STONEHENGE — STEVENS 463 



of the horseshoe in the same way as those of the inner ring follow the 

 line of the circle. 



Just as the outer circle of Sarsen Trilithons enclosed a circle of 

 Prescelly uprights, so too does the horseshoe of Sarsen Trilithons en- 

 close an inner horseshoe of Prescelly uprights. These uprights are 

 from 6 to 8 feet in height, and when the horseshoe was complete would 

 have numbered 19 ; actually there are, including stumps, 12 remaining 

 today. These stones have evidently been specially selected for their 

 unusual length. 



Last of all, almost buried beneath the broken upright of the Great 

 Trilithon, comes that stone on which Inigo Jones unfortunately be- 

 stowed the name "Altar Stone" in the seventeenth century, and in so 

 doing left the monument with a heritage of sacrificial rites from which 

 it is difficult now to dissociate it. The name certainly rests on no sure 

 foundation of any ascertained fact. 



But putting aside altogether any question of sacrifice, human or 

 otherwise, the stone is of special interest. To begin with it is for- 

 eign to Wiltshire, and the balance of opinion tends to its having come 

 from Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire, as has already been stated. In 

 addition it is the largest of all the foreign stones at Stonehenge, for 

 it is 16 feet long, 3 feet 4 inches wide, and 1 foot 9 inches thick. Its 

 position is nearly central to the line of the axis, and it may possibly 

 have been somewhat shifted by the fall of the Great Trilithon in 1620. 

 The suggestion has been made that it was once upright, and that it 

 marked a burial. Such things do exist in other circles, whereas flat 

 stones in circles do not exist elsewhere. But Stonehenge is unlike 

 other circles in so many particulars that it is not altogether safe to 

 accept this argument by analogy without further evidence. If the 

 stone were an upright, it would naturally follow that it must have 

 stood in a hole in the chalk, as do all the uprights. Unluckily the site 

 of the stone has been very much disturbed. Stukeley, in 1723, con- 

 ducted explorations there, and so did William Cunnington in the early 

 nineteenth century, who certainly found a hole in which it may have 

 stood, and about a hundred years later Professor Gowland found traces 

 of excavation about the still upright stone of the Great Trilithon. If 

 the so-called Altar Stone had actually been upright, it would have 

 stood most probably on the axis of the monument, and there seems 

 very little evidence of any definite stone hole. So that, for want of 

 more convincing evidence, it would seem quite reasonable to accept the 

 present position of the stone as being that in which it was originally 

 placed. 



