The discovery of a further 72 previously unknown Early Bronze Age carvings during a detailed laser-scan survey of the entire monument has been interpreted as indicating that Stonehenge was a huge prehistoric art gallery.
The Press have largely publicised the results of the study as making
Stonehenge a 'Prehistoric Art Gallery' with the monument’s now largely invisible collection constituting the largest single collection of prehistoric rock carvings in southern Britain.
The laser-scan survey carried out in March last year for
English Heritage by the
Greenhatch Group, revealed 72 previously unknown axe and dagger carvings etched into the faces of five of the giant sarsen megaliths, trebling the number of carvings known at Stonehenge.
Prior to this laser survey, 44 prehistoric carvings had been identified at Stonehenge on Stones 3, 4, 5, and 53 commencing with Richard Atkinson's discovery of a number of Bronze Age carvings in 1953, the dagger and axehead on the inner face of Stone 53, standing next to the
Great Trilithon, being perhaps the most well-known. These symbols were too quickly connected with Aegean cultures as some certainly bear similarities to Mycenaean daggers. During the 1950s many archaeologists struggled to accept that native Britons were capable of building such a monument and further speculation led to the suggestion that Stonehenge may have been the work of a Mycenaean architect.
However, dating evidence does not support this interpretation, although
the style of the axeheads is specific to the Early Bronze Age, the The
Mycenaean civilization flourished during the period roughly between 1600
-1100 BC, yet the
Trilithons were raised at Stonehenge many centuries beforehand. An unconvincing comprise proposed the stones were decorated by
visiting Mycenaens during the mid second millennium BC, but this does not
explain the presence of Mycenaean style daggers found decorating a
sandstone slab in
Badbury Barrow, Dorset. The largest dagger on the
Badbury Barrow slab is roughly the same length as the largest at
Stonehenge.
Of course the stones could have been decorated with the carved axe-heads and daggers long after the erection of the Trilthon's but have been dated by style to the period between 1800-1500 BC, a time when many monuments were constructed in the landscape surrounding Stonehenge and the final features, such as the
Y and Z Holes circles, were added to the monument shortly before it finally went out of use.
There are thought to be about 13 other axes on the same sarsen, Stone 53, but most of these are very hard to see with the naked eye. In the 1953 season Robert Newall claimed that a further 26 axe carvings exist on the outer face of sarsen Stone 4, initially discovered by ten year old schoolboy David Booth. Atkinson could only identify about a dozen of these but the laser scan has confirmed 22 carvings. Another three carvings were identified on the outer face of Stone 3 in the 1950s, again in the sarsen circle. The close proximity of these sarsens to the axis of the monument is thought to be significant, with those carvings on the outer faces of Stone 3 and 4 would have been dramatically illuminated by the equinoctial sunrise. These axe carvings vary from just over three to fourteen inches long. In the following weeks of the same season (1953) Newall discovered a rectangular shape on another Trilithon, Stone 57, known as the
Stonehenge Goddess. Newall noted the similarity of this symbol to engravings found within chambered tombs in Brittany. This interpretation has always been controversial and the laser study suggests the quadrilateral shape is part of the wider area of stone dressing and in all probability simply a rebate as on the fallen lintel, Stone 120.
 |
The green axes
are new discoveries, whereas the brown axes
have been known or suspected since
the 1950s.
(Copyright: ArcHeritage/English Heritage) |
Of the 72 newly discovered images revealed by analysis of the laser scan data, 71 have been interpreted as Bronze Age axe-heads and one as a Bronze Age dagger. These carvings are largely invisible to the naked eye today, yet in the Early Bronze Age, being freshly chipped and un-weathered, the carvings would have appeared as a lighter tone against the darker, weathered sarsen and, being up to an eighth of an inch (3mm) deep, would have been clearly visible.
Thunderstones
Significantly, all of the Stonehenge axe-head carvings have their blades pointing upwards, with the daggers pointing down. This has been compared to Indo-European tradition in which axe-heads were often associated with storm deities. In some surviving European folklore upwards-facing axe blades were seen as magical talismans to protect crops, people and property against lightning and storm damage. Stone axes have long been cult objects, since at least the Neolithic period, when, following many hours of polishing, they were exchanged over great distances and often deposited in wetlands and rivers. Later cultures associated polished stone axes, unaware of their Neolithic provenance, with lightning strikes and were thought to have fallen from the sky and so named “
thunder stones”. They were much sought after by the Romans who called them “
Jove's thunderbolts”.
The
thunderstone was popular in later times for its altropaic magical function in protecting houses and other buildings from lightning strikes. In Scandinavia the axes were kept on shelves, chests of drawers or in sacks, usually put away a somewhere special, often bricked into the walls, placed under the sill or floor, attached into the ceiling above the bed. The sill and eaves have been the most popular places to put the thunderstone to deter lightning. This ancient tradition suggests that the axe-heads on the Stonehenge megaliths may therefore have been engraved as votive offerings to placate a storm deity and thus protect crops.
The laser-scan data shows that many of the axe-head images have exactly the same dimensions as several other carvings at Stonehenge raising the possibility that stencils were being used to produce the images. This size is larger than any axes that archaeologists have actually found suggesting the Stonehenge axes may have been purely for ceremonial use.
The Axis Alignment
Through examination of the finely worked stone surfaces the study concludes that the techniques and amounts of labour used in dressing the megaliths varied from stone to stone, providing almost definitive proof that the intent of Stonehenge's builders was to align the monument with the two solstices along its north-east/south-west axis.
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Plan of the central stone structure today; After Johnson 2008
(Wikimedia Commons) |
The sides of the stones that flanked the solstice axis were found to have been the most carefully worked to form very straight and narrow rectangular passages. These stones include two of the north-east facing sarsens (1, 30) in the outer circle, the Great Trilithon (56) in the inner sarsen horseshoe, and the now isolated upright megalith (16) in the south-west segment of the outer sarsen circle. All other megaliths have been left visibly more natural with less dressing and less neat outlines, strongly suggesting that the additional effort made to dress the stones flanking the NE/SW axis was to allow a more dramatic and obvious passage of solstitial sunlight through the stone circle.
The use of two different stone-working techniques by the prehistoric stone masons was particularly puzzling to the study team. The laser survey revealed stone-dressing work on the monument’s outer circle, both uprights and lintels, was accomplished by working parallel to the long sides of the stones, while the five stone
Trilithons and their lintels of the inner horse-shoe arrangement, set within the outer sarsen circle, were dressed by working at right-angles to the sides of the stones. Different gangs of masons is one interpretation of this but more likely the different methods denoting some special (sacred) significance to the
Trilithons of the inner horseshoe.
The unworked external south west faces of Stones (14, 16) indicates that the entire prehistoric temple was constructed to be viewed primarily from the north-east and approached by the processional route marked by the Avenue, which aligned with the solstices. The monument was not intended to be approached, or viewed, from the south west. If Stonehenge was intended to be viewed from the direction of the Avenue (NE), the procession can only have gathered to watch the mid-winter sunset between the uprights of the
Great Trilithon and not the opposite direction of the mid-summer sunrise as commonly believed today.
The solstitial alignment is currently severed by the A344 road but will be restored, reuniting the stone circle with the Avenue with the
closure of the road and construction of the new Stonehenge visitor centre at Airman's Corner, 1.5 miles west and out of visibility of the monument, scheduled to open in late 2013.
The Unfinished South West Sector
In the late 19th century Wiliam Petrie Flinders argued that the stone circle was never completed and left open to the south west. He cited as evidence the small, half size sarsen, Stone 11, and Stones 21, 23 being defective in size compared to the other sarsens. The only megalith standing in the south west sector is Stone 16 which anchors the axis, yet from some angles appears unfinished and deliberately mimicking a Breton
menhir in shape. The debate has continued into modern times with varying opinions amongst scholars with the questionable interpretation of the laser scan study results having the same effect as putting out the fire with gasoline.
Detailed analysis of the survey data claims to solve the issue that one of the stones at the now ruinous south-west side of the monument was once fully functional and deliberately worked and shaped to allow a line of sight through to the setting sun on mid-winter’s day. This, along with other new evidence (?), the study claims, suggests that the south-west side of the monument was finished forming a complete closed circle. Yet, the study concedes that there is only evidence for 27 out of 30 uprights being erected in the sarsen circle and only 26 (out of 30) lintels existed.
The study has identified that Stone 11 was snapped off (
when?) and therefore may once have had the same height as the other outer circle sarsens. They also claim the three foot (one metre) wide top would have been sufficient to support two adjoining lintels.
Yet, as Petrie says even if we concede that it may have been reduced in height, how do we explain the lack in width; Stone 11 is in effect a half sarsen.
Therefore the study team argue that at some stage in its history there was a deliberate attempt at the destruction of the monument which left the south west sector of the outer sarsen circle deficient of stones. But the study fails to address the lack of documentary evidence for the destruction of Stonehenge, as with, say, the nearby Avebury for example. Further, burning and stone breaking pits, again found at Avebury, have never been discovered at Stonehenge.
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The setting winter solstice sun from the Heel Stone at Stonehenge
(after Lionel Sims) |
But significantly, as the study confirms, the monument was constructed to be viewed from the NE. When viewed from outside the circle, for instance standing adjacent to the
Heelstone, the rear of the circle,
i.e. the south west sector, would have been obscured from view by the
Trilithons when they were complete. From this position the mid-winter sunset would have been seen to sink in between the two uprights of the
Great Trilithon. Completion of the the south west sector was not needed to witness this event; indeed there may never have been any completely closed stone circles at Stonehenge but may well have been a series of interfacing horseshoes (ellipses).
We are conditioned to think of Stonehenge as a closed circle, indeed this is the '
planned norm' presented to us in reconstructions and plan views. But the evidence suggests the monument was constructed as an arc in a similar fashion to the arrangement of the bluestones in the
Q&R Holes. All that was needed at the south west sector was Stone 16 to mark the axis. Furthermore, groundscans and probing have failed to reveal sockets for the missing south-west sector sarsens, providing no evidence for continuation of the sarsen circle from stone 14 to 20 in the north-west, with the exception of the monolith (16) marking the axis.
Source:
Research Report Series: No 32-2012
Stonehenge Laser Scan: Archaeological Analysis Report
English Heritage Report 6457
By Marcus Abbott and Hugo Anderson-Whymark with contributions from Dave Aspden, Anna Badcock, Tudur Davies, Mags Felter, Mike Parker Pearson and Colin Richards.
See:
The Real Stonehenge and Avebury - Mollie Carey's work on ancient carvings.
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Most visitors to Southern England in search of ancient megalithic sites inevitably arrive at the world famous site of Stonehenge. Few make the additional thirty mile journey north to see the stone circles and massive henge around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire. When the 17th century antiquarian John Aubrey came upon the Great Circle at Avebury he described it being far superior to Stonehenge, writing that it was like ‘comparing a cathedral to a parish church’.
