[net.general] New Answers to Mysteries of Stonehenge

jmm@bonnie.UUCP (Joe Mcghee) (06/19/84)

	Hypotheses Concerning Some of The Mysteries of Stonehenge
	---------------------------------------------------------

	During the past two decades I have read or seen a great number of
books, articles and television programs concerning Stonehenge. I was always
fascinated by the degree of skill required to construct this megalithic
complex. In the summer of 1971 I visited the site.
	More recently in reading various books and articles on Celtic culture,
my mind was stimulated to bring together many of these concepts into a more
unified and distinct image of the society which built Stonehenge. I would
like to share my thoughts with you.
	To begin with, the layout of Stonehenge, as many scholars know, is
intimately connected with its location. The stones are placed in a way which
corresponds with certain alignments of the sun and moon which work only at that
latitude.
	A few years ago I read about a community in the United States which had
an exact replica of Stonehenge cast in concrete and constructed in their town.
Those people may have been disappointed to find that even though the structure
may have the correct orientation with respect to true north, the alignments
of the sun and moon which occur at Stonehenge don't occur at other latitudes.
	Furthermore, the site of Stonehenge was chosen for its broad open
planes, for the most part, unobstructed by trees and other irregularities of
terrain. But there is another complication which most visitors to Stonehenge
never notice. The land on that site is not exactly flat and level. It slopes
gently but fatally for any unsophisticated architect.
	And so if the structure had been built without regard to leveling, the
alignments would not have worked and the whole project would have failed. One
of the mysteries of the place is: How were the ancient builders able to level
the megaliths of Stonehenge? This task involves not just a few key stones, but
the entire plane of the tops of the largest megaliths at the site. A further
complication is that the builders of Stonehenge did not bother to cut the
standing stones to uniform length, but instead buried them at varying depths
in the ground to make the tops come out level.
	But how were they even able to determine a level plane over such a
broad area without modern surveying instruments? This is one question I propose
to answer. This question, in my mind, is connected with the answer to another
mystery. A small ditch was dug around the site at the time of its construction
and there has never been a satisfactory answer for this question: What is the
purpose or function of the ditch around Stonehenge? This is the second question
I propose to answer.
	Some have proposed that the ditch was a moat used to defend the site
in case of attack by outsiders. But the ditch is so small and shallow that it
can be easily jumped by a man or boy. Others have proposed that it served as
a mystical barrier to evil spirits because of the widely held belief in ancient
times that spirits could not pass over water. But this explanation is also
flawed because the ditch does not extend completely around the site and so
there is a big gap in the "wall-to-hold-out-evil-spirits" theory.
	The true function of the ditch around Stonehenge was that it functioned
as a liquid level to level the tops of the megaliths standing on the site.
Water was poured into the ditch or collected from rainfall and the surface of
the water described a level plane around the site. Then, a small boat, called
a curragh, was placed on the water in the ditch. (A curragh is a very light,
shallow draft boat made of animal skins stretched over a light wooden frame.
These boats are surprisingly buoyant and have been used for millenniums for
ocean fishing and travel.) A colored marker on the mast of the curragh served
as a siting indicator which was one point on a level plane which could be set
at any desired height above the plane of the surface of the water in the ditch.
	The architect or surveyor could stand on a platform at the center of
the site and look out over the tops of the stones and see the level marker on
the mast of the curragh. By moving the curragh around the site through the
ditch the architects had a movable and reliable standard for describing a level
plane over any point on the site.
	In this way the architects were able to adjust the height of the stones
by chiseling the tops or by undermining the base of the stones until an exact
level plane was formed.
	As of this date (6/18/84) I have not seen any published material which
describes these concepts or anything vaguely close to them and so I believe that
my hypotheses are original and unique. I would appreciate any discussion that
might be offered on this topic, especially from anyone having a background in
the various fields touched on by this article.

					Joseph M. McGhee
					bonnie!jmm
					Bell Labs, Whippany, New Jersey
					(201) 386-2333 - work
					(201) 858-0596 - home