The most important symbolic feature of Stonehenge is its
orientation. Stonehenge is comprised of a series of stones erected in circles and
horseshoes (Blue stones, Standing stones, Aubrey holes) to aid the people who built it
in determining the date of the winter solstice (and by its inverse, the summer
solstice). The stones are oriented so that, on the date of the winter solstice, the sun
will set on the horizon between stones 15 and 16, over the altar stone, and directly
opposite the heel stone. This orientation (calendar if you will) allowed the builders
of Stonehenge to calculate the half year, an important piece of knowledge for
agricultural people who needed to know when to plant their
crops.
Some archeologists believe that Stonehenge had
several purposes in addition to marking the half year. One of these purposes is also
symbolic--Stonehenge has an outer ring of holes (called Aubrey holes) which may have
been used to predict eclipses.
In 1965, Harvard astronomer Gerald Hawkins
claimed that Stonehenge served these people as a giant astronomical observatory. He
explained that numerous stone alignments marked key positions of both the sun and the
moon. Noting that the cycle of lunar eclipses occurs in a pattern of fifty-six years
(nineteen plus nineteen plus eighteen), he believed that this pattern explained the
purpose of the Aubrey Holes, which were used as a lunar eclipse
predictor.
Archaeologists have been skeptical of these
claims, questioning the precision of the alignments and the builders’ possession of the
required knowledge to construct such an observatory...[However] control over cosmology
and an ability to predict eclipses would have been of great value in reinforcing the
power and prestige of the lords of
Wessex.
This would have been
powerful knowledge for a shaman or priest to possess. His or her command of this
information could have served a symbolic function to make it appear that the religious
leaders did not predict, but could cause, eclipses.
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