Pardon me for not cottoning onto this earlier. But I was just watching a programme about stonehenge (or STONEhenge, as the US narrator insisted on calling it) on the 'Yesterday' channel. It had the archaeologist types you'd expect ie Clive Ruggles, Mike Parker Pearson, Mike Pitts. So it wasn't the usual freeview fare all recycled special effects and 15 min long advert breaks. Though it did have a student determined to prove that the stones were transported using wooden rails and stone ballbearings (that wasn't so convincing. like that was going to work over the salisbury downs, hmm).
Anyway my point being, that they were hypothesising about why stonehenge might be where it is. And how it had been discovered that under the avenue at the end nearest to stonehenge are natural Grooves in the rock, and they're running in the direction of the summer solstice sunrise, or if you're looking the other way, the direction of the winter solstice sunset. Thus explaining why Stonehenge is just beyond the natural end of these Grooves, and not actually plonked in the middle of nowhere After All, and the avenue was merely a development of the line of those grooves. I'd never heard about that before? Perhaps you will all be shaking your heads at me of course.
Also there was much about Stonehenge being for the dead, and the bluestones having originally been in a circle at the riverside at the other end of the avenue. And that conversely the wood-themed Durrington Walls was for the living, and that the two sites were joined by the river. All very interesting. And no doubt will be repeated if you keep your eyes peeled.
 Reply | with quote | Posted by Rhiannon
19th January 2012ce
23:18 |
ridges along the Avenue (Rhiannon, Jan 19, 2012, 23:18) |
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