Stonehenge Calendar

Stonehenge Calendar – Stonehenge has always been shrouded in mystery. The ancient monument and burial site in southern England is more than 5,000 years old, but its purpose is not entirely clear. Scholars have long speculated that the large stones were erected in the shape of an ancient calendar, but no one could explain how it worked.

Not much is known about the types of contact that may have occurred between these cultures four or five thousand years ago. But future archaeological discoveries and analyzes of ancient DNA may provide evidence that extensive interactions took place.

Stonehenge Calendar

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Of course, a solar year consists of 365.25 days, not 360. To explain this discrepancy, Darvill argues that the Trilithons within the Sarsen Circle may have represented a transitional month rounding out the year. In leap years, station stones (four stones forming a rectangle within the Sarsen circle) could have been added to this month, creating a perpetual calendar that could track seasonal changes over long periods of time.

The Sun God’s Phallus And The Earth Mother’s Vulva

“Scholars have long seen in the monumental composition of Stonehenge evidence for prehistoric time reckoning: a Neolithic calendar. However, it is not clear how exactly this calendar worked,” wrote study researcher Timothy Darvill, professor of archeology at Bournemouth University in

. Great Britain, in March. 1 in the journal Antiquity (opens in a new tab). Construction work began on Stonehenge around 3000 BC. It is worth noting that the stones Sarsens Darvill believes form a calendar were quarried (from the same place) and erected at about the same time, between 2620 and 2480 BC.

This suggests that the monumental site was originally used for another reason, before being converted to a solar calendar by a sun-worshipping culture that invaded the Wiltshire region, where Stonehenge is located, in the mid-3rd century BC.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and with it came the opportunity for Stonehenge expert Timothy Darvill to visit the site during the day when the sun was shining and tourists were few and far between. He had more time than he ever thought possible to think about a possible calendar design.

Keeping Time At Stonehenge

Then one day it came to him. Archaeologists have puzzled over the purpose of the 5,000-year-old monument and how it would have been used over time, with a number of ideas put forward, including Stonehenge as a burial site and used for religious ceremonies.

a calendar Archaeological investigation of the site dates back to the 1660s, when it was first examined by the antiquarian John Aubrey. Aubrey mistakenly attributed Stonehenge to the Celts much later, believing it to be a religious center presided over by Druid priests.

However, the uniqueness of Stonehenge as an architectural and calendar construction suggests that the builders were influenced by cultures that were geographically separate from their own. Darvill looks at the eastern Mediterranean where, during the fourth millennium BC, cultures created lunisolar calendars that also reconciled the seasonal cycles of the sun.

In ancient Egypt, a growing interest in solar deities such as the sun god Ra prompted the development of a 365-day solar calendar. Like Stonehenge, this calendar, also known as the Civil Calendar, consists of twelve months.

Who Needs A Calendar?

Each month consists of 30 days, divided into three weeks of 10 days, plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days. Stonehenge appears to have largely aligned with the Northern Hemisphere winter solstice on December 22, according to the modern calendar, when the sun rises and sets at its southernmost points, resulting in the longest night and shortest day of the year

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. . “This solar calendar developed in the eastern Mediterranean in the centuries after 3000 BC and was adopted in Egypt as the Civil Calendar around 2700 and was widely used in the early Old Kingdom around 2600 BC,” explained Darvill, in a Bournemouth

. Press release from the University talking about their research. It is generally accepted that at Stonehenge the phallus of the Sun God was represented by the Heel Stones. The trilithons at Stonehenge represented the feet and vulva of Mother Earth.

A shaft of sunlight that reached the road and penetrated between the pillars of the Great Central Trilithon showed, therefore, the fertilization of the whole Mother Earth at midsummer. The Sun God himself would be renewed six months later at the winter solstice as a result of this impregnation.

The Structure Of Stonehenge

“Although the archaeological record often repeats the notion that early farmers needed timing systems to know when to plant and when to harvest,” Darvill writes in his paper, “no self-respecting farmer should tell you about these

things: their skill and experience dictates. how they work the land.” In addition, a leap month of five days and a leap day were needed every four years to coincide with the solar year. “The leap month, perhaps dedicated to the deities of the land, is represented by the Five Trilithons in the center of the area,” said Professor Darvill, “The four station stones outside the Sarsen Circle provide markers for reaching a leap. day.”

Sir Norman Lockyer decided that at sunset during the first week of May, the northwest phallic stone (93) would have cast a halo shadow across the northwest trilithon, the center of the circle, and the southeast trilithon.

By contrast, in early November, the sun in the east would have cast a shadow on the southeast phallic stone (91) in the opposite direction. Thus the dates of the feasts of Beltane and Samhain were indicated.

Creation Of Calendar

And the February and August dates of the other quarterly festivals of Imbolc and Lughnasa were fixed by aligning pillars 92 and 94 across the trilithons on the other diagonal of the rectangle. The four minor trilithons were proba
bly identified with the four seasons counter-clockwise: Imbolc is the northern trilithon, Beltane the northwestern trilithon, Lughnasa the southern trilithon, and Samhain the southeastern trilithon.

Stonehenge could have had many functions. Archaeological evidence suggests it was used as a burial site, possibly for kings. In addition, the monument may have also served as a destination for religious pilgrims or as a memorial to long-dead ancestors.

Recently, archaeologist Timothy Darvill argued that Stonehenge may actually have been a giant calendar. Stonehenge was built within an area that was already distinct for Mesolithic and Neolithic people. Around 8000-7000 BC, the first Mesolithic hunters dug pits and erected pine posts within 200 meters (650 feet) of the future site of Stonehenge.

It was unusual for prehistoric hunter-gatherers to build monuments, and there are no comparable structures from this period in northwestern Europe. Within a 5 km (3 mi) radius of Stonehenge, at least 17 long graves (burial mounds) and two kursus (long enclosure) monuments remain from the Neolithic period, all dating to the 4th millennium BC.

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Midwinter And The Purpose Of Calendars

Between 2200 and 1700 BC, during the Bronze Age, the Stonehenge-Durrington stretch of the River Avon was the center of a concentration of over 1000 round barrows in this part of Salisbury Plain. Within the circle rose five independent trilithons, or gateways, each consisting of two upright blocks with a stone architrave joining them at the upper ends.

These trilithons were arranged in a horseshoe shape, opening to the northeast road of Stonehenge. At the dawn of midsummer, the larger central trilithon accepted the rays of the sun that shone on the approach road and passed between the two “heel stones” (96 and 97).

In my work I also discovered that the size of the stone circle relative to the size of the earth’s motion marks the size of the moon and the Earth. The thickness of the stone boxes also coincides with the change in size of the moon at apogee and perigee (which are the closest and farthest points from Earth).

The idea that Stonehenge was used as a calendar isn’t exactly revolutionary. It has been proposed several times in the past, although none of the scholars who did it could agree on what kind of calendar it might be.

Stonehenge Avenue Transitions To Woodhenge And Durrington

This may seem trivial, but calendars were very important to ancient civilizations and there were many, many variations. Although it would have been limited, there is evidence that contact occurred between Northern European and Eastern Mediterranean and Egyptian cultures.

Darvill tells of the Amesbury Archer, a body buried five kilometers southeast of Stonehenge. The tomb, which dates back to 2300 BC, contains several grave goods, some of which date back to continental Europe. Furthermore, isotope analysis has revealed that Archer himself was born in the Alps and did not arrive in Britain until he was a teenager.

Stonehenge will always be a bit of an enigma: giant stones, each weighing more than 20 tons, brought into the middle of nowhere, then shaped and designed to mimic the days and months of the year.

People coming from all over Europe to worship and be together based on a religion we know very little about. Researchers are just beginning to pull back the curtain on a mystery that is more than 5,000 years old.

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Some scholars have suggested that calendars like this were needed to know when to plant and harvest crops, but Darvill rejects this idea. “Any self-respecting farmer knows when to plant and harvest, which isn’t exactly the same time every year,” he says.

“You need a calendar to know when the harvest festival is so you can be there when the gods take the year’s produce and promise a good harvest.” The famous monument of Stonehenge near Wiltshire, England is one of history’s greatest architectural wonders and unsolved mysteries.

In terms of its design as well as its construction, the stone structure, erected between 3000 and 2200 BC, is unlike any other ancient monument built in northwestern Europe during this time. He said smaller rocks inside the ancient stone circle could have been used to mark the current day, month and year and moved as they changed.

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“There are some really interesting pieces found at Stonehenge, including balls called maul stones, perhaps one of them was used as a marker.” It is also necessary to explain the purpose of the circular bank that surrounds the complex.

The Thirty Large Sarsen Stones Of The Stonehenge Calendar

Long before the sarsen complex was erected, a pole was driven into the center of the circle and then a long leather strap tied to it was used to mark two concentric circles about 86 (282 ft) and 92 meters (302 ft)

in diameter. , respectively. Along the perimeter of these two circles were placed substantial posts set in holes up to one meter (3.3 ft) deep at regular intervals of about five meters (16 ft). There were 56 pillars in the inner circle and a similar number in the outer ring.

Darvill bases his analysis on reconstructions of the construction of Stonehenge that reveal how the monument was assembled. The main elements of the structure, the Trilithons, the Sarsen Circle and the station stone rectangle, are believed to have been erected between 2620 and 2480 BC.

The stones came from a common source and once set, were never moved. Professor Darvill hopes that future research can shed light on these possibilities. Ancient DNA and archaeological artifacts can reveal connections between these cultures.

The Twelve Lunar Months Represented By Sarsen Stones

However, the identification of a solar calendar at Stonehenge should transform the way we see it. The bank and ditch are still visible today. The inner circle of holes (known as Aubrey’s holes) is excavated. The outer circle of holes (now hidden under the collapsed bank) seems to have escaped the attention of modern archaeologists, but William Stukeley’s unpublished 1719 plan of Ston
ehenge’s “Avenue” clearly shows the two concentric circles of holes.

There is another calendar that can be created with Aubrey holes. Joan Rankin (who is sadly no longer with us), used the astronomical values ​​that astronomers use to measure time to create a calendar from Aubrey’s holes.

The four smaller trilithons of the Stonehenge calendar were probably identified with the four seasons counter-clockwise: Imbolc is the northern trilithon, Beltane the northwestern trilithon, Lughnasa the southern trilithon, and Samhain the southeastern trilithon. (author given) But the tribe did not forget their ancestral home, which now became a place of pilgrimage and veneration.

Apparently their time-keeping priests attended daily to update the magnificent stone calendar-temple they had built there. And the entire tribe probably made a pilgrimage to their ancestral home along the ceremonial route for the solstices and quarterly festivals.

How Were The Stone Lintels Placed On The Sarsen Stones?

Instead of cremation pits, it appears that ash or charcoal from cooking fires and adjacent burns would have spread over time and been thrown down mixed with soil into the Aubrey holes when their posts were removed.

The sites may have been redistributed as scrolls when the Stonehenge timers transported large sarsen stones to the site. Some archaeologists think that these pillars were originally bluestones that had been laboriously dragged from the Prescelli Mountains in South Wales and later reset within the sarsen complex.

“Finding a solar calendar represented in the architecture of Stonehenge opens up a whole new way of looking at the monument as a place for the living,” he said. It can be imagined as “a place where the timing of ceremonies and festivals was linked to the very structure of the universe and the celestial movements in the heavens.”

The Aubrey Holes And When The Posts Were Removed

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