The Riddle Of Stonehenge Solved

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31119, 23 July 1966, Page 4

The Riddle Of Stonehenge Solved

Stonehenge Decoded. By Gerald S. Hawkins, in collaboration with John B. White. Souvenir Press, London. 190 pp. Bibliography and Index.

Stonehenge, that curious collection of great stones on Salisbury Plain, must be one of the most photographed, most speculated about, and most gazed at of all Britain's ancient monuments. Several questions at once occur to the gazers, as they have over the centuries to men of learning. Who built Stonehenge? When did they do it? Where did the stones come from and how were they transported to the site? And most important: why was it built and what use, if any, was made of it? Stonehenge has given rise to many myths and legends, and much literature, some of it scientific, some merely speculative. Dr. Hawkins is an astronomer, and it is on astronomy helped by a computer and borrowing from facts established by archaeologists, that he bases his theories, or rather his solution of the riddle of Stonehenge. He examines the myths and legends, and the early and later writings, finding particles of truth in some but discarding all. In particular he firmly demolishes the most popular and most widely-held view. Druids, past or present had nothing to do with Stonehenge.

Dr. Hawkins’s theories are logical and thoroughly convincing, and if in places one who is neither astronomer nor mathematician has some difficulty in following them, that is not to say that this in any way an esoteric work. Quite the contrary: the book was designed to have popular appeal, and it has. Stonehenge, Dr. Hawkins shows, was, like Rome, not built in a day, nor in a year or two, but over a considerable period of time. The date was around 1500 B.C. Here he makes an interesting comparison, “The space programme (in the United States) now absorbs, directly or indirectly, the energies of about one person in 1000 of our United

States employed population. Stonehenge must have absorbed at least that proportion of the national energy. England’s total population then was apparently less than 300,000, of whom doubtless 1000 worked on the monument The space programme takes about one per cent of our gross national product; Stonehenge must have taken at least a corresponding amount. Their building effort may have required more of them than our space programme does of us; correspondingly, it could have meant much more to them.” The author also discusses methods of building, the source of the stones and means of transport and finds satisfactory answers. But it is on the question of why that he is most convincing.

Put briefly, over-simplified but not, it is to be hoped, doing violence to the theory, it is this: all the alignments and vistas of Stonehenge point to the sun or the moon at some significant point of their celestial movements. And to the ancients they must have been of considerably greater significance than they are today. Further, by using the outer ring of holes It was (and is) possible to predict lunar eclipses with accuracy. The odds against random alignment of the stones of the Stonehenge monument. Dr. Hawkins tells us, is ten million to one, which is surely good enough to convince even the most sceptical. Its most probable use, he suggests, was a sort of calendar, for use in agricul- | ture to determine crop-

planting time, and more important, as an enhancer of priestly powers. It does not require much imagination to realise the awe and respect commanded by one who could predict an eclipse of the moon, or call his people to the spectacle of the midsummer sun rising exactly over the heel stone. Dr. Hawkins also thinks Stonehenge may have served as some sort of intellectual exercise for the wise men of the day. Dr. Hawkins, as well as being a noted astonomer, is an excellent writer. One docs not have to be a man of science to appreciate his book. Indeed, anyone with but a spark of interest in the beginnings of knowledge will find it wholly fascinating and absorbing.