1 



368 



NA TURE 



[February i6, 1905 



•' I may repeat my conviction that if the prevalent 

 beliefs and traditions concerninjj Sionehenere were 

 true, and the ' bluestone ' circles wore transported 

 from some distant locality, either as trophies of \var, 

 or as the sacred treasures of .a wanderinjj tribe, il is 

 quite inconceivable that they should have been hewed 

 and chipped, as we now know them to have been, and 

 reduced in some cases to half their dimensions, a^ler 

 having been carried with enormous ditjiciilly over land 

 and water, and over hills and valleys. On the other 

 hand, in the tjlacial drift, which once probably thinly 

 covered the district, the jjlacial deposits dyini^ out 

 very g^radually as we proceed southwards, we have a 

 source from which such stones mii;ht probably have 

 been derived. It is quite a well-known peculiarity of 

 the glacial drift to exhibit considerable assemblages of 

 stones of a particular character at certain spots, each 

 of these assemblages having probably been derived 

 from the same source. 



" I would therefore suggest as prob- 

 able that when the early inhabitants 

 of this island commenced the erection 

 of Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain was 

 sprinkled over thickly with the great 

 white masses of the sarsen-stones 

 {' grey wethers '), and much more 

 sparingly with darker coloured boulders 

 (the so-called ' blue-stones '), the last 

 relics of the glacial drift, which have 

 been nearly denuded awav. From the~^ 

 two kinds of materials the stones suii- 

 able for the contemplated temple wi i < 

 selected. It is even possible that tlv 

 abundance and association of these t\\i 

 kinds of materials, so strikingly con- 

 trasted in colour and appearance, at a 

 p.-irticular spot, may not only have de- 

 cided the site, but to some extent, have 

 suggested the architectural features of 

 the noble structure of Stonehenge." 



If we grant everything that Prof. 

 Judd states, the question remain.s — 

 why did the same men at the same 

 time treat the sarsen and blue stones 

 so differently in the same place? 



I shall show subsequently that there 

 is a definite answer to the question on 

 one assumption. 



I next come to (2). The import.int 

 point about these stones is that with the 

 am|)litude 26°, at Stonehenge, a line 

 from the centre of the circle over the 

 N.W. stone would mark the sunsit 

 place in the first week in May, and a 

 S.E. stone would similarly deal with the November 

 sunrise. We are thus brought in presence of the Mav- 

 November year. 



.\nother point about these stones is that they are 

 not at the same distance from the centre of the sarsen 

 stone circle, which itself is concentric with the 

 temenos mound; this is whv thev lie at different 

 distances from the mound. 'Further, a line drawn 

 from the point of the Friar's Heel and the now re- 

 cumbent Slaughter Stone with the amplitude deter- 

 mmed by Mr. Penrose and mvself for the summer 

 solstice sunrise in 1680 B.C. cuts the line joining the 

 stones at the middle point, suggesting that the four 

 untnmnied sarsen stones provided .alignments both 

 for the .M.-iy and June rears at about that date. 



Nor is this all; the so-r.-illed tumuli within the 



vallum may merely have been observ.ition mounds, for 



the lines passing from the northern tumulus over 



•U'- N.W. stone and from ihi southern tumulus <iver 



NO. 1842, VOL 7 !l 



the S.E. one are [jar.illel to the avenue, and there- 

 fore represent the solstitial orientation. 



.So much, then, for the stones. We see that, deal- 

 ing only with the unirimmed sarsens that remain, the 

 places of the May sunset and June and November 

 sunrises were marked from the same central point. 



Statements have been made that there was the 

 stump of another stone near the vallum to the S.W., 

 in the line of the Friar's Heel and Slaughter Stone, 

 produced backwards, at the same distance from the 

 old centre as the N.W. and S.E. stones. This stone 

 was not found in an exploration by Sir Edmund 

 .Vntrobus, Mr. Penrose, and Mr. Howard Payn by 

 means of a sword and an auger. But the question 

 will not be settled until surface digging is permitted, 

 as a " road " about which there is a present con- 

 tention passes near the spot. 



But even this is not the onlv evidence we have for 



, g. — The rod ( 



I the recumbent stone is placed in and alon:; the common axis of the 

 d avenue. It is seen that the K.iars Heel, the top of which is ^bo«ii in 

 uld hide the sunrise place if the axis were a little fuither to the S.K. 



over the 



the May worship in e.trly times. There is an old 

 tradition of the slaughter of Britons by the Saxons 

 at .Stonehenge, known as " The Treachery of the 

 Long Knives"; according to some accounts, 460 

 British chieftains were killed while attending a ban- 

 quet and conference. Now at what time of the year 

 did this take place? Was it at the summer solstice 

 on lune 21? I have gathered from tiuest's 

 " M.-ibinogion," vol. ii. p. 43J, and Davies's 

 " Mythology of the British Druids," p. j,^j, that the 

 luDtiitiel look place on May eve " Meinvethydd." Is 

 it likely that this dale would have been chosen in 

 .1 solar temple dedicated exclusively to the solstice? 



Now the theory to which my work and thought have 

 led me is that the megalithic structures at Stonehenge 



the worked sarsens with their mortices and lintels, 

 • ind above all the trilithons of the magnificent naos 



represent a re-dcdication and a re-construction, on 

 a much more imposing plan and scale, of a much 

 oldir leniule. NoRMW Lockvkk. 



