II. The most interesting pages of Dr. Evans’s article are those in which he attempts to trace the pedigree, so to speak, of Stonehenge, and to divine the purpose of its builders. He cites instances to show that ‘wherever the meaning of these great stone monuments has been clearly revealed to us, we find them connected either directly or indirectly with sepulchral usage’.[2220] He contends that in the most characteristic examples ‘the Circle is an enlarged version of the ring of stones placed round the grave-mound; the Dolmen represents the cist within it; the Avenue is merely the continuation of the underground gallery, which in our earliest barrows leads to the sepulchral chamber’.[2221] But is there any evidence that interments ever did take place within the precincts of Stonehenge? General Pitt-Rivers remarked that the question could be definitely settled by excavation;[2222] but scientific excavation, as we have seen, has hitherto been confined within a small area. The evidence amounts to this:—a vessel, which Dr. Evans calls an incense-cup, was discovered by Inigo Jones,[2223] and incense-cups have never been found except in association with interments;[2224] while the numerous bones of domestic animals which have been exhumed, along with charcoal and fragments of pottery, from the interior circle,[2225] point to the conclusion that Stonehenge was the scene of sepulchral rites such as we know to have been performed in barrows.[2226] Furthermore, the older monument of Avebury contains two smaller stone circles, within each of which are the remains of a stone chamber, which, Dr. Evans argues, ‘there can be little doubt once contained interments.’[2227] But Dr. Evans is at no great pains to argue that Stonehenge was itself a cemetery: it is on its connexion, close or distant, with sepulchral usage that he lays stress. While he points out that ‘in the case of the Chambered Barrows the [surrounding] stones may be said still to fulfil an original structural function’, he holds that ‘in the case of the Circles they bear a more purely ritual signification. In some cases,’ he adds, ‘we find transitional examples in which the stone circle is actually seen in the act as it were of separating itself from the earth barrows. Thus in the great monument of New Grange [in Ireland] the stone circle is separated by an interval of some twenty feet from the central mound.’ Then, going to the Far East for an illustration, he tells us that, while the stone circles and dolmens which are still erected by the Khasis of Assam ‘are in themselves non-sepulchral’, they ‘are reared as a propitiation either to the departed Spirits of their own ancestors or to any other Spirit’.[2228] But Dr. Evans does not deny that Stonehenge was also a solar temple: he admits, indeed, that its orientation ‘certainly seems to associate the Sun in the religion of the spot’.[2229] This theory is supported by observations made by Professor Gowland in Japan. ‘There,’ he tells us, ‘on the seashore at Futa-mi-gaura ... the orientation of the shrine of adoration is given by two gigantic rocks which rise from the sea as natural pillars. The sun, as it rises over the mountains of the distant shore, is observed between them, and the customary prayers and adorations made ... the point from which the sun is revered is marked by a structure of the form of a trilithon,’[2230] &c.
But although some evidence has been collected in support of the theory that certain stone circles in the British Isles and elsewhere were orientated more or less closely to the Midsummer sunrise, it does not necessarily follow that they were solar temples;[2231] and a scientifically conducted examination of the circles of Kincardineshire and Aberdeenshire has shown that their main diameters ‘are in scarcely any instance oriented (sic) to any point of the compass as we understand the term’;[2232] while Mr. W. C. Lukis, pointing out that on Dartmoor and in Cornwall circles are to be found in clusters, and that there are three circles quite close to one another at Stanton Drew, asks, ‘if they were temples, why should the worshippers have been gathered into separate congregations?’[2233] The only answer which I can suggest is that while each of these circles was probably erected either for sepulchral purposes or in honour of a dead ancestor, the rites which were from time to time solemnized within them may have been connected with the worship of the sun. There is no reason to believe that in any megalithic circle in the British Isles solar worship was more than incidental.
About forty years ago the late distinguished archaeologist, Professor Nilsson, wrote an article,[2234] the main object of which was to prove that Stonehenge was a temple of Phoenician origin, consecrated to the worship of Baal; but the evidence upon which he relied was so unsubstantial that no useful purpose would be served by summarizing his arguments, which, indeed, are virtually obsolete.
Professor Flinders Petrie[2235] argues that certain parts of Stonehenge are much later than others; and Dr. Evans, who agrees with him, remarks that ‘this is strongly shown by the fact that each of the Stone Circles as well as the Earth Circle has a different centre’.[2236] Dr. Evans also points out that, in the case of the circles which are still erected in the East, ‘the huge blocks are not all put up at one time but in batches of an equal number of stones at intervals of time.’
Professor Gowland has shown that the sarsen stones in the outer circle must have been erected before the trilithons, and the trilithons before the blue-stones.[2237] ‘That the stones,’ he remarks, ‘of the central trilithon were erected from the inside of the circle has been conclusively demonstrated by the excavations; hence the “blue-stones” in front cannot have been erected before them. Moreover, the “bluestone”, No. 68, the base of which was laid bare in Excavation V, was found to be set in the rubble which had been used to fill up the foundation of No. 56, and further, in a lower layer than its base, there were two ... blocks of sarsen with tooled surfaces.... If [the outer sarsens were set up] from the inside [of the circle], their erection must have preceded that of the trilithons and hence of the “bluestones”. On the other hand, should the outer sarsens have been reared from the outside, it would not be possible for the “bluestones” to have been placed in position before them, as they would then have seriously interfered with, if not altogether prevented the erecting operations.’ Mr. William Cunnington, however, observes that ‘the fact that specimens of all the varieties of rocks which constitute the inner circle of Stonehenge have been found in the mixed substance at the base of ... [the stump of one of the blue-stones] proves that they were all on the spot when the inner ellipse was erected’;[2238] and Professor Gowland, who confirms this view, concludes that ‘no long interval of time separated the erection of the sarsen and the “bluestone” monoliths, although the work must have occupied a considerable period’.
III. Unwarned by the Edinburgh Review and Mr. Hinks, Sir Norman Lockyer published in Nature[2239] a series of ‘Notes on Stonehenge’, which might be safely ignored if his authority had not made converts, even among archaeologists and men of science who happen to be ignorant of certain essential facts. He now maintains that the sarsens ‘and above all the trilithons of the magnificent naos represent a re-dedication and a re-construction of a much older temple’; and, further, that ‘the older temple dealt, primarily but not exclusively, with the May year’, while ‘the newer temple represented a change of cult, and was dedicated primarily to the solstitial year’. It is unnecessary to examine in detail the process by which he has endeavoured to establish these conclusions; but I shall give a few specimens of his work.
‘Acting,’ says Sir Norman, ‘on a very old tradition, the people from Salisbury and other surrounding places go to observe the sunrise on the longest day of the year at Stonehenge. We therefore,’ he concludes, ‘are perfectly justified in assuming that it was a solar temple.’[2240] Not improbably it was—from one point of view; but how old is the tradition? The earliest extant mention of Stonehenge is in the Historia Anglorum[2241] of Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in the twelfth century, but who does not refer to the tradition. Stonehenge, according to Sir Norman Lockyer, was rebuilt in 1680 B.C. It is therefore impossible to prove that the tradition originated even as early as two thousand nine hundred years after the alleged date of the alleged second dedication of Stonehenge. Tentatively I would suggest that it may have arisen after 1771, when the astronomical theory was anticipated by a Dr. John Smith.[2242]
Among the ‘considerations’ to which Sir Norman would ‘direct attention’ in support of his theory the fifth[2243] runs as follows:—‘It is quite possible that the rebuilding of the temple in 1680 B.C. was part of a very large general plan which could only have been undertaken by a large, powerful and comparatively civilized tribe or people under strict government, commanding the services of skilled mathematicians, for Stonehenge, Old Sarum, and Grovely Castle occupy the points of an equilateral triangle of exactly six miles in the sides, and the three sides are continuations of the entrances at Stonehenge and Old Sarum and of a ditch running through the centre of Grovely Castle, and the line Stonehenge—Old Sarum passes exactly through Salisbury Spire, which again is exactly two miles from Sarum. We ought to restore the old name, Solisbury.’
‘Skilled mathematicians’ on Salisbury Plain in 1680 B.C., a thousand years before the dawn of mathematics in Greece,[2244] busily engaged in forming, for some recondite religious purpose, gigantic equilateral triangles! Sir Norman italicized the word ‘exactly’. Evidently then he wished to impress upon us, in proof of the mathematicians’ skill, not only that they made their triangle equilateral, but that each side measured six miles,—no more and no less. Is it not a remarkable coincidence that the unit of measurement in the British Bronze Age was the English statute mile? I confess that I cannot grasp the significance of the prolongation of ‘the line Stonehenge—Old Sarum’ to Salisbury Spire, or of the fact that this additional section was ‘exactly two miles long’, unless the builders of Stonehenge were Christians as well as mathematicians and Salisbury Spire was standing in 1680 B.C. Nor indeed, it should seem, can Sir Norman himself: at all events in Stonehenge and other British Monuments Astronomically considered—a book which is, in the main, a reproduction of his ‘Notes’—the passage which I have quoted disappears: equilateral triangle and skilled mathematicians are left to the kindly obscurity of Nature. But if ‘the line Stonehenge—Old Sarum’ and the line Stonehenge—Grovely Castle have lost all significance, why persist in staking a hopeless case upon the imaginary importance of the line Stonehenge—Sidbury Hill?
Sir Norman Lockyer has not restricted his researches to Stonehenge, sun-worship, and the solstitial year. He has discovered instances in which stone circles have been used for the observation not of the sun but of the stars, and in which, ‘on account of the change in a star’s place due to precession,’ ‘the sight line has been changed in the Egyptian manner.’[2245] Among these astral temples were ‘the three circles of the Hurlers, near Liskeard’ and ‘the circles at Stanton Drew’. After an interesting calculation he announces that ‘we have the following declinations approximately:—