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Stonehenge: still enigmatic |
Stonehenge is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world. Built around 2,500 BCE, the site, like the Egyptian pyramids, is a testament to the engineering skills of our ancestors. Its circle of linteled sarsen stones were so finely erected that they still outshine the most intricate working of wood. The inner stone trilithons are simultaneously majestic and intimate, and the whole site is laid out with extraordinary precision whilst remaining open to the natural contours and horizons of Salisbury Plain, on which it is located.
As a preeminent treasure bequeathed to us by prehistoric peoples, Stonehenge is also subject to political disputes about access and control. Owned by the state, over a million tourists are bussed in every year to see the site; often staying for no more than 45 minutes before continuing on to yet another sumptuous English landmark. Yet, there are other claims and desires to access Stonehenge; notably those sections of the community who wish, in a variety of ways, to experience the site more fully than a 45-minute whistle-stop tour can allow.
The history of alternative gatherings at Stonehenge has long been culturally and politically fraught. Festivals began at summer solstice at the site over 25 years ago, but were suppressed at the notorious Battle of the Beanfield in 1985, after which, direct access to the stones was cut off at summer solstice and at all other times1. However, the desire for an annual gathering never disappeared, and during the late nineties, sustained negotiation between Druids, pagans, festivalgoers, English Heritage, and the National Trust facilitated a remarkable compromise. From 2000, the stones have become directly accessible again for anyone who wants to go on the night of the summer solstice.
One of the key aspects of Stonehenge is that astronomical alignments have been deliberately and accurately built into the design of the monument itself. One of these alignments is on the summer solstice sunrise. Watched from the center of the circle, the sun rises in the north east, just left of the Heel Stone (an important freestanding monolith on the edge of the monument). On a clear day, as the sun rises in the sky, it shines down the avenue leading into Stonehenge and casts a shadow of the Heel Stone into the centre of the monument before rising to reach its highest point in the sky by noon 2.
The summer solstice is not the only alignment at Stonehenge, and debate continues about the range, accuracy and importance of the extent of complex astronomical knowledge built into the monument 3. But whatever the finer technical points of these debates may be, the central fact is that the builders and users of Stonehenge were concerned, obsessed even, with astronomy and they knew the movements of the planets and heavens and their relationship with earth very well.
Why might the prehistoric peoples who built such an impressive site be so interested in astronomy? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that they were far closer to nature than we are today. These people lived in simple, timber-framed structures and seem not to have stayed in one place but moved around the countryside. They had large herds of animals and tended fields of wheat and vegetables, but they were not farmers in the sense that we would understand it. Instead, they seem to have valued mobility: following the grazing for their animals and gathering, growing, and harvesting plants on a seasonal basis. And it was at the great monuments like Stonehenge that they came together to gather, exchange, and celebrate their life following the rhythms of nature.
Close knowledge of the seasons, the ebb and flow of light and warmth from the sun, and the movements of the moon and other planets would have been of central importance in structuring their understanding of the cycles of the natural world. The sun and moon may even have been seen as animate or alive—even seen as gods. Thus, when the sun and moon reached the highest and lowest points in their cycles, this may have been interpreted in terms of “cosmic” death and rebirth.
We can see a similar logic in the architecture of the pyramids and the myths with which they are associated. The Osiris myth was enacted every year in the Egyptian pyramids as stellar alignments marked the moment of the rebirth of the god after his mythological slaughter: a cycle of death and rebirth that directly echoed the cycle of death and birth in nature. Certainly, there is no doubt that the great turning points of the seasonal and celestial year were of central importance for ritual gatherings at Stonehenge, where we can imagine people from far a field gathered to mark these critical and auspicious moments.
This connection to the ebb and flow of nature is built into the monument itself. Therefore, when we go there today, we come into touch with the same forces as those who erected the monument did. And it is this desire to get back to ancient and formal ways of celebrating the cycles of nature that underpins the desire of those who celebrate at summer solstice today.
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| Crowds enjoying the summer solstice |
The contemporary festival is not for the faint hearted. Access to the site is strictly managed and facilities are limited. This turns what could be an unhurried and extended appreciation of the magic and beauty of midsummer into something of a marathon. Yet, despite these limitations, being at the site at a moment like the summer solstice is to take part in the same celebrations of the natural world as were undertaken by our ancestors thousands of years ago.
This year, the event was particularly spectacular from an astronomical point of view. There was a full moon—an event that occurs on the summer solstice only once every 18.6 years. As the night deepened, the moon—first golden and then honey brown—glided across the sky. Then, as the moon slowly set in the west, it blazed on the horizon with a final, poignant display of light. There then followed over an hour of darkness, the low point before the dawn, while the crowds gathered to witness the rising sun. As the first blue light crept over the horizon, a white mist rose like a wall and agonizingly slowly, the sun came into view. As its red light streaked across the sky, the ball of the sun was greeted by three hang gliders, framed solemnly against the spreading light; airborne heralds of the dawn.
The freshness and fertility of midsummer is echoed by its opposite six months later with the darkness of midwinter. These cycles are inherent to the earth on which we live; they are the inexorable natural processes of which we are all part: life, death, warmth, joy, darkness and light. Yet the spontaneity of the cycles of the universe are ancient and timeless; they have gone on forever and will continue to do so.
In our postindustrial age, we believe all too often that we have gone beyond nature; we have mastered it for our own ends. We experience it only as a backdrop—convenient or otherwise—to our busy, machine-dependent lives. Yet, like our ancestors, in reality we, too, are born into it, dependent on it, and subject to its forces. By celebrating at Stonehenge we, too, momentarily can find the connection we have to nature, and to a realization of how much we are a part of it. In so doing, we reforge a connection with those human beings living all those years ago who left us such a remarkable testament to what they held dear, as well as with the awesome turning of the cycles of the world.
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