The Gray Monk

The great circle of stones that make up the ancient monument invoke all sorts of feelings and attract myths like some sort of occult magnet. Which, of course, is what a lot of people think it is - occult! Go there at Midsummer and it's swamped with would be Druids, performing rituals they have made up for themselves, or claim to have "discovered" in some ancient inscription somewhere. The truth is that no one really does know why it was built, although we have some ideas about what it was used for. One thing does seem certain, it wasn't the Druids of the Roman acquaintance that built it. As to what they used it for - we simply don't know, except that it had some religious purpose.

We do now know that the ditch and the principle stones were re-arranged over a 500 year period between 2,500 and 2,000 BC, with the ditch having been completed some time before that - around 2,950 BC. This predates the Druidic period by a bit! Another enigma is that the circle at Stonehenge seems to have supplanted the older and more elaborate one at Avebury a few miles further North, which incoporates a strange manmade hill called Silbury Hill - a truncated cone of soil and rubble built over an extended period.

From all that I have read on this subject, it would appear that Stonehenge may have been built either to replace the Henge at Avebury or as a rival to it. There may even be a totally different explanation for its existence. One thing is certain - at least in my mind from what I have read - and that is that this one seems to have been the last and the most elaborate. As you travel around Britain you find that there are a large number of these monuments dotted around the islands. Avesbury and Stonehenge (Amesbury) are two very elaborate examples, but others are less magnificent or so ancient that their orginal state is difficult to envisage. There are good examples in the Western Isles off the Scottish coast and others in Ireland and on "mainland" Britain itself.

On Saturday I indulged myself in yet another magazine which featured an article on the riddle of Stonehenge and which I am ploughing through as I write. The article, by Julian Richards, appears in the latest BBC History magazine and is essentially a promotion for the airing of a new documentary on the henge to be shown on Saturday 27th March on BBC 2. The article itself has been a worthwhile read, covering as it does, some of the mythology that has arisen from 18th and 19th Century attempts to interpret the stones - with a somewhat more than somewhat romantic eye to the facts.

It is largely to the 19th Century that we owe the rather more poetic visions of Druidic worship and use, but at least one 18th Century investigator has to take the blame for the vision of gaily dressed "worshippers" replete with banners and marvelously worked "instruments of office" conducting or taking part in worship there. The rather fanciful images of these early interpretations have now been rather more scientifically developed. It now seems that we can attribute the later phases of its construction to a group known as "the beaker" people, so-called because they used highly decorated pottery, and about whom, very little is known.

The author of the latest article is an archeologist who has spent more than 20 years researching and digging at this site. Much of what he has discovered dispels almost everything the 18th and 19th Century examiners postulated (in much the same way the 19th Century interpretation of dinosaur skeletons has been shown to be seriously flawed), one of the most important finds being the grave of a person of high status buried near the so-called "heel stone". The elaborate burial suggests that this was a very important and influential leader, which, in turn, raises the question of whether or not the henge is nothing more than an elaborate monument and tomb. Yet this suggestion too is quickly dispelled by the dating of the remains and the grave goods - which give a date some time after the completion of the monument. It will be interesting to see the documentary and find out what the dig has shown. It may, to some, still hold an attraction, since the neolithic inhabitants of these isles have left us other examples of elaborate burial practices, most notably in the "table" tombs to be found in Cornwall, Scotland, and Ireland.

These comprise a series of huge upright megaliths or "sarsens", with a massive rock slab balanced on top of them. Originally they were covered in earth, the burial and grave goods being protected in the hollow central chamber. Wind, water, animals, and grave robbers have, over the 5,000 years or so since their original construction, exposed the stones and destroyed the original graves. Stonehenge, it seems, is very different in both its structure and purpose.

Firstly there is the question of orientation. As is often trumpeted, at midsummer the sun rises on a particular bearing and its light strikes a marker within the stones. Fine, but this works in reverese as well. As Julian Richards points out in his carefully written article, at midwinter, the sun sets through the diametrically opposite arch. So which was more important? Midsummer? Or midwinter?

Perhaps a look at what we do know of the "Beaker" people would be helpful here. Firstly, they loved decorated pottery and appear to have enjoyed a highly artistic culture - possible because they had made the transition between roaming hunter gatherer existence and settled agriculture. Among them developed metal working and a number of other crafts not suitable to a nomadic lifestyle. To such a people, midwinter would be more important than midsummer - precisely because it meant the turning of the corner through the long barren months when the group needed to live off its reserves and could look forward to planting and renewal of food stocks. This, taken with other monuments whose orientation is clearly to the midwinter sunset, may well be a significant clue - indicating that the celebration is not midsummer, but its opposite.

One other curious feature of the archeological discoveries here has been the fact that at least one of the graves discovered near here and dating from the same period, contains the remains of a man from Southern Germany. This suggests a mobility that is at odds with popular concepts for that time. It may also suggest that the community around the henge may well have been wealthy enough to attract traders and skilled craftsmen from outside of their own region.

Even more intriguing is the fact that the site at Carn Menyn in the Preseli Hills in South Wales, from which the great bluestone cross members came, has revealed evidence of a major industry there. Surprisingly no one had thought to examine the area thoroughly until recently and they have been surprised by the quantity of sarsens and megaliths there ready for shipping!

Three questions now remain; why was the Welsh stone used? Who were the builders? And the final and perhaps greatest question posed by Mr Richards is: What happened there in 2004 BC? At that time it was basically complete, we still do not know who its priests were, what gods were appeased here, or what rituals they followed.

Perhaps we will never know until someone comes up with a working time machine. And perhaps then we will regret our curiosity and our presumption. I will be looking forward to watching the programme when it is aired.