest. Let's all revel in the glory of an eternal summer with Stonehenge.
As we celebrate, I want to thank the AI-powered Grammarly app. This website would have been a struggle without its support in enhancing my grammar. Still ongoing!
12. THE SCALEABLE EGG ON TOP OF WINDMILL HILL.
The ideas behind the Wiltshire monuments of Avebury, Silbury Hill, and Stonehenge all started on top of Windmill Hill and were all for one purpose.
It was 1926, and the archaeologist Harold St George Gray found a three-inch-long chalk phallus while excavating Ring A, a 311-metre-long egg scribed to expose the chalk subsoil on top of Windmill Hill - a mile northwest of Avebury.
Gray wrote the following to the amateur archaeologist Alexander Keiller, the Scottish Marmalade millionaire... "Phallus of chalk of a flattened cross-section, the glans penis well defined by a deep encircling groove. Length three and three eights of an inch." Sept 9 1926b. Ref. Windmill Hill notebook Vol 2. P28-29.
No wonder Keiller's curiosity was piqued, causing him to purchase Windmill Hill and rescue it from Marcony, who wanted to build a radio relay station on top of it.
**
The precise geometry of the outer ring of Windmill Hill was determined by two factors...
1. OS Maps provided by Online Bing. Bing maps have 1,000-metre divisions, which is equal to 1204.82 Megalithic Yards. And since Ring A is smaller than the scale, we are scaling down for better accuracy. These maps are entered in CAD, and lines of interest are traced onto transparent "layers" to pinpoint roadways, paths, hedgerows, etc.
2. LIDAR, an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remarkably precise method for scanning a landscape. It functions by emitting laser beams from an aircraft to measure the distance and shape of objects on the ground. This technology has played a pivotal role in our understanding of Neolithic history, particularly in tracing the trenches dug by these ancient communities and revealing their geometric patterns at a near-perfect scale.
The outer ring, shaped like an egg, was created by people who excavated a deep ditch to remove the grass and topsoil to expose the underlying pure white chalk subsoil to the sky. The soil from the ditch was thrown inwards to create an internal bank. So, the monument was not a henge. We consider this egg to be one of the most realistic of all prehistoric geometric eggs. Gray's phallus was discovered buried somewhere in this ditch.
The real question has always been how did people produced such large arcs. Ring A's largest arc is 375 megalithic yards (340 imp yards, 311metres)! This arc was doubled when the Neolithic geometers left to build Avebury's outer stone ring. It was doubled again by Stonehenge's Super Circuit that surrounds Durrington Walls. Of most importance is that this egg could be scaled up or down in size. That is how early geometers were able to produce Avebury’s 750 Megalithic Yard radius.
The Megalithic Yard was also used in constructing the geometric eggs of Brittany in France - that we know. But where did the Megalithic Inch come from? Was it invented by people living on top of Windmill Hill, albeit temporarily? Indeed, the trail seems to end there because Hembury Pottery sherds - a deep dish or plate with a rounded bottom - dates Windmill Hill's three rings, A, B and C, to 3700 BC. No geometry was found at Hembury Fort in Devon, where these plates originated, so the inch was not likely to have originated from there!
We are sure that folks on Windmill Hill had divided the yard into 40 parts to give them the Megalithic Inch because Ring A could not be scaled at one-tenth and one-hundredth of full-size without it.
Here is something else to think about... Discredit the Megalithic Yard, and Stonehenge will forever remain a mystery.
13. WINDMILL HILL RING B.
Image going to your doctor with a mystery illness. The doctor prescribes some tablets he hopes will make you better. You still feel no better, so your doctor prescribes a different tablet. Later still, you feel no better, so your doctor prescribes yet another pill for you to take.
Image the situation if repeated repeatedly - tablet after tablet, pill after pill, hoping to find a cure.
Something similar occurred during the Stone Age when people were looking for something that could not and would not be found. Like the doctor's tablets, thousands of monuments were necessarily unique. Rings A, B, and C of Windmill Hill are excellent cases in point. There are no others quite like them.
14. Windmill Hill Ring C.
Ring C epitomises the characteristics of the simplest of all Pythagorean triangles outside of drawing a 3:4:5 triangle. No wonder Windmill Hill was the place to be 5,700 years ago, with geometry this good.
These people believed that geometry held hidden messages, so much so that they constructed Ring C as a yolk and tried to get the sun and moon to fertilise it. And what might happen if they did?
Few monuments point directly at the extreme turning points of the sun and moon. Nor does Ring C. The yolk aims at the Dark Sky, which is too far north for our natural sun and moon. The same applies to the egg on White Sheet Hill a few miles west of Stonehenge. That points at the Dark Sky, too!
15. WINDMILL HILL ALL RINGS SHOWING RESPECT TO THE NORTH.
Note the sizeable 375 MY arc, based on a 750-diameter circle.
This 375 megalithic-yard arc was doubled in size at Avebury and doubled again at Durrington Walls.
16. Windmill Hill Rings A and B foretell the coming of the winter solstice.
Unfortunately, I have run out of space to show photographs taken from the top of Windmill Hill. These have been placed elsewhere on this site. Winter solstice photograph 22/12/23 also.
17. Stonehenge and its moon-aligned Heel Stone. 3rd July 2016.
Note how low-altitude sunlight illuminates the stones, and compare this with Avebury's Cove, where Stone Age folks first noticed and employed this phenomenon!
A brass plaque, recently fitted by English Heritage and embedded in the grass, marks Stonehenge's primary axis. The plaque marks the axis of the outer circle in red. The aqua line marks the secondary axis, which once passed centrally through the gap of the Great Trilithon. These axes are 18 megalithic inches apart (14.7 imperial inches). Imagine the precision of ancient people's geometry and measurement.
The Heel Stone, with a flat face aimed like an antenna facing the moon, points 11 degrees more northerly and effectively combines the sun and moon by crossing Stonehenge's two axes. This alignment is so precise that it aims at where the northernmost moon rises out of the Larkhill Causewayed Enclosure every 18.61 years.
Consider the historical significance of the Heel Stone. John Wood's highly accurate 1740 survey of Stonehenge provides proof of its alignment. This stone, revered and unique, was placed in the middle of a circular ditch filled with bluestone fragments, marking a significant point in our understanding of ancient astronomy.
On the rarity of the moon's northernmost position, known as 'The Major Standstill.' The last time this event occurred was in 2005/2006, and it was an opportunity missed. Therefore, the subsequent Major Standstill, a truly unique astronomical event, will take place Xmas 2024, inviting us to witness this celestial phenomenon.
English Heritage plans to livestream the southernmost moonrise across the four Station Stones, forming a rectangle outside the sarsen circle.
This livestream event holds more than just visual appeal. It is a scientific endeavour aiming to demonstrate that the long sides of the rectangle align precisely with the southernmost moonrise in one direction and the northernmost moonset in the other. Much like Stonehenge's axis, one short side of the rectangle is one degree away from the solstices. A complete treatise of the station stone rectangle is given under 'Stonehenge Geometry.'
However, the northernmost moonrise should be the main object of interest because it is closest to the summer solstice!
Hopefully, photographers will be allowed to enter Stonehenge during the many unsociable hours needed to get those pictures of the northernmost moonrise. But I doubt it. If not, you photographers get yourselves off to some other monument instead - there are plenty more good targets on these pages.
In our search for further proof of the Stonehenge hypothesis, we will look for more ways of bringing the sun, the moon, and a star or stars together in one place.
18. Stonehenge’s Heel Stone.
Note how the Heel Stone's axis - the axis normal to its front face - crosses Stonehenge's primary and secondary axes and the 49-degree solstice of the Neolithic sun. Is there a better way of bringing the sun and moon together? Put another way, a Tee square placed on the outer face of the Heel stone will point to the northernmost moonset. This was deliberate; Neolithic people put the Heel Stone in place -- not nature.
We find the same cross-over principle at Durrington Walls, where the incoming summer solstice sunset crosses the axes of several timber-built eggs of the Southern Circle.
19. STONEHENGE'S AXES. YES, THERE ARE TWO OF THEM!
The following is my attempt to become a novelist. I will not be offended if you avoid it and click the button on the right, which will take you to Seahenge Holme II. Thank you.
Five thousand five hundred cold winters and a Stone Age wish for a perpetual summer, a wish that seems more distant now with the onset of global warming, a phenomenon that threatens to disrupt the delicate balance of nature.
This story begins on a sunny spring morning many years ago, when a Stone Age farmer named Brennos was seen busily preparing a patch of land to sow barley seed for a harvest he desperately hoped to get.
Controlling the plough, harnessed to a pair of robust oxen, was no easy task for Brennos. The leather twine that held the contraption together often snapped, causing the entire device to collapse. Despite the tediousness of the repairs, Brennos diligently reassembled the plough and pressed on with his work.
As Brennos surveyed the soil, he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride. The bumper crop from the previous year was a testament to his family's hard work. They were always by his side, busily engaged with sowing seeds for the harvest they hoped they might get.
This was in 3,500 BC. The place? The Kennet Valley, which would one day become the Kingdom of Wessex.
Brennos had many friends who preferred to trap prey to feed their families, which was no bad thing. Combined with Brennos's ability to grow wheat, barley, beans, and peas, his family usually managed to maintain a well-balanced diet. Even so, Brennos’s friends still marvelled over his abilities as a farmer.
Brennos understood only too well what they meant. Some years, if the weather were cold, his crops would likely fail. And if it were unseasonably wet at harvest time, his produce would rot in the ground. Brennos was not saved from the constant worry of keeping his seed in good condition for the following year's crop. If it had not been for the sun that travelled far to the south every winter, he would not have had this problem, and the ripe seed would have been available for immediate sowing.
Brennos stopped to consider the work they had done that day. The oxen had drawn the plough, turning the field into regimented lines of shallow furrows; his wife had placed seeds upon the bottom, and his children had sprinkled fine soil to cover them. Together, they had covered about half an acre during the day. Not a bad day's work, Brennos thought, and he hoped the sun and rain would be kind to his family by bringing them a rich and plentiful harvest.
Brennos unfastened the plough as the sun set and led the oxen back to their pens, affectionately stroking each animal's bony head. Navigating their way home in the dark was perilous, so Brennos and his family banded together closely, with his son bringing up the rear and carrying a torch to deter any wild beasts that might attack them.
Sometimes, the moon offered some light, but on this cloudy night, no such luck. Fortunately, one of Brennos' colleagues had built a fire, which they tended to frequently to guide them through the trenches surrounding their hilltop abode. Upon arrival, they were welcomed with a feast of bread, cheese, and warm goat's milk to wash it down.
As Brennos gazed into the flickering flames, he couldn't help but feel a tinge of sadness as he remembered the friends he had lost during the previous winter. It wasn't a particularly harsh winter, but a mysterious illness had spread throughout the country, claiming the lives of many weaker individuals. To raise his spirits, Brennos' friends shared jokes and stories while others recounted tales from their folklore.
Later that night, the clouds blanketing the sky began to clear, allowing the moon to look down on Brennos’ group as they huddled around the fire below her. And as usual, Brennos's friends tried to explain what the moon was.
Brennos noted how the moon and his wife passed through monthly cycles, year after year. This convinced him that the moon was female too. The whole group was aware of the changes in the moon's shape as she waxed and waned from a 'C' to a 'D' to an 'O' and back again.
To Brennos, the moon was a live person; he could see she had a face that never seemed to smile. Strange, Brennos thought, how she was forever avoiding the sun. Sometimes, she would appear during the day, but not until she had made herself invisible to him, for she was so utterly shy. She seemed to want to keep as far from him as possible. If only I could bring the sun and moon together, Brennos thought. They might get to like one another. The moon might even conceive a child.
Brennos was brought back to reality by one of his friends who noticed him looking up into the sky, as he often did. This friend suggested they might build a massive mound of significant length (A long barrow) with a portal and chambers at one end to catch equinoctial sunlight and moonlight and as somewhere to inter their deceased colleagues.
They knew of a pleasant place with a commanding view on the other side of the Kennet Valley, and everyone agreed to build the mound there. Who knows what might happen?
They also decided it would be better to construct the chambers from some enormous stones if only they could find some way of moving them. Brennos doubted whether such large stones could be moved; they were so big, but everyone decided to try.
First, they gained experience by moving the medium-sized ones around by turning them into rollers clad in wood. This effectively turned them into giant wheels. Then other folks went to the strangely named hilltops of Overton and Fyfield Downs, where they could find the choicest and best shapes. Then, milling around the largest, they looked under and around them.
These stones exceeded twenty tonnes in weight, and the transportation of just one, having to cross a river and drag it up a hill, was an enormous task.
Some of Brennos’s group chopped down some trees and stripped them of their branches and bark, thus turning them into long wooden posts. Then, using these large posts as levers, with small stones for fulcrums, they released the megaliths from their beds and dragged them to the site.
First, they built the walls to make five small rooms, each one branching off from a central entrance passageway. Next, they excavated the chalk from a pair of ditches on each side of the mound and used it to make it still higher.
Then, they laid massive capping stones across the top to form the roof. Finally, more chalk was taken from the ditches until the whole structure was a gleaming white 330-foot-long trapezium set against a pea-green landscape.
Brennos held a lighted brand against one wall to demonstrate to his friends how sarsen stones reflect light. "Imagine, he said, what might happen when sunshine and moonlight enter the tomb. It might bring their friends back to life.
Brennos and his friends were justifiably proud of the Long Barrow they had built and oversaw the building of several more.
Many years later, the portal of this long barrow was sealed up with large blocking stones after receiving a murdered beaker man, together with his fashionable lozenge-decorated beaker. This accurately dates the event to around 2500 BC. Monuments such as this mound, or tumulus, known as ‘The West Kennet Long Barrow,’ were decommissioned by command. Perhaps the murdered beaker man, found with an arrow in his back, disagreed!
Brennos and his family continued to plough and sow the land to ensure the success of their crops. How well everything grows, Brennos thought, when the sun is shining, life is so much better in the summertime. He wished he could have two harvests a year instead of just one. Then, he could provide food all year without worrying about storing seeds and risking them rotting away every winter. He so wished that the sun could be with him all year round.
Brennos held a few grains of barley in the palm of his hand. Within these seeds, he knew, was the very essence of life, and he realised why he had chosen to be a farmer. He also knew that he only had to bury these seeds a little below the soil's surface, where they were kept warm and sheltered for a while, and the spark of life would begin.
Brennos wondered where the sun came from. It emerged from the ground in various places, stony ground too, but no one had ever discovered any holes from where it occurred. Brennos knew that the sun did not need a hole to emerge from and was, without a doubt, capable of passing through anything. Equally clear was that the sun travelled underground during the night and probably stayed beneath the knolls of Britain, of which Brennos knew several.
The rain also puzzled Brennos because it fell from the smoke that the sun made in the sky. This made him wonder if rain, too, emerged from the ground. He knew some folks who had dug deep pits, hoping to find the sun, but had discovered a water source instead. Others had found choice flint and were in the process of mining it.
Brennos reflected upon their folklore that told of when his ancestors had tried to simulate the sun. It was said that they had cut down hundreds of large trees and turned their trunks into posts to describe a succession of ever-increasing circles. This giant structure was more than three hundred feet in diameter by six men high. Then, according to this legend, they had infilled the gaps between the posts with lots of combustible material and set the whole thing alight.
This legend is based on fact. About 6,000 years ago, a large assembly of over four hundred massive timber posts that radiated outwards in ever-increasing circles was built at Stanton Drew. - See report later. Magnetometry readings taken a few years ago proved that this circle of tree trunks was subsequently burnt to the ground. Sometime later, this massive fire was superseded by a henge and Britain's second-largest stone circle.
Brennos looked up at the sun and wondered if the legend was true. Each post must have weighed about the same as thirty-five men and would have stood in a hole the height of a man.
Brennos held up his thumb, with arm outstretched, and tried to gauge the sun for size. His thumbnail completely covered its disc and was six times larger, so he thought the sun was not very big. However, he also realised that it could not be reached from the top of Waden Hill, so it had to be larger than this. Brennos could also see that the sun was higher than the clouds, which Brennos thought was smoke produced by the sun, which hung around in the sky.
After considering the problem at length, Brennos decided that the sun was a disc, or sphere, of about 1500 megalithic yards in diameter (4,083 feet), and it had somehow become self-sustaining.
FINI
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Britain’s first farmers, living in south England, treated Wiltshire’s extensive Chalk Massive like a vast whiteboard to scribe their designs. That is how Stonehenge started, just three circles of pure white chalk appearing through the lush green grass. The circles were complete except for two causeways, the most extensive pointing northeast towards the most northerly risings of the sun and moon. The centre-point of those circles was chosen for one main reason.
This reason is well known, and several authors have already written about it. Stonehenge stands on latitude 51, where the sun and moon make an angle of 90 degrees. So, Stonehenge started by obeying the Stone Age 10-degree rule.
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But where does the moon fit in with all this? With a half orb, 40-degree azimuth in Wiltshire, the Major Standstill of the moon already obeys the 10-degree rule—Witness Avebury’s West Kennet and Beckhampton’s avenues, which follow it too.
So, a piece of high ground, a mile to the northeast of Stonehenge, to what is known today as Larkhill, was recognised as a suitable place for more timber posts to track the moon and further establish its northernmost position. This turning point, not unlike a terminus, occurs every 18.61 years. However, while this 18.61-year event is near enough, it is not dead accurate, and the Stonehengers knew it. Hence, fifty-four more posts were added to the Aubrey Circle to represent the 56-year frequency of the moon - the time it takes for the moon to return to the same place from where it started. Of course, even this is not dead accurate, but never mind! Because we now have a fabulous piece of theatre designed to bring the sun, the moon, and the top-most star of the Southern Cross - the red Gamma Crucis - which was still visible from Wiltshire 5,000 years ago - together in one place.
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Here are a couple of quotes from the book Stonehenge Decoded...
"I set up my eight-millimetre movie camera with telephoto lens trained down the axis line to include in its field the sarsen circle archway through which the distant heel stone could be seen. We waited. Suddenly, in the band of brightness to the northeast, we saw it - the first red flash of the sun, rising just over the tip of the heel stone!" Gerald S Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded, P 93.
Two points to be made here are... First, Hawkins believed that Stonehenge's primary axis passes centrally through the gap of the Great Trilithon. It does not. Consequently, his camera was not placed on Stonehenge's primary axis. Furthermore, the sun does not rise "just over the tip of the Heel stone" on summer solstice morning.
Quote... "We had deliberately planned our visit for June 12, nine days before the solstice, because we feared that on the day itself, the crowd would make it impossible to set up a camera on the correct alignment and have an unobstructed view.
"Stonehenge Decoded,” Page 92.
The problem of crowds that get in the way and make it impossible to place a camera on Stonehenge's axis still applies today! The sun rises 'just over the tip' of the Heel Stone twice in June... not on solstice morning, but about five days before and five days after!
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Here, we hope to convince you that Stonehenge was built by people who believed the sun to be male, the moon to be female, and the stars to be potential children. This alone should tell you what Stonehenge was meant to be.
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This site deals with everything our ancestors got up to that made them think they might have a way of guaranteeing them the three essentials of life - Food, water, and heat. They could grow food as staples, and water was plentiful. But they needed a second sun to warm them in winter and to grow out-of-season crops. It was not that difficult. -- Or so they thought.
As mentioned, some folks built a sun simulator from 450 tree trucks set in nine ever-increasing circles at Stanton Drew. But having set it alight, it proved nowhere near hot enough. So, they thought the sun had to be made of stone. But how to get stone to burn? And how to get it to fly? Those were the problems they faced!
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As mentioned above, Picture 1 was taken while standing in the middle of Stonehenge’s solstice doorway between pillars 1 and 30 - "The Grand Entrance" - as William Stukeley called it. The photo shows how the sun has surpassed Stonehenge's axes by some distance to the north. According to the astronomer the late Professor John North, the first flash of the sun in 2,500 BC was 48.5 degrees clockwise from the north - a full 1.5 degrees past Stonehenge's axis. It was further north still in 3,000 BC when Stonehenge was started!
I could not understand why the sun in Picture 1 appears so far to the left of the Heel stone, so I wrote to Wessex Archaeology and asked if they could explain why the sun is not where it should be. That was at least ten years ago, and I now know why. Stonehenge is not perfectly aligned on the solstices - not the summer or the winter.
As a proven internal device with the best faces of stones dressed and pointing inward, the sarsen and bluestone building was designed to arrest and trap sunlight. Its builders hoped to light up the whole of Stonehenge like the sun lights up the Backstone of Avebury's Cove - see photo later. This leaves us wondering - did they know they were adopting modern-day LASER techniques?
Picture 1 also shows how the moon travels about 10 degrees further north than the sun. So, the sun goes nowhere where the moon has not already been.
Cremated human bones were fetched from pyres lit alongside the Durrington Walls timber-built Southern Circle exit and placed alongside the fifty-six timber posts in the Aubrey Holes. The Stonehengers believed that cremation released the spirits of the dead. And, by burying those spirits inside Durrington Walls’s Midden,' yet taking the bones to Stonehenge - those spirits would have to travel the Avon umbilical to join them!
The West Amesbury Henge, dubbed “Bluestone henge,” having circular post holes, was a timber henge, not stone. So, we will call it "The West Amesbury Timber Henge."
This henge, built on the bank of the river Avon, marks the start of the avenue that takes the spirits of the dead overland via Stonehenge Avenue to Stonehenge. This circle of some twenty timbers measures 12 megalithic yards. So, The West Amesbury Timber Henge was one-third the size of Stonehenge. This size, together with the increasing radii of the large curve in Stonehenge Avenue, is further proof of a wish for Stonehenge to grow.
The largest radius in the bend of Stonehenge Avenue scales to 750 megalithic yards. This radius can also be found at Durrington Walls, Avebury, and Windmill Hill.
Caution! The following paragraph was written before the war in Ukraine and the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and is not meant to upset anyone.
The only hypothesis that fits all the known facts is a prehistoric wish to give birth to a baby sun.
Those who dispute it should spend a killer winter outside without the benefits of gas fires to keep warm and electric lights with which to read a book and light their way. And if that is not enough, try growing out-of-season wheat, barley, and vegetables. Or try picking crab apples, blackberries, and hazelnuts, long-rotted and fallen off the trees.
Please press the "Holme 2" button at the top of this page.