It is likely that people gathered at Stonehenge at the summer and winter solstices to witness the pivotal changes in the movement of the sun, and to conduct rituals and ceremonies relating to the changing seasons, the sun and the sky. The first section of the Stonehenge Avenue, a route to the River Avon marked by parallel banks and ditches, is also on this same alignment. The axis is also reflected in the positions of the four Stanton Stones, positioned in a rectangle on the edge of the surrounding circular ditch, with the short sides on the same alignment as the sarsen stones.
The smaller bluestones were also arranged to reflect the solstice axis, with a large gap in the outer circle towards the north-east, and in previous arrangements of these stones there were probably two small mini-trilithons that may well have framed the two solstice events. The effect is lost today because one half of the trilithon is fallen, and today lies on top of the Altar Stone.Īnalysis of a laser survey of Stonehenge has shown that those stones that frame the solstice axis were the most carefully worked and shaped using hammerstones, creating vertical sides that framed the movement of the sun. It would have dropped down into the Altar Stone, a sandstone block which was placed across the solstice axis in the centre of the site. Originally, the sun would have set in a narrow slot between the two upright stones of the tallest trilithon (three stones – two upright and one horizontal) at the head of the sarsen horseshoe.
Six months later, on the shortest day in the middle of winter, the sun sets in the opposite direction, to the south-west. The long shadow of the Heel Stone, the largest stone on the site, also extends right into the middle of the stone circle. Archaeological excavations have found a large stone hole to the left of the Heel Stone and it may have held a partner stone, the two stones framing the sunrise. Standing in the centre of the monument on midsummer’s day, the longest day of the year, the sun rises just to the left of the outlying Heel Stone to the north-east and the first rays of the day shine into the heart of Stonehenge. These are the extreme limits of the sun’s movement the word solstice is derived from the Latin sol (“sun”) and sistere (“to stand still”). The enormous sarsen stones and smaller bluestones, set up in the centre of the site in about 2500 BC, were precisely arranged to frame two particular events in the year: the sunrise at summer solstice, and the sunset at winter solstice. Stonehenge was carefully designed to align with the movements of the sun. The skies were important for practical information about the weather, timekeeping and navigation, but would also have been closely entwined with stories, myths and beliefs about the cosmos. But for prehistoric people, who were mostly farmers and gardeners, travellers and builders, the movements of the sun and the changing seasons were fundamentally important.
We might be thankful for a sunny bank holiday, or notice the increasingly earlier dusk in the autumn, but, inside our homes, with lights and heating, it is easy to forget these changes in the world around us. For many of us, the movements of the sun and the changing skies above us can pass by largely unnoticed as we go about our busy lives.
0 kommentar(er)
