Mr. Story Maskelyne considers the Greeks reformed the Temple later on. “Within 500 years of the latest of the above-mentioned dates the Phœnician or Tyrian Empire had ceased to exist, and her numerous colonies had been absorbed by the nationalities surrounding them. About B.C. 400 the Greeks supplanted the Phœnicians in their trade with Britain, and probably for some time continued to use the same mart and sea route the latter had used—we may assume from Cherbourg to Poole or Christchurch, whence they bore away the tin in their coracles from Cornwall. Now commenced a new era for Stonehenge. It must have been a noted Temple, and I cannot doubt that Hecatæus did allude to it as cited by Strabo, when he wrote, in the sixth century B.C., of the Round Temple to Apollo in the land of the Hyperboreans. Now the festivals of the Greeks were more connected with the months than with the year, and their calendar months were alternate, full and hollow, where the thirty pillars were doubtless used by them for the daily sacrifice in the months of thirty days and the spaces between them, omitting the entrance, for the hollow months, of twenty-nine days. Owing to the precession of the stars, Stonehenge no longer answered some of the purposes for which it has been founded. The Greeks had adopted with ardour the Metonic Cycle discovered by them B.C. 430, and they reformed the old Sun Temple by the addition of the inner horseshoe of blue stones which represented that Cycle, for they were in number nineteen. As to how, or why, the blue stones came to be imported, I imagine they are native to Brittany or Normandy, whence they might easily have been brought as ballast in Greek ships, which took back tin in their stead from Poole or Christchurch, and from the latter port they might easily have been taken in rafts to Amesbury.”
THE DATE OF STONEHENGE.
In printing this second edition of my little guide-book, I think it will be found interesting and necessary to leave all the former evidence and opinions that I collected as to the date of Stonehenge. Since the excavations in 1901, I think we may consider the age of Stonehenge to be between three and four thousand years. Mr. W. Gowland judges from the implements or tools found, Sir Norman Lockyer and Dr. Penrose from astronomical observations, based on the fact that the avenue (“Viâ Sacra”) to Stonehenge from the east of the ancients was in a line with the Altar Stone, so that the sun, rising on the day of the solar half-year (June 21st) and creeping over the horizon, shed his beams on the Altar Stone, thus marking the solar half-year. Of course, the east of the ancients is not our east, but the difference between the position of the sun now and then to the avenue gives, according to these gentlemen’s calculations, a date of 3700 years old to Stonehenge.
THE FINDS AT STONEHENGE, 1901.
The implements found during the excavations made for the underpinning of the “Leaning Stone” are thus classified by Mr. W. Gowland:—
(1) Haches roughly chipped, longer and shorter. (2) Axe-hammers. (3) Hammer-stones with blunt edge. The above are of flint. (4) Regular hammer-stones of compact sarsen. (5) Mauls of the same rock, weighing from 37 to 64 lbs. each. There were also found chippings from the monoliths, and, near the surface, coins and animal bones.
Only one trace of copper or bronze occurred other than coins and superficial finds, a mere strain on a block of sarsen. So we may consider Stonehenge to belong to the late Neolithic, or early Bronze Period. These objects have been lent by Sir Edmund Antrobus to the museum at Devizes for a period of six months.
In the January, 1902, number of Man, Mr. W. Gowland’s interesting paper will be found, describing the excavations, methods of trimming and erecting the stones practised by the ancients.