May 20, lyogj 



NA TURE 



343 



•are approximate only; there is nothing perfect about 

 them. The Welsh Commission and the other com- 

 missions will, I hope, make measures, using' solar 

 instead of magnetic methods, and determine the 

 height of hills in minutes instead of half degrees, 

 and if they do that these dates will certainly 

 be changed, though they cannot be changed very 

 much. 



I have already shown that the May year and the 

 solstitial year had temples sacred to them in Egypt. 

 I may now add that in the Egyptian temples we 

 found one set for the northern stars, the equivalents 

 of Arcturus and Capella, and another set for the 

 southern stars, among them a Centauri. One 

 of the most recent results of this inquiry has been 

 that we have found a number of avenues, not circles, in 

 Brittany and in different parts of Britain, twt in 

 Cornwall, the equivalents of the Egyptian temples 

 aligned to the southern stars. The probable align- 

 ment corresponds with the southern star a Cen- 

 tauri. There is the Challacombe avenue on Dart- 

 moor, the Borobridge avenue near Harrogate, and 

 others at Avebury and Shap. 



Now if we deal with the " clock-stars " in order 

 of date, a Centauri comes first, B.C. 3600-2700. This 

 is followed a thousand years later by Arcturus, B.C. 

 2600-1350, and Capella, B.C. 2250-1250. In all these 

 cases there is a complete series of dates from one 

 end to the other. Now these are the " clock- 

 stars." 



Coming to the warning stars, it will be noted that 

 the Pleiades were observed rising, and Antares set- 

 ting, heliacally — that is, about an hour before sun- 

 rise. The dates are: — Pleiades, B.C. 2120-1000; 

 Antares, b.c. 1720-1310. 



We see that about the same dates are in- 

 volved as those found in connection with the 

 northern " clock-stars," and this, of course, 

 strengthens the view that we are really dealing with 

 alignments set out for a definite purpose at a definite 

 time. The story, then, is that astronomer-priests 

 familiar with Egyptian metiiods began work here by 

 building avenues in different parts of Britain about 

 3600 B.C. 



The star employed as a "clock-star," then, 

 was a Centauri, one of the stars used in Egypt. 

 This cult was succeeded by another, in connection 

 with which circles were introduced and northern 

 " clock-stars " were used. This was the chief cult in 

 Cornwall from 2600 B.C. onwards. 



If we accept the dates thus astronomically revealed 

 by the stellar alignments, several interesting conse- 

 quences follow. The British circles were in full work 

 more than a thousand years before the Aryans or 

 Celts came upon the scene, if the time of their arrival 

 favoured by archseologists is anything like correct. 

 Stonehenge began as a May temple — a British 

 Memphis — and ended as a solstitial one like that of 

 Amen-Ra at Thebes. .Another conclusion is that, 

 whatever else went on some four thousand years ago 

 in the British circles, there must have been much 

 astronomical observation and a great deal of prepara- 

 tion for it. Some of the outstanding stones must 

 have been illuminated at night, so that we have not 

 only to consider that the priests and deacons must 

 have had a place to live in, but that a sacred fire must 

 have been kept going perpetually, or that there must 

 have been much dry wood available. The question, 

 then, is raised whether dolmens, chambered barrows 

 and the like were places for the living rather than 

 for the dead, and, therefore, whether the burials found 

 in some do not belong to a later time. 



The determination of dates, in conjunction with the 

 NO. 2064, "('OL. 80] 



conclusions arrived at concerning the various kinds 

 of monuments, opens up another point of view which 

 possibly in the future may lead to fruitful inquiries. 



_Why have we in different temple regions such great 

 differences in the relative numbers of avenues, crom- 

 lechs, and circles, the extreme case being that only 

 one class is represented? 



When the order of the evolution of the different 

 classes of structure is settled, the geographical dis- 

 tribution of them may lead us to further conclusions. 

 The tremendous development of avenues in Brittany 

 and in some parts of Britain where circles are almost 

 entirely absent suggests that a people came here who 

 knew nothing about circles, but did know much about 

 avenues. These in Britain to which I refer were on 

 a scale almost rivalling that of the Brittany avenues. 

 The avenue at Shap was more than a mile long, that 

 at Borobridge was nearly a mile long, and some 

 of the stones were more than 20 feet high. The 

 avenue at Challacombe must, when complete, have 

 been a most stupendous monument. Further, the 

 builders of all these v/orshipped a southern star ; 

 they were not miners, they did not go to Cornwall, 

 and there is a difference of more than 1000 years 

 in the dates derived from these avenue-builders 

 and from the circle-builders of Cornwall and South 

 Wales. 



It may be worth while to refer briefly to some of 

 the objections still urged against the orientation theory 

 by those who are either unwilling or incompetent to 

 test it by actual observations. 



One is that there are so many stars that any align, 

 ment is certain to hit the rising- or setting-place of one 

 of them. The fact that, with all the host of heaven to 

 choose from, only six stars were used, and those 

 among the brightest visible in these latitudes, and, 

 further, that a good reason has been found for using 

 those particular stars, is a strong argument against 

 this objection. 



Another objection made is that the theory demands a 

 much greater knowledge of astronomy than the early 

 temple-builders were likely to possess. 



Those who put forward this objection entirely forget 

 the conditions under which early man lived and 

 moved and had his being. The conditions now are 

 so different that we must not be astonished at the 

 early peoples apparently behaving like astronomers ; 

 they could not behave like any other kind of men. 

 The movements of the sun by day and the movements 

 of the stars by night were the only things they could 

 learn about, and it was imperative that they should 

 learn about them. 



People without almanacks and without any idea 

 of the length of a year would find life absolutely 

 impossible, at all events from the agricultural opera- 

 tions point of view, unless they could get, somehow 

 or other, a general means of telling when they should 

 plough and sow and reap. That depends upon the 

 time of the year, and the time of year is written 

 out very large indeed to anybody who will take the 

 trouble to note where the sun rises. Similarly, if 

 these people wanted to know about the flow of time 

 at night, they would be under very great difficulties. 

 In the first place, they had no clocks, so that unless 

 they could get some idea of the time at night by ob- 

 serving the stars they would be entirely out of it so 

 far as the lapse of time during the obscured part of 

 their lives w-as concerned. 



It no doubt is difficult for the average English- 

 man of the present day, unless he happens to be a 

 sailor, to picture to himself a townless world without 

 artificial light and any useful purpose served by lonk- 

 ing at the sun by day or the stars at night. Calendars, 



