1. Many of the barrows, two of which are in obvious connection with the great stones, are shown by their forms and contents to be of the largest type of Bronze Age barrows, known as Round Barrows (for instance, gold relics, glass beads, ivory and cremated remains are signs of lateness). This being so, it is significant that chippings of the stones brought from a distance to Stonehenge are found even in undisturbed barrows of this kind, where the action of earthworms and rabbits in introducing foreign elements is hardly possible. It is clear, therefore, that the building of Stonehenge was at least begun late in that period. There is the point also that with the exception of two, the circumjacent barrows are not in any relation with the great circle, and are therefore not later.
2. The contents of the barrows earlier than Stonehenge have some imported articles which must have come from the continent not before the fifth century B.C. One even is stated to have contained a socketed celt, pointing to the late fourth century. But late Celtic antiquities are wholly absent, which makes it hardly possible that the barrows should be as late as the second century B.C.
3. The skilful hewing and fitting of the huge blocks of Wiltshire Sarsen stone are of the same stage in technical development as the triliths of Syria and Tripoli, and the great Doric temple of Segesta in Sicily, which latter was constructed about 415 B.C.
From these and similar indications he concludes that the gradual building of the great monument was probably between 300 and 150 B.C. He is now inclined to place the date earlier.
In 1901 a small committee of the Society of Antiquaries and two other societies reported on the desirability of setting upright a very large leaning stone at Stonehenge, which showed signs of breaking up as well as of falling still further down. It was successfully raised in September of that year, and it is from the necessary excavations—which were very carefully and scientifically conducted—that various data were collected by Mr. William Gowland, and printed in Archæologia, vol. 58 (1902).
No object of metal was found, except one small trace of bronze or copper. From this circumstance he concludes that Stonehenge was constructed at the time when the Neolithic Age was passing into the Bronze Age, and that has been tentatively placed at about 1400 B.C., or not later. Sir Norman Lockyer, he mentions, had recently attempted to determine the date on the hypothesis that the monument was a solar temple, since, as is well known, the midsummer sun rises exactly in the line of the chief avenue from the temple, and exactly over a large detached stone placed no doubt for this very purpose. He deduced a date as early as 1700 B.C.
It is disappointing to observe the discrepancy between these results. But it is particularly instructive, and a salutary warning to all who attempt scientific enquiries into historical problems, to note that both results are based on sound method. Good method, in short, is not sufficient: the data must also be adequate, and where indeterminate they must, as in this case, be approached, tested and used with the greatest caution. For instance, the absence of bronze tools is not conclusive evidence that the Bronze Age had not begun, and therefore that Stonehenge was earlier than about B.C. 1500, for the stone implements found were sufficient for their work and much more easily obtained than bronze tools. Moreover, the stone implements are stated not to be of the characteristic late Stone Age types, and may therefore have been improvised.
2. The Loss of King John’s Treasures in the Wash, A.D. 1216
Everyone has read how King John in his last days lost all his baggage train in the waves of the Wash (the great bay or inlet which separates Lincolnshire from Norfolk), and is supposed hardly to have saved his own life. The ordinary histories go on to say that he died soon after of chagrin at the disaster, and that Henry III was crowned in a gold circlet because the Crown had been lost with the rest of John’s treasure. The old chroniclers are vague and avoid detail, and it is the kind of story which lends itself to exaggeration. It seems to have struck Sir William St. John Hope that it might be worth while to investigate closely the exact circumstances, and to consider what was lost, and where. Such a quest might indicate possibilities even of the recovery of the treasure, if the spot could be ascertained, and the brilliant results of his application of scientific method have more than justified his attempt, and afford a really interesting example for imitation.
1. First, the chroniclers’ accounts were noted and compared. Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris and the Coggeshall chronicler state in varying terms that the King and his army barely escaped, and that the baggage which followed was lost in whirlpools or quicksands in the “Well stream,” which disembogues into the sea through the Wash. These are original authorities, and Sir William observes that the first-named was at the time Prior of Belvoir in Leicestershire, about forty miles only from the scene, and that the priory was of the same (Cistercian) order as that of Swineshead, where the King lodged on the night after the catastrophe, and where he fell ill.