56 



.VA rURE 



(" November 21, 1901 



of the avenue, and since in the present state of the south- 

 west trilithon the direction of the avenue can probably be 

 determined with greater accuracy than that of tlie temple 

 axis itself, the estimate of date in this paper is based 

 upon the orientation of the avenue. Further evidence 

 will be given, however, to show that the direction of the 

 axis of the temple, so far as it can now bs determined, is 

 sufficiently accordant with the direction of the axenue. 



The orientation of this avenue may be examined upon 

 the same principles that have been found successful in 

 the case of (Ireek and Egyptian temples — that is, on the 

 assumption that Stonehenge was a solar temple, and that 

 the greatest function took place at sunrise on the longest 

 day of the year. This not only had a religious motive ; 

 it had also the economic value of marking officially and 



Fig. 2.-The Temple Axis (shown by the direction of the stake on 1 



distinctly that time of the year and the beginning of an 

 annual period. 



It is, indeed, probable that the structure may have 

 had other capabilities, such as being connected with the 

 equinoxes or the winter solstice ; but it is with its uses 

 at the summer solstice alone that this paper deals. 



There is this difference in treatment between the ob- 

 servations required for Stonehenge and those which are 

 available for (Ireek or Egyptian solar temples — viz. that 

 in the case of the latter the effect of the precession of 

 the equinoxes upon the stars, which as warning clock 

 stars were almost invariably connected with those temples, 

 offers the best measure of the dates of foundation ; but 

 here, owing to the brightness of twilight at the summer 

 solstice, such a star could not have been employed, so 

 NO. 1673, VOL. 65] 



that we can rely only on the secular changes of the ob- 

 liquity as affecting the a/imuth of the point of sunrise. 

 This requires the me.isurements to be taken with very 

 great precision, towards which care has not been wanting 

 in regard to those which we submit to the Society. 



The main architecture of .Stonehenge consisted of an 

 external circle of about loo feet in diameter composed 

 of thirty large upright stones, named sarsens, connected 

 by continuous lintels, and an inner structure of ten still 

 larger stones; arranged in the shape of a horseshoe, 

 formed by five isolated trilithons. About one-half of 

 these uprights ha\e fallen and a still greater number of 

 the lintels which they originally carried. There are also 

 other lines of smaller upright stones respecting which 

 the only point requiring notice in this paper is that none 

 of them would have interrupted the 

 line of the axis of the avenue. This 

 circular temple was also surrounded 

 by an earthen bank, also circular, of 

 about 300 feet in diameter, inter- 

 rupted towards the north-east by 

 receiving into itself the banks forming 

 the avenue before mentioned, which 

 is about 50 feet across. Within this 

 avenue and looking north-east from 

 the centre of the temple, at about 

 250 feet distance and considerably 

 to the right hand of the axis, stands 

 an isolated stone, which from a 

 mediitval legend has been named 

 the Friar's Heel. 



The axis passes very nearly cen- 

 trally through an intercolumnation 

 (so to call it) between two uprights 

 of the external circle and between 

 the uprights of the westernmost tri- 

 lithon as it originally stood. Of this 

 trilithon the southernmost upright 

 with the lintel stone fell in the year 

 1620, but the companion survived as 

 the leaning stone which formed a 

 conspicuous and picturesque object 

 for many years, but happily now 

 restored to its original more dignified 

 and safer condition of verticality. 

 The inclination of this stone, how- 

 ever, having taken place in the 

 direction of the axis of the avenue, 

 and as the distance between it and 

 its original companion is known both 

 by the analogy of the two perfect 

 trilithons and by the measure of the 

 mortice holes on the lintel they 

 formerly supported, we obtain by 

 bisection the measure i\iz. ii inches) 

 from its edge of a point in the con- 

 fallen stone) tinuation of the central axis of the 

 avenue and temple, and which has 

 now to be determined very accur- 

 ately. The banks which form the avenue have suffered 

 much degradation. It appears from Sir Richard Colt 

 Hoare's account that at the beginning of the last century 

 they were distinguishable for a much greater distance 

 than at present, but they are still discernible, especially 

 on the northern side, for more than 1300 feet from the 

 centre of the tempU-, and particularly the line of the 

 bottom of the ditch from which the earth was taken to 

 form the bank, and which runs parallel to it. Measure- 

 ments taken from this line assisted materially those taken 

 from the crown of the bank itself With this help and by 

 using the southern bank and ditch whenever it admitted 

 of recognition, a fair estimate of the central line could be 

 arrived at. To verify this, two pegs were placed at 

 points 140 feet apart along the line near the commence- 



