THE SECRET OF STONEHENGE — HAWKINS 311 



Then we examined those declinations, the horizon spots to which 

 the Stonehenge pairs pointed. Was there any pattern to them ? Did 

 the pairs point to significant rise or set positions of celestial bodies ? 

 A quick check showed no significant matching with planets or with the 

 bigger stars, Sirius, Canopus, Arcturus, Betelgeuse, Spica, Vega. . . . 



But the most cursory naked-eye glance at those declinations told us 

 of probable sun correlation. The figures +24 and —24 were fre- 

 quent — and those fig-ures are the declination of the smi at Midsummer 

 and Midwinter, its farthest north and south. 



I was somewhat prepared for such solar correlation. Indeed, I had 

 suspected it. But what we next discovered took us by surprise : even 

 more frequently than the ±24 of the sun, the ±29 and ±19 of the 

 moon appeared. The moon has a more complicated relative motion 

 than the sun. During a 9-year cycle its maximum north and south 

 declination moves from 19 to 29 degrees. The machine's finding 

 seemed to show that not only was Stonehenge alined to the sun — it was 

 also oriented to the moon. 



I must admit that it was with some unscientific emotion that we 

 programed the machine to take the sun and moon back to 1500 B.C., 

 to get an accurate check of those azimuth alinements. What we found 

 was beyond expectation. To a mean accuracy of 1 degree there were 

 10 sun correlations. To a mean accuracy of 1.5 degrees, there were 14 

 moon correlations. 



We did the work in spare moments over the course of a year. About 

 10 hours were spent measuring the charts, about 20 hours were spent 

 preparing the machine program, and the final run on the Harvard- 

 Smithsonian IBM 7090 computing machine took about 1 minute. 



It is important to note that all of the 24 alinements are between key 

 positions — the center of the structure, the "avenue" or most important 

 axis, the great trilithon arches, the rectangle of "stations," the uniquely 

 placed stones near the entrance. Every one of these key positions 

 paired with others to point to a sun or moon rise or set. That solidly 

 establishes the fact that those alinements were significant, deliberate, 

 basic in the construction. Stonehenge lived by the sun and moon. 

 Could it possibly have been coincidence? Bernouilli's theorem of 

 probability indicates that there is less than one chance in a hundred 

 million that this could happen without a prearranged design. 



And what does it mean ? It means that Stonehenge was an astro- 

 nomical observatory. And a good one, too. It could have formed a 

 reliable calendar to predict change of seasons. It could also have 

 signaled danger periods for eclipses of the sun or moon. It could 

 have formed a dramatic setting for observation of the interchange 

 between the sun — dominator of summer — and the moon — ruler of the 

 winter. How it actually was used we may never know. All that we 

 can now state with certainty is that it was designed, with astonishing 



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