1. Some wonder if Stonehenge was ever finished and made complete. But does it matter if the intent was there? If it were finished, the outer circle would have had 30 equally spaced standing stones, called megaliths, evenly spaced around a 36 Megalithic Yard diameter circle, even though the rugged sarsens that people supposedly hauled from the downs near Avebury and stood upright at Stonehenge never came in handy-sized sections as seen above.
Nonetheless, the plan was to erect the megaliths twelve degrees apart, leaving gaps of four degrees between them. And we know those early folks had accurately divided the compass into 360-degree parts, as was found scribed on pottery in Devon and Dorset.
Megaliths 26 and 11 marked the cardinal points north and south with their leading and trailing edges, and this ensured that Stonehenge’s primary axis would have an azimuth of 50 degrees. Furthermore, since the prehistoric solstice was less than 49 degrees clockwise from the north, Stonehenge’s 50-degree axis is not precisely aimed at the solstice as many like to think.
2. To help resolve Stonehenge’s geometry, we start by rotating the circle 40 degrees clockwise for its axis to become horizontal.
3. Next, we add those sarsens whose positions John Wood and Sir Flinders Petrie had determined many years ago.
John Wood surveyed Stonehenge in 1740, or a little before, and his ground-plan view of the remains of the Sarsen Circle is shown above. However, Stone 26 was a particular case, with only its stub remaining. John regarded this stone as overthrown. He also surveyed its nemesis, Lintel 127, that destroyed it, as did Flinders Petrie in 1880.
4. To prove the circle’s geometry and measurement, we print the above image on a pair of A4 transparencies after colouring those stones above the centreline a light grey and those below a darker shade.
5. This image results from inverting one transparency and placing it over the other to find that Stone 10 is misplaced. Ignoring Stone 10 gives the sarsen circle a perfect 36 Megalithic Yard diameter and provides a sensible scale for the following images.
Most importantly, we have accurately resolved Stonehenge's true centre and determined the position of its Major Axis, which passes through it.
6. The Outer Oval of Welsh Bluestones.
Bluestones standing in 1740 after John Wood had surveyed Stonehenge are shown entirely black, and Petrie’s positions, as he found them in 1880, are grey and doted, albeit hidden mainly beneath John Woods.
Petrie drew a faint line against some of them to indicate their degree of lean. The longer the line, the greater the amount. We mark two of these bluestones with arrows.
Note the male and female type stones that straddle Stonehenge’s entrance, sometimes called the “Doorway” because of having a lintel.
7. Once again, we print a pair of transparencies and place one over the other. The above image is the result.
8. We now find that this arrangement of bluestones describes an oval comprised of two 27 MY diameter circles whose centres are separated by two Megalithic Yards. Further, the axis of this oval is offset from the centre of the Sarsen Circle by 24 Megalithic Inches (1.63 ft). And as we shall see, this offset is because Stonehenge is designed around a tiny 3:4:5 Pythagorean triangle.
This reminds us of the proverb, “Great oaks from little acorns grow.”
9. This image of the outer bluestone oval, formally known as a circle, includes the fallen bluestones from Petrie’s survey. Furthermore, the axis of this oval will point at the northernmost moonset when the image is returned to respect the north.
Again, 27+29 equals 56 and shows respect to the 56-year moon cycle, as does Stonehenge's 56 Aubrey Holes!
10. Stonehenge’s Trilithon Cove.
John Wood’s sarsen megaliths are shaded in grey. Those Flinders Petrie surveyed in 1880 are shown dotted. However, because Trilithon 4 fell to the ground some 50 years after Wood’s survey, Petrie had to rely on the positions of megaliths 57 and 58, as was found by Wood.
Again, note that Petrie placed an arrow highlighting Stone 56’s significant lean towards Stonehenge’s centre.
11. Fortunately, we have a better idea of where Stone 56 stood in prehistory thanks to Professor Gowland, who restored and set it in concrete in 1901. The preferred position of Stone 56, as corrected by Gowland, is now shown above.
Similar to what we did before, the above image was printed on two transparencies, and the top sheet was inverted to show that some trilithons are not true to the Major Axis but are placed asymmetrically.
12. This is the result of folding. A similar effect can be obtained using inverted transparencies as before.
Either method exposes an excessive gap through Trilithon 3, which we know should only be 12 imperial inches (0.37 MY), thus proving that the Great Trilithon is on a separate axis.
Trilithon 4 is also on this separate axis.
13. This is another way of proving the eccentricity of Trilithons 3 and 4 and the need for a second axis. We temporarily superimpose a circle and rectangle true to the Primary axis to see if all trilithons concur. We have also added the broken and recumbent trilithon Stone 55 in the place where John Wood found it.
First, we notice that the gap through the Great Trilithon is much reduced by including Stone 55 and that the Primary axis does not pass through this gap.
Also, Stones 57 and 58 fail to touch the circular imposition by 0.82 MY (2.2 ft) and 0.63 MY (1.7 ft), respectively, whereas the opposing stones 53 and 54 are hard against it.
Conversely, the rectangle proves Trilithons 1 and 5 are symmetrical to the Primary axis.
14. Just for good measure, this is a cartoon of Stonehenge’s Cove of Trilithons. The eccentricity is hard to see, but it is there!
Note the similarity to Scotland’s heel-shaped cairns, which might mean something or nothing!
15. Stonehenge’s tiny Pythagorean triangle around which its circles and ovals are cast.
16. An oval of perhaps 24 Welsh bluestones, shaped and polished, once graced the centre of Stonehenge. Unfortunately, several of its stones in the northeast were broken up and taken away years ago, and this caused the oval to be described as a horseshoe. That is how John Wood found it when he surveyed Stonehenge. The result can be seen above with the remaining bluestones coloured grey.
Flinders Petrie measured the width of the “Horseshoe” in 1880 and found it to be 473 inches. Petrie’s measurement converts to 14.48 megalithic yards and is so close to 14.5 that we can assume 14.5 is what the Stonehengers aimed at.
Post holes of the missing bluestones have since been discovered by the archaeological excavations conducted by Hawley and Atkinson. These excavations have shown the length of the Oval's central axis to be half that of the outer circle at 18 Megalithic Yards long. However, the Oval is placed on Stonehenge’s Secondary Axis, as was the inhumation found by Hawley.
Furthermore, the Oval may be regarded as based on four near-Pythagorean triangles, which suggests, in the prehistoric mind, that Stonehenge's tiny founding triangle should grow.
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The 50-degree alignment of Stonehenge’s Primary axis was determined 500 years before the Sarsen Circle was built by squeezing sunlight between upright timber posts placed more than 280 feet apart. These timber posts stood in Aubrey Holes 56 and 28. So we know that the Stonehengers regarded incoming sunlight as a narrow beam, like a LASER, and shifting the Great Trilithon onto the Secondary axis allowed Stone 55 to block Primary Axis sunlight and prevent it from escaping.
The exceptionally wide bluestone 67 was placed between the axes for the same purpose.
This author first published the suggestion that Stonehenge acted like a Laser in the book “Stonehenge Secrets 2007, ISBN 978-0-9553012-1-6.”
17. Putting it all together and turning Stonehenge’s geometry to respect the North.
1. Starting with an outer circle of 36 megalithic yards and working inwards…
2. A bluestone oval, previously regarded as a circle, is aligned with the moon and respects the 56 Aubrey Holes by measuring 27 by 29 Megalithic Yards.
3. This is followed by a trilithon cove set partly on one axis and partly on another to block incoming high-altitude sunlight on the summer solstice morning.
4. A smaller bluestone oval, incorrectly described as a horseshoe, measures 14.5 by 18 MY and is placed on the secondary axis. 14.5 times two plus 30 is two monthlies of the moon and the human female. Also, the length of this oval is half the diameter of the Sarsen Circle.
Furthermore, this oval is based on four near-Pythagorean triangles that measure 3.5 by 7.25 by eight megalithic yards. So here, in the minds of prehistoric folks, is further proof of growth!
5. At the centre of the geometry is a tiny 18:24:30 megalithic inch Pythagorean triangle upon which Stonehenge's geometry is based. Like barley seeds placed in soil, Stonehenge's little triangle represents the germ from which the Stonehengers believed something might grow.
6. A six-megalithic-yard-long Altar Stone measuring one-sixth of the Sarsen Circle completes the ensemble.
Petrie probed the Altar Stone to find its length at 198 imperial inches. This converts to 5.03 metres and the meaningful 6.06 megalithic yards.
REF: “STONEHENGE: PLANS, DESCRIPTION, AND THEORIES.” BY W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE.
18. Stonehenge's geometry superimposed on John Woods’s 1740 survey.
Stone 80 - the Altar Stone - is shown in green. Petrie's Stone 80 is marked with dotted lines. The Altar Stone, at six megalithic yards long, is one-sixth of the Outer Circle’s diameter, proving that it never did stand upright. Note two post holes in front of it that appear to fix its position. However, I believe it was placed lying flat on the ground.
The skewed attitude of Stone 80 may be deliberate; if so, it was meant to reflect sunlight onto the male-type Stone 49 placed just inside the entrance of the sarsen circle. This would prove Stonehenge of the male gender.
19. Let's backtrack to the outer bluestone oval with Stonehenge now respecting the north to show that the Oval's axis is internal, contained by Stones 23 and 8. This restriction did not rest easy with the Stonehengers and motivated them to set up four Station Stones outside the Oval.
20. The Station Stone Rectangle was most likely set on a pair of back-to-back near-Pythagorean triangles measuring 40:96:105 Megalithic Yards. Also, these stones very nearly sit on the Aubrey circle of 56 holes. Neither the Aubrey holes nor the Station Stones have been adequately surveyed, so a certain amount of artistic license has been applied here!
We show the sarsen outer circle as central to the Station Stone rectangle, but the rectangle was equally likely placed upon the newly discovered centre of the outer bluestone oval.