Stonehenge
Located in Great Britain, north of Salisbury in Wiltshire, is Stonehenge, the most complex and famous megalithic monument in Europe. Recent archaeological research has identified its various construction phases:
- Stonehenge I, dating back to the late Neolithic-Chalcolithic period (around 2750 BC), consisted of an earthwork and a ditch about 90 meters in diameter, within which there were 56 equidistant holes, known as "Aubrey Holes," named after the Englishman John Aubrey who discovered them in the 17th century. Some of these holes contained remains of cremation burials.
- Stonehenge II, dating from 2000 BC, comprises two concentric circles of bluestones (dolerite, diabase, and rachitic quartz, sourced from the Preseli Hills, about 300 km away from Stonehenge). The outer stone circle is known as the "Sarsen Circle." Its diameter is about thirty meters. Originally, there were thirty monoliths; today, only sixteen remain. Within the Sarsen Circle is a second circle of twenty-three meters in diameter, the Bluestone Circle, of which about twenty stones remain. The double ring was never completed on the western side, and the sandstones were removed and used in the subsequent phase.
- Stonehenge III, dating to 1900 BC, consists of the placement of 30 megaliths (4 meters high, sourced from the Marlborough Downs near Avebury, about 40 km away), linked together by horizontal blocks serving as lintels, forming a circle inside which an oval was erected with 20 sandstones from Stonehenge II (later partially fallen and arranged in the center), along with other horseshoe-shaped stones. At the center of the monument is a rectangular block called the "Altar Stone." The earthwork is open towards the northeast with an access avenue, at the center of which stands a stone known as the Heel Stone. The monument's axis is astronomically oriented: the Sun rises over the Heel Stone at the summer solstice. Currently, there is a variation of several minutes, based on which the astronomer Lockheyr dated the construction to around 1850 BC.
Stonehenge
It should be noted that this dating is not accepted by some more cautious scholars. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, reports the following dates: Stonehenge I - 1800 BC; Stonehenge II - 1600 BC; Stonehenge III - from 1600 to before 1400 BC. This discrepancy, ranging from a maximum of 950 years to a minimum of 500 years, can be explained as a residue of the archaeological dating theories in use at the beginning of the century and gradually retouched thanks to the measurement of the age of artifacts by the "carbon-14" method, discovered in 1949, and improved 27 years ago by dendrochronology (dating based on the annual growth rings of trees).
But what was the function of Stonehenge? There is a vast literature on this subject and even broader have been the conjectures about this mystery.
On June 21, 1974, Professor Hawkins, holder of the chair of astronomy at Boston University and co-holder at Harvard, noted that the sun's rays hitting the stones create a pattern of light on the ground that resembles the shape of one of his most sophisticated scientific instruments for astronomical detection. He comments:
"The observatory was established to provide all indicative positions between the Moon and the Sun, to precisely track solstices and equinoxes. It can precisely indicate the most auspicious moment to start a space flight, thanks to the study of the Moon's cycles that repeat every 19 years.""Whoever built Stonehenge knew the Earth's meridians and parallels perfectly, could calculate latitudes and longitudes, and had a deep understanding of modern physics."
Dawn at Stonehenge
Stonehenge and the surrounding area are beginning to be considered "the most northern observatory on planet Earth, built thousands of years ago." And the most southern one? After various calculations, Hawkins supposes to find the opposite of Stonehenge in the Falkland Islands.
Hawkins heads to the Falklands and finds a space monitoring station identical to that of Stonehenge. Thanks to the radioactive isotope clock, the dating of the two astronomical stations is carried out: the clock indicates that Stonehenge and Falkland were built in 1850 BC, at a time when the indigenous Britons lived solely by pastoralism, were unfamiliar with bronze and copper, and were at a markedly lower standard of living than other peoples on Earth, thus in need of help to progress. For Falkland, there was no trace of population at that time.
The circumference of Stonehenge is perfect and can be calculated by assigning pi the value of 3.14159, the value we attribute to it today. It is also discovered that the base is located in an area of the northern hemisphere where the "azimuths" of the Sun and the Moon form a perfect 90-degree angle.
Writer Evan Handigliam reported in his book "The Mysteries of Ancient Britannia" (Newton Compton 1978) both Hawkins' theories and those of others, demonstrating with maps and calculations how Stonehenge served to record the sunrise and sunset at the summer and winter solstices and how, thanks to poles or reference stones, the lunar-solar cycle of 18.61 years could be computed precisely thanks to the 56 Aubrey Holes (with two cycles of 19 years and one of 18) to determine with precision the beginning and end of each seasonal work for the farmers of the late Neolithic.
Research, even to this day, continues and no one has yet provided a totally convincing explanation. However, its magic has fueled and still fuels the fire of the imagination of thousands of people who envision it as a place of celebration of arcane druidic rites and meetings of fairies and sprites, and whatever they may say in the future, this will not change.
