Sunday, June 01, 2008


The mystery has been solved. Stonehenge was a burial center, probably for an elite royal family that ruled a large portion of Southern England. They were cremated and their skeletal remains interred there beginning about 3300 BC, until after the complex was finally completed around 2500 BC-around the same date, incidentally, when the Great Pyramid was constructed.

Another interesting fact is that both of these complexes seem to be positioned in such a way that their positions coincide in some manner with the appearance and position of the sun during the summer solstice, which might hint at a widespread, if not nearly universal, religious mindset of the time. To the ancients, astronomical phenomena were of the utmost importance, so this is not a surprise, nor does it speak to any kind of unifying worldwide theology. Far from it. It does, however, point out the importance to ancient peoples of this era of the use of astronomical date in their daily lives, in this era when agriculture was the predominant way of life.

As for the royal family, it won't be long before you will be hearing theories as to identification with the Arthurian legends. While there may be some degree of validity to this, any kind of solid proof is unlikely. On the other hand, this had to be a powerful dynasty, to have the authority to compel the dragging of these large stones for more than twenty miles at least to their ultimate resting place.

Nor should this be interpreted as a repudiation of the current view of Stonehenge as a place of magic and religious practices. It was long ago proven that Stonehenge predates the Druids with whom the complex was originally identified by at least a thousand year. Bear in mind, however, that we do not really know how the Druids or the people of their day looked at Stonehenge. Perhaps they viewed the place pretty much as the way we see them doing so in the popular current imagination. They might have been as clueless as we were as to it's origins, and might well have used it as an astronomical and/or ritual place some thousand years plus after it's original construction.

The most disturbing thing about this story is that, though these skeletal remains were in large part unearthed more than fifty years ago, all but three of them were thrown away. King Arthur might well be spinning in his grave. Well, or in some landfill somewhere.

5 comments:

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Just a shining example of the long-lasting quality of non-unionized labor.

Anonymous said...

Did you see the documentary about stonehenge on the national geographic channel? Wow, it was really amazing. They did awesome re-anactments.

SecondComingOfBast said...

Beamish-

You mean it's usually built with the blood, sweat, and tears of the common folk for the benefit of the rich and pretty much no one else?

Danielle-

No, I didn't see that. I might not even get that channel. I don't get too much beyond local network affiliate stations, C-Span, and PBS. I do think that might be one of the few others I get, I'll check and see. I don't see though how they could do a valid reenactment of something they don't really know that much about.

Anonymous said...

Well, they were guessing to the best of their abilities. It looked a lot like the solstice celebrations there now.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

PT,

No I mean after 5 years of it being built, it didn't need remodeling and repair.