Myths and legends about Stonehenge
Although it’s probably a futile effort, it is sometimes very intriguing to try to understand the motives behind the building of a monument such as Stonehenge. If the builders are somewhat a mystery to us, then their reasons to build Stonehenge are absolutely outside our scope of knowledge; we can only make educated guesses based on assumptions, so there is no way we could say that some idea is better than other. Here come some thoughts on the subject.
There are a lot of opinions of reasons of Stonehenge building. Most theories have guessed at a cultic purpose behind the astronomical design of the monument, on the grounds that such a mammoth undertaking must have had an ideological rather than practical basis. They derive from anthropology rather than from cultural and technological history. But Lockyer (Stonehenge Astronomically Considered, 1906) and others have pointed out the practical value of astronomical observation at a time when there was no other way to establish precise calendar dates, whether these were needed for agricultural, social, or seasonal-religious reasons.
The first one is that this monument was built with some religion aims. Many researchers have argued, who more convincingly than others, that Stonehenge was a site of religious rites of its time. There are several good reasons behind this assumption, but unfortunately it only takes one aspect of the theory that cannot be proven to collapse the whole train of thought. Remains of pig bones found on the site emphasize the theory of religious site, because no pig skulls were found among the bones. This means that the animals had to have brought to the site ready to cook (=beheaded), which would most likely have been done for the sake of the gods or the clergymen (or both).
This actually doesn't deny the "religious site" scheme (just the opposite), and it is almost as sure as something can be in history that Stonehenge has been used as a site for religious rites at least some point of its history. Now the wild-minded readers may get the impression of brutal human sacrifice rites, and while some evidence has been found to back this, there are no signs of continuous use of megalithic sites as sites for human sacrifice. Animals and such have almost certainly been involved, though. What neither of the previous tell us, is that was religion or sacrifice the initial reason to build Stonehenge, or was it something else? This derives from the fact that no verbal or written heritage has survived through the times about the ideas and motives of those Neolithic tribes (and of course from the fact that we cannot go back in time to ask them…).
The second opinion – Stonehenge is astronomical building. Facts tying Stonehenge to astronomy aren’t foolproof, but some at least very interesting points have been made in several studies of this topic. Probably the best known study of "astronomical Stonehenge" is Gerald Hawkins’ "Stonehenge Decoded", for which he used a modern computer to calculate all the sightlines (line of sight from one point in Stonehenge to a body of sky via landmarks such as stones) and their relation to objects of sky, mostly the Moon and the Sun, though.
The "modern man" must keep in mind that things may not be what they first seem to be. Being very close to earth and nature, not much unlike the close-to-nature cults today, the Neolithic Britons might have held objects of the sky as gods, and predicting the will of the gods was something essential to their existence, thus mixing the concepts we distinguish from each other today – religion and astronomy.
Myths and legends about Stonehenge
The third opinion is that Stonehenge is an observatory. If those ancient people really thought that the Sun and the Moon are gods, did they build a site where they could observe and worship their gods? There is a good possibility that this is the case, when viewed the characteristics of Stonehenge. For starters, there is a good view to the skies from the middle of the plain, there are no major obstructions to the field of vision, but then again, such is the case in many other places around southern England and Wiltshire, places that might have been more easily maintained and constructed.
According to the studies of other megalithic sites, the circular banks around sites could have been made to smoothen the horizon by elevating it a bit. If this was the case, there is no reason to think that the bank around Stonehenge would have been made for any other reason. On the other hand, this is just an assumption based on other sites that have higher banks around them.
The fact that caused the whole astronomical connection with Stonehenge was the direction of the summer solstice, or the direction of sunrise on the longest day of the year. This direction is almost exactly the same than the direction from the middle of Stonehenge, along the Avenue to the Heel Stone. This causes the image of sun rising behind the Heel Stone on the longest day of the year when observed from the Altar Stone.
Only problem is that there are quite a lot of this kind of sightlines. If one is to use only the Aubrey Holes, with variations of technique a total of over 100 sightlines can be defined. If the point of observation is shifted from the center of the ring to, say next to a sarsen, possible sightlines increase considerably. In fact it would be more amazing, if the sightlines didn’t match with some important astronomical direction.
The big sarsens could also have been used to determine sightlines.
The next one is prediction. With the astronomical connection, it didn’t require an enormous leap of imagination to think that Stonehenge was used to also predicting events of the night sky. Hawkins and Hoyle developed their own methods to predict lunar eclipses with the construction of Stonehenge, which consisted of record-keeping with the help of the Aubrey Holes and movable marker stones or wooden logs. These theories are quite accurate, and the only flaw with them is the fact that they require rather high degree of astronomical and mathematical knowledge, in conjunction with records covering at least nearly twenty years. These records would have had to be passed without written records (since we assume there are none, because we haven't found any), and a society of high mathematical and astronomical skills without the wisdom of writing… well, let’s just say that it doesn’t add up properly.
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