An article from the 60s raises a few questions on the subject of Stonehenge. Sixty years on, what might the answers be?
For example:
* Should we be consulting the "calendric and astronomical texts of literate peoples of antiquity" to understand Stonehenge? The article suggests that "the cuneiform texts with observations and calculations performed by the ancient sages should be brought into the picture—but first themselves processed by computers in order to find the direction of the terrestrial axis and the form of Earth's orbit in different periods of the second millennium before the present era. (…) The cuneiform material is the richest, but there are preserved ancient data from Egypt, India, and Mexico".
* Was the structure of Stonehenge repeatedly remodelled because it had to conform with a changing order of the world, in which astronomical changes were being felt?
*Has the 56 hole Aubrey circle been accepted today as a lunar eclipse calculator?
The article suggests scepticism: "The final blow came when it was shown that the 56 year cycle of lunar eclipses, first allegedly discovered by the Stonehengers, does not exist in nature. Yet this was the only basis for identifying the 56 Aubrey holes and with them the entire Stonehenge complex as an ancient computer. "Such eclipses repeat every 65 years (in periods of 19, 19 and 27 years) and not every 56 years (19, 19 and 18 years) as claimed by Hawkins", write R. Colton and R. L. Martin in Nature for February 4, 1967, in a paper titled "Eclipse Cycles and Eclipses at Stonehenge." They also produce a table of eclipses for the last hundred years to demonstrate the true cycle. "The Aubrey holes at Stonehenge were not constructed to predict eclipses on a 56 year cycle.", and instead asks: Is Stonehenge "an obsolete observatory"?
However, proponents of the system don't talk of a 56 year cycle as such either, rather a method involving 56 marks, a lunar marker and a sun marker, turning anticlockwise at different speeds over the course of a year, with corrections every so often. In fact, the similarities to the soli-lunar Hebrew calendar are striking.
The article suggests that instead of being of any practical purpose, the number 56 was sacred. "Sacred to Typhon, as Hawkins, advised by Professor G. de Santillana, found in Plutarch (American Scientist, December 1965). This author of the first century of the present era reports that in the Pythagorean secret teaching "the figure of 56 angles [is sacred] to Typhon" in whom they see "a demoniac power."
"Thus 56 was connected by the Pythagoreans with the Morning Star; and the Morning Star by other early authorities within the Exodus."
If 56 was sacred, might it not have been partly as a result of its place within a soli-lunar calendar?
* In 1963, Gerald Hawkins claimed Stonehenge was about observing the summer solstice, and "he claimed further that with certain four selected points as observational stations, the extent of the swing along the horizon between the rising and setting points of the moon in summer and winter can also be followed up. Also with some additional selected points, the movements of the sun could be aligned with great precision for the winter solstice as well." The article is pretty damming of Hawkins's interpretation.
Do the alignments which held true during the various construction phases at Stonehenge still hold true today?
*"They (the Stonehengers) had the means to confirm that the Sun was on course. They certainly had reasons to be vitally concerned with the observations. If the Sun ever failed to turn at the heelstone at midsummer and day after day rose further to the left, then intense heat and drought would surely follow. Today we have absolute confidence in the regular movement of the Earth around the Sun" (Hawkins, American Scientist, [December, 19651, 395).
Did such an apprehension really exist? Our calendars and our observatories today are not built mainly on apprehension, but for practical use, to plan, to understand. The article insists a little on this apprehension, and asks whether there is there anything in surviving ancient texts, or any evidence at all of some catastrophe that may have given rise to this apprehension? Obviously, Graham Hancock has since contributed immensely to answering this question. Yet, it also seems that a similar apprehension about the course of the sun supposedly felt by the Stonehengers is accepted by some archeologists today, who perhaps do not accept all of Graham Hancock's, and other's, conclusions about past catastrophes. To what might this fear be attributed to then? Why would you fear a change in the course of the sun if you or your ancestors had not already experienced such a problem?
* "The Stonehengers, apprehensive of the danger of lunar eclipses, were unconcerned about solar eclipses because their 56-hole digit computer was attuned only to the 56 year cycle of lunar eclipses, which Hawkins refers to "as those most frightening things" (Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded, p. 147). Are lunar eclipses dangerous? Is it correct to say the Stonehengers were not interested in solar eclipses?
*According to Hawkins no other purpose of astronomical character will be discovered in Stonehenge since he has tried out every alignment: "I think there is little else in these areas that can be discovered at Stonehenge" (p. 147). Well, this is nonsense. Right?
*The ancient sundials and waterclocks found in Egypt don't work today, "they disclose a ratio of the longest day in the year to the shortest day that is very different from what is valid at the latitudes of Egypt in the present arrangement of the world". How can we find out what past ratios were?
*Finally, the sun gets more than its fair share of the publicity at Stonehenge. Why is the moon not given the same status? Why is predicting solar eclipses not part of the 'computer'. Is Stonehenge understood today as a soli-lunar construct? In 1963, Hawkins suggested Stonehenge's purpose was "to watch the sun rising on the summer solstices". How far have we come since that statement was made?
Here's a link to the article.
So, how have things progressed since the 60's?
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For example:
* Should we be consulting the "calendric and astronomical texts of literate peoples of antiquity" to understand Stonehenge? The article suggests that "the cuneiform texts with observations and calculations performed by the ancient sages should be brought into the picture—but first themselves processed by computers in order to find the direction of the terrestrial axis and the form of Earth's orbit in different periods of the second millennium before the present era. (…) The cuneiform material is the richest, but there are preserved ancient data from Egypt, India, and Mexico".
* Was the structure of Stonehenge repeatedly remodelled because it had to conform with a changing order of the world, in which astronomical changes were being felt?
*Has the 56 hole Aubrey circle been accepted today as a lunar eclipse calculator?
The article suggests scepticism: "The final blow came when it was shown that the 56 year cycle of lunar eclipses, first allegedly discovered by the Stonehengers, does not exist in nature. Yet this was the only basis for identifying the 56 Aubrey holes and with them the entire Stonehenge complex as an ancient computer. "Such eclipses repeat every 65 years (in periods of 19, 19 and 27 years) and not every 56 years (19, 19 and 18 years) as claimed by Hawkins", write R. Colton and R. L. Martin in Nature for February 4, 1967, in a paper titled "Eclipse Cycles and Eclipses at Stonehenge." They also produce a table of eclipses for the last hundred years to demonstrate the true cycle. "The Aubrey holes at Stonehenge were not constructed to predict eclipses on a 56 year cycle.", and instead asks: Is Stonehenge "an obsolete observatory"?
However, proponents of the system don't talk of a 56 year cycle as such either, rather a method involving 56 marks, a lunar marker and a sun marker, turning anticlockwise at different speeds over the course of a year, with corrections every so often. In fact, the similarities to the soli-lunar Hebrew calendar are striking.
The article suggests that instead of being of any practical purpose, the number 56 was sacred. "Sacred to Typhon, as Hawkins, advised by Professor G. de Santillana, found in Plutarch (American Scientist, December 1965). This author of the first century of the present era reports that in the Pythagorean secret teaching "the figure of 56 angles [is sacred] to Typhon" in whom they see "a demoniac power."
"Thus 56 was connected by the Pythagoreans with the Morning Star; and the Morning Star by other early authorities within the Exodus."
If 56 was sacred, might it not have been partly as a result of its place within a soli-lunar calendar?
* In 1963, Gerald Hawkins claimed Stonehenge was about observing the summer solstice, and "he claimed further that with certain four selected points as observational stations, the extent of the swing along the horizon between the rising and setting points of the moon in summer and winter can also be followed up. Also with some additional selected points, the movements of the sun could be aligned with great precision for the winter solstice as well." The article is pretty damming of Hawkins's interpretation.
Do the alignments which held true during the various construction phases at Stonehenge still hold true today?
*"They (the Stonehengers) had the means to confirm that the Sun was on course. They certainly had reasons to be vitally concerned with the observations. If the Sun ever failed to turn at the heelstone at midsummer and day after day rose further to the left, then intense heat and drought would surely follow. Today we have absolute confidence in the regular movement of the Earth around the Sun" (Hawkins, American Scientist, [December, 19651, 395).
Did such an apprehension really exist? Our calendars and our observatories today are not built mainly on apprehension, but for practical use, to plan, to understand. The article insists a little on this apprehension, and asks whether there is there anything in surviving ancient texts, or any evidence at all of some catastrophe that may have given rise to this apprehension? Obviously, Graham Hancock has since contributed immensely to answering this question. Yet, it also seems that a similar apprehension about the course of the sun supposedly felt by the Stonehengers is accepted by some archeologists today, who perhaps do not accept all of Graham Hancock's, and other's, conclusions about past catastrophes. To what might this fear be attributed to then? Why would you fear a change in the course of the sun if you or your ancestors had not already experienced such a problem?
* "The Stonehengers, apprehensive of the danger of lunar eclipses, were unconcerned about solar eclipses because their 56-hole digit computer was attuned only to the 56 year cycle of lunar eclipses, which Hawkins refers to "as those most frightening things" (Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded, p. 147). Are lunar eclipses dangerous? Is it correct to say the Stonehengers were not interested in solar eclipses?
*According to Hawkins no other purpose of astronomical character will be discovered in Stonehenge since he has tried out every alignment: "I think there is little else in these areas that can be discovered at Stonehenge" (p. 147). Well, this is nonsense. Right?
*The ancient sundials and waterclocks found in Egypt don't work today, "they disclose a ratio of the longest day in the year to the shortest day that is very different from what is valid at the latitudes of Egypt in the present arrangement of the world". How can we find out what past ratios were?
*Finally, the sun gets more than its fair share of the publicity at Stonehenge. Why is the moon not given the same status? Why is predicting solar eclipses not part of the 'computer'. Is Stonehenge understood today as a soli-lunar construct? In 1963, Hawkins suggested Stonehenge's purpose was "to watch the sun rising on the summer solstices". How far have we come since that statement was made?
Here's a link to the article.
So, how have things progressed since the 60's?
