370 



NA TURE 



[February 20, k 



avenues on the ground that in some of the old descrip- 

 tions, given while many more stones were standing, 

 some are indicated placed in relation to the road 

 passing through the southern part of the bank, as it 

 exists at present, and quite out of the line of the 

 Kennet avenue indicated by the stones shown on the 

 Ordnance map. If the stones once near the road were 

 associated with those shown on the Ordnance map, 

 there would be no avenue at all in the sense I have 

 always used that word in these notes, but a twisty 

 road having no possible astronomical significance, 

 and, I may add, no resemblance to the Beckhampton 

 avenue, of which all the recorded stones are in the 

 same straight line as near as we can now say ; or to 

 any of the others in the table I have given above. 



it may be, indeed, that Stukeley was led into his 

 snake theorv by 



" When Lord Stowell. who owned the manor of 

 .■Xbury, levell'd the vallum on that side of the town 

 next the church, where the barn now stands, the 

 workmen came to the original surface of the ground, 

 which was easily discernible by a black stratum of 

 mold upon the chalk. Here they found large quan- 

 tities of bucks' horns . . . there were very many 

 burnt bones among thetn. They were the remains 

 of sacrifices," ' 



Mr. Goddard does not seem to have read mv 

 previous notes carefuUv. 1 never imagined the Kennet 

 avenue going " over the bank and ditch," but going 

 to the southern circle before the moitnd was bttilt, as 

 the Beckhampton went to the other, as a -<ia sacra, 

 throughout the whole length of which the rising star 

 could be seen. Of course, the existence of the bank 



Ar''^ 



'Jh- 



\l^ 



V-\- 





^Ofb 



-9 







©-Jfv 



attempting 

 to marry these 

 two sets of stones, 

 for he sees a 

 snake even at Cal- 

 lernish, the per- 

 fectly straight 

 avenue of which 

 fortunately 

 remains. 



" I saw another 

 at Shap, in West- 

 morland. 



There is another, 

 as I take it, at 

 Classeness, a vil- 

 lage in the island 

 of Lewis between 

 Scotland and Ire- 

 land. I took a 

 drawing of it 

 from Mr. Lwydd's 

 travels ; but he 

 was a very bad 

 designer ... a 

 part of the snake 

 remains going 

 from it, which he 

 calls an avenue. 

 He did not discern 

 the curve of it anv 

 more than that of 

 Kennet avenue 

 which he also has 

 drawn in the same 

 collection as a 

 straight line." ' 



If the conclu- 

 sions I have ex- 

 ])ressed above be 

 confirmed, name- 

 ly, that Avebury 



was a going concern a thousand years before anything 

 that now remains of Stonehenge was set up in its 

 present position, or the avenues laid out, the use of the 

 Kennet avenue to watch the rise of tt Centauri as a 

 Warner of the November festival (while the sunrise in 

 May was provided for in the Beckhampton avenue) 

 ceased at least 4000 years ago. There has been ample 

 time, therefore, to build the bank, to leave openings for 

 wheeled traffic and to set up stones in many places. 

 Indeed, the stones may have been removed from the 

 avenue when the bank was built. That the bank 

 came long after Avebury was first in use was, I take 

 it, well known to .Stukeley, as the following extract 

 shows : — 



1 Stukeley, " Avebury 



NO. T999, VOL. y^] 





oCt -LtuAZ 



Q'6'505lf. 



-^^A 



,Sf 



\^ 



\xiS 



X<^ 





.^-^ 



t^^ 



7. — The alignments at Leur<i from Capta: 



• p. 62. 



would have prevented any star rise being seen from 

 the circle along the southern horizon, and what often 

 happened in Egypt suggests that the bank was built 

 because the avenue had become useless. 



That the Kennet avenue was once used as a via 

 sacra to observe the rise of a Centauri as the morning 

 star warner of the November sunrise is all the more 

 probable since the avenue from the southern end of 

 the Kennet avenue to the " sanctuary " was an align- 

 ment to the November sunrise itself so far as can 

 now be made out. 



Since writing the above I have received from 

 Captain Devoir, of the French Navy, some admirable 

 surveys of several of the Brittany monuments. In one 



1 Stukeley, "Avebury," p, 27, 



