- Stonehenge: New Findings Indicate Sun Worship - pschubert
November 28, 2011 news item: According to “Archaeologists Make New ‘Sun Worship’ Find” in the BBC News,Wiltshire, two undiscovered pits have been found at Stonehenge which further indicates it used as a site for sun worship before the stone megaliths were constructed. They are positioned on an astrological alignment and might have had stones, posts or fires to mark the sun’s rising and setting.
There are about 100 henges in the British Isles that date from 3,200 BCE. These are prehistoric British megaliths, usually, consisting of a round flattened area surrounded by boundary earthworks and a bank and/or a ditch.
Stonehenge Pits Discovered
On March 14, 2011, the news was that Stonehenge: Laser Scans Might Reveal the Henge's Secrets. Recently, a Prehistoric Mediterranean Boy's Skeleton was Unearthed near the henge. Scientists expected to make more discoveries, which they did. An international archaeological team found the pits as part of their Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, using geophysical imaging techniques. Archaeologists from the University of Birmingham, England and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection in Vienna, Austria have been surveying the subsurface at the site since the summer of 2010. It’s theorized that the pits, within the Neolithic Cursus pathway, might have been formed as a procession route for ancient rituals celebrating the sun moving across the sky during the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Cursuses have two parallel linear ditches with banks each side and closed at the end. A gap in the northern side of the Cursus might have been an egress for processions in the pathway.
The discoveries further suggest the site was used as an ancient center of rituals prior to the megaliths being constructed over 5,000 years ago. Birmingham University Professor Vince Gaffney, an archaeologist and project leader, said it was first time they saw anything like this at Stonehenge and it provides more insight as to how rituals could have taken place there.
Stonehenge: Historical Secrets Revealed
David Keys wrote that the ancient site might have been place of worship for 500 years before the first stone was erected in “The Secret History of Stonehenge Revealed.” Current research implies that Stonehenge might have been an important sacred site and that the sanctity of its location could have determined the layout of significant aspects of the sacred land. Investigations allowed archaeologists to reconstruct the generally accepted route of religious processions or other rituals which they think might have taken place north of Stonehenge each year.
New archaeological evidence was discovered during the continual surveys around Stonehenge, in which archaeologists have been using ground-penetrating radar and other geophysical investigative methods. When archaeologists modeled the relationship between the Cursus pits and Stonehenge on their computer system, they realized that, when viewed from the “Heel Stone,” the pits were aligned with sunrise and sunset on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Chances of the alignments being coincidence are exceptionally low.
Stonehenge: Sun Worship
Archaeologists began to speculate as to what type of ritual may have been taken place at and between the two pits. In many parts of the world, ancient religious and other ceremonies, at times, involved ceremonial processions around the monument’s perimeters. Archaeologists thought it was possible that the prehistoric celebrants at the Cursus may have walked between the pits by going around its perimeter.
There was a way of trying to test the thought. On the summer solstice, there are three key alignments; sunrise, sunset and midday, the highest point the sun reaches in its annual cycle. At noon the alignment should be due south. Computer calculations revealed that the midday point on the route aligned directly with the center of Stonehenge, precisely due south.
The sun being over Stonehenge at its highest point in the year seemed to have been of great importance to prehistoric people because it suggests that the henge’s association with worshipping the sun was, possibly, larger than previously thought.
Modern archaeologists had believed Stonehenge was a relatively latecomer to the area for years and that the other large monuments in the site, the Cursuses, pre-dated it by up to 500 years. Birmingham archaeologist Dr. Henry Chapman, who has been modeling alignments on the computerized reconstructions of Stonehenge, said the implication of the new evidence is that Stonehenge was sacred before the Cursus was built.
The due south noon alignment of the procession route’s mid-point couldn’t happen if the Cursus had different dimensions. The megaliths’ design must have been created to attain that mid-point alignment with Stonehenge’s center. If this is true, the Stonehenge Heel Stone’s location must have been of ritual significance before the Cursus pits were dug.
These imply that the site, later occupied by the megaliths of Stonehenge, was sacred before construction began on the Cursus. Unless the midday alignment is coincidence, which is highly unlikely, it implies that henge’s sacred significance is at least 500 years older than previously thought.
Archaeologists had found an 8000 BCE Mesolithic ritual site in what is now Stonehenge’s car park. The five thousand year gap between the site and the henge caused most archaeologists to think that sacred continuity between the two was unlikely. With the new discoveries, the time gap has, most likely, narrowed. It’s unknown how long Stonehenge was sacred before the Cursus’ construction. Prior theories about the henge might have to be reconsidered.
Stonehenge: The Survey
Gaffney said the survey is the largest of its type done anywhere in the world and will take two more years to complete. Every square yard in a five square mile area surrounding the henge will be geophysically examined to a depth of up to 2.2 yards. The archaeologists anticipate that dozens, possibly, hundreds of previously unknown sites will be discovered because of the project. The continuing discoveries in Stonehenge are expected to change scholars’ understanding of the henge’s origins, history and significance.
It would be interesting if other henges, such as the lesser known Castlerigg Stone Circle, also known as Keswick Carle and Druid’s Circle, in the Lake District near Keswick, a prehistoric structure in Cumbra, Great Britain were also surveyed. What other mysteries do they hold?
Jill Stefko - I'd rather deal with the paranormal than human abnormal - having dealt extensively with both.
