The Secret of Stonehenge' 



By Gerald S. Hawkins 



Astronomer, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory; Research Associate, Harvard 

 College Observatory; Chairman, Department of Astronomy, Boston University; Director, 

 Boston University Observatory 



[With one plate] 



A FEW MONTHS ago the book of Stonelienge seemed closed. It was 

 thought that little more could ever be learned about the mysterious 

 stone structure on England's Salisbury Plain. The fraternity of 

 diggers — archeologists and other students of the past — had fixed the 

 dates of construction, from 2000 to 1500 B.C., and the probable meth- 

 ods. Shaping the great stones could have been done by fire, water, and 

 much pounding. Sturdy English schoolboys proved by toil and sweat 

 that cement blocks as big as Stonehenge stones could be floated by 

 raft and rolled overland from quarries as far away as Wales. (Legend 

 said the slabs were brought from Africa to Ireland by giants, and 

 whisked over to England by Merlin's "word of power.") The 50-ton 

 uprights of the trilithons (three-stone archways) could have been 

 tilted into retaining holes. Finally, the 6-ton crosspieces could have 

 been levered up on timber towers. 



But why was Stonehenge built ? 



Buried bones indicated that it had been a mortuary, also a crema- 

 torium, and it almost certainly was a temple, though not necessarily 

 Druid. But was it more? The unique monument, w^hich Henry 

 James said "stands as lonely in history as it does on the great plain," 

 guarded its secrets well. . . . 



I first became interested in Stonehenge in 1954, when I went to the 

 Larkhill missile-testing base nearby. (Of course, we took pains to aim 

 our missiles away from Stonehenge — we were horrified to hear that 

 during World War I an airstrip commander, and a British one at 

 that, had requested that for his planes' convenience the Stonehenge 

 megaliths be flattened. Request denied.) I used to visit that gaunt 

 ruin whenever I could. Even when it was alive and loud with tourists 



* Reprinted by permission from Harper's Magazine, June 1964. 



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