February 23, 1905] 



NA TURE 



391 



NOTES ON STONEHENGE.'^ 

 IV. — The Earlif.st Circles (continued). 



T^HE conclusion at which I have arrived is that the 

 ■'■ older temple dealt primarily, but not exclusively, 

 with the May year ; the newer temple represented a 

 change of cult, and was dedicated primarily to the 

 solstitial year. In both, however, the sunrises and 

 sunsets of the June-December and May-November 

 years could be, and doubtless were, observed. I direct 

 attention to the following considerations in support of 

 this theory. 



(i) The blocks of un worked sarsen, perhaps dating 

 from a time when the use of stone tools for working 

 stone in Britain was unknown, are precisely those 

 which give us the alignments, both for the Mav and 

 June years. 



J— The 

 temple 



I rod is placed in Ihe 





id marks the 



:d in the axis, and marks the common direi 

 passes about 3 feet to the N.W. of the Fi 



(2) The blue stones, unworked for the same reason, 

 may have originally composed two circles and a centra! 

 stone as a start point for these alignments. The 

 central stone, marking the centre of the two concentric 

 circles, would naturally stand half-way between the 

 N.W. and S.E. exterior sarsen stones. 



In this first simplest form we should have the 

 equivalent of the ancient temple described by Virgil, 

 with the uncovered altar at the centre after the 

 Etruscan fashion. 



" i^Idlbus in mediis, nudoque sub tetheris axe, 

 Ingens ara fuit." 



It is sad to think that at Avebury not so very 

 many years ago there were two such double circles as 



1 Continued from p. 368. 



NO. 1843, VOL. 71] 



(hose I postulate. They have now almost entirely dis- 

 appeared. The central observing place, a cove, in 

 the northern circle still remains with some of the 

 stones of the outermost circle ; all the rest have been 

 taken up, broken, and used for building. Truly the 

 English are a " practical " people. 



(3) At the reconstruction, about 1680 B.C., the 

 solstitial cult was made predominant, and for some 

 reason or other it was determined to change the 

 centre of the circles in the new structure, and throw 

 the N.E. alignment nearer the north, still remaining 

 parallel to its old direction. 



There may possibly have been two reasons for the 

 reconstruction of the temple about the time I have 

 named. At the date mentioned the place of sunrise 

 from the old centre, which I have indicated, was 

 hidden by the Friar's Heel, unless the observer, the 

 high priest, were raised some few feet 

 above the ground at its present level. 

 It may have happened, then, that the 

 difference of the sunrise place, 

 brought about, as we now know, by 

 the gradual reduction of the obliquity 

 of the ecliptic, had shown itself in a 

 very unmistakable way to the priests; 

 in 2680 B.C. it was certainly well to 

 the north of the Friar's Heel, and 

 occupied an uninterrupted horizon, so 

 that they might well wish to secure a 

 clear horizon for the future; this they 

 found by moving the centre of the 

 circles, and therefore the solstitial line, 

 a few (about 4) feet further to the N.W., 

 still preserving their ancient pointer. 



But this is not all. Colonel John- 

 ston, the director of the Ordnance 

 Survey, has obligingly pointed out to 

 me that the present centre of Stone- 

 licnge, Sidbury Hill to the N.E., and 

 I he earthworks at Grovely Castle and 

 ('astle Ditches to the S.W., all lie 

 exactly on the solstitial line in 1680 

 K.c. The top of Sidbury Hill may, 

 then, have been taken for the new 

 |)ointer, in which case the earthwork 

 ramp some 30 feet high on the top 

 had not been built, for it lies a little 

 to the north-west of the line. 



(4) While it was determined to erect 

 a temple on a much larger scale by 

 ihe addition of a larger exterior circle 

 of sarsens and a naos also of trilithons, 

 it was also determined to utilise the 

 unworked blue stones composing 

 the two circles. But while the new 

 in of the presert sarsens were shaped where they were 

 s Heel. found (for the very good reason stated 



b\- Prof. Judd), the blue stones were 

 taken up and trimmed siir place as the new_ more 

 northerly line and the new centre, to say nothing of 

 the new' naos, necessitated their re-arrangement. In 

 this way the excess of blue stone chippings found by 

 Prof. Gow land is simply and sufficiently explained. 



(5) It is quite possible that the rebuilding of the 

 temple in 1680 I'.c. was part of a very large general 

 plan which could only have been undertaken by a 

 large, powerful and comparatively civilised tribe 

 or people under strict government, commanding the 

 services of skilled mathematicians, for Colonel John- 

 stone's revelations do not stop at the continuation of 

 the Stonehenge solstitial line to Sidbury and Grovely 

 Castle. 



The absolute straightness of this line might have 

 been secured by fires at night, but there is more in 



