DIsputations become cloisters and porticoe’s. Let us now with minds free from passion, enter the adytum with an intent to find out its true figure, to examine what it really was, and what it is. And that may easily be done, because (as I said before) as to the trilithons of which it is chiefly compos’d, they are all remaining. Not a bit is lost, but what mischievous and silly people knock off with hammers, to see whether, as the wretched vulgar notion would have it, the stones be factitious. [Tab. XVIII.] is a design of it, which I made sitting in the center of the grand entrance in the inner circle. This point is properly the door-way or entrance into the adytum, as a wicket or little door, whilst the jambs of the hithermost trilithons present themselves, as the greater door, of above 40 feet wide, 25 cubits. I observe in the old Greek story, many footsteps of the primitive patriarchal way left in their sacred structures, which are parallels to this work before us, and others of our Druids. For instance, Pausanias in atticis speaks of a temple dedicate to Venus, in the front of which, is a wall (as he calls it) built of rude stones. Nevertheless he concludes it to be a very famous work. One may very well imagine, this wall of rude stones is the remnant of some such old work as ours, left for the sacred regard the people had to it, even after art was risen to great height, together with superstition and idolatry. For that the most ancient Greeks had very little of idolatry, any more than our Druids, I shall show when I discourse on that head. Again: the more sacred part of the temple at Hierapolis answering to our Adytum, had no door, tho’ none enter’d therein but the chief priests. Lucian de deâ Syria. I suppose it was in imitation of the ancient usage, without doors to shut or open, as our temple here. For the ancients thought it wrong, to confine the deity, as it were, within any cover’d place: ’till Moses, by God’s direction, made a tabernacle cover’d with skins, which was to adumbrate the Messiah Son of God, who was to be cloathed with out nature. And Solomon’s temple was built in imitation of this tabernacle. But before that, the ancients meant no more by temples, or altars, as they were first call’d, than a certain known and conspicuous place, ornamented in a particular manner, that should mark out a kebla, or a place towards which we are to address the Deity, and that for uniformity sake. As the Turks and Arabians do now, who are the descendants of Ishmael, and had this custom from Abraham. Tho’ the supreme Being be omnipresent, yet for our convenience, where time, place, and such kind of circumstances are necessary to a public action, he would have, as it were, the place of his presence made notorious. As in the Jewish dispensation he did in a most extraordinary manner, by the shechinah. And from Solomon’s temple, all the rest of the world borrow’d the fashion of temples, properly so call’d, built magnificently and with roofs. For the sacred houses mention’d in scripture before then, were only little chapels, shrines, like our Druids kistvaens, which sometime they carried about in a cart, sometime were fix’d in cities, for publick use; as Beth Dagon, and the like. These were but kistvaens improv’d, niches turn’d into sacella, in imitation of two or three stones in Abraham’s altars, which we may well call the kebla, and find many of them among our Druid antiquities.
The cell is form’d by a radius of 12 cubits and a half, from the two centers a and b, as to the inward curve; the outward takes a radius of 15 cubits; for these stones are two cubits and a half thick. The two circles are turn’d into an oval, by a radius of 30 cubits, (after the usual manner) set in the two centers c and d, where the two circles intersect. The former centers are 12 cubits and a half distant from each other, the length of the radius. The same oval is obtain’d by a string of 60 cubits, the ends ty’d together, and turn’d round upon two centers, according to the gardiners method. An oval form’d as this is, upon two centers coinciding with each other’s circumference; or, which is the same thing, whose centers are distant from each other the length of their radius, is most natural and most beautiful, being the shape of an egg. Most probably these religious philosophers had a meaning, in thus including an egg-like figure, within a circle, more than mere affectation of variety. Whatever that was, we may reasonably conclude, that from the method in antiquity, of making the kebla of a curved figure, the christians borrowed theirs of turning the east end of their churches in that manner; and that the Druids in the work before us, have produc’d the noblest kistvaen or kebla that is known.
My purpose in drawing many prickt lines upon the plate, is not difficult to be understood. Nor does it require particular explanations. To avoid affectation or tediousness, I leave them to the readers amusement: only observe, that Mr. Webb’s equilateral triangles have no hand in forming the cell. The intent of it is very distant from a regular polygon. But that it is incomparably more beautiful; than such a one would have render’d it. It is as a magnificent niche 27 cubits long, and as much broad, measuring in the widest place.
This part is call’d Σηκος or concha templi and adytum, into which, we may suppose, none but the upper order of priests, together with the high-priest, were commonly to enter, during the time of ministration, in religious rites. We may imagine the beauty of the appearance here upon those occasions, when an innumerable company of the Druids assisted, all in white surplices. The center of the excentricity of this oval is but three cubits nearer the entrance, than the center of the whole work. And they have cut off but one trilithon, which they make the opening of the adytum; meeting the eye to great advantage, from the grand entrance. By the aforesaid contrivance, there is left a space of five cubits between the jambs of the opening of the adytum, and the inner circle in front, just the same as is between the inner and outer circle. The inner circle there performing the office of cancelli to it, as we observ’d before. If a choir of this form was put in practice, and executed by a masterly hand, it would have a very extraordinary effect, and perhaps excel the too similar concave of a cupola. Our Druids had undoubtedly such a notion, in placing this within a circle. And for the sake of this, they turn’d the two circles into a smaller species of an ellipsis.
Stukeley. delin.
G. Vander Gucht Senl.
Prospect of Stonehenge from the Southwest.
There’s a Druid antiquity like our adytum in shape, call’d Eglwys Glominog, on the top of Arennig vaur in Lhanykil parish, Merionydhshire, but made of a continued wall. The ancients thought the world of an egg-like shape, and as the world is the temple of the Deity, they judg’d it proper to form their temples, so as to have a resemblance thereto. The ancient hieroglyphic of the Deity is a circle, and I have reason to believe it more ancient than the flood. Plato, who learnt much from the ancestors of our Druids, says in Diogenes Laertius, that God is spherical, which he must mean hieroglyphically. So our Druids, as well as he, may mean the infinity of nature in the Deity, who made the world, by this scheme of Stonehenge; at least they understand by the circle, the seat and residence of the Deity, the heavens, which include all things.
It seems to me, that Inigo Jones from this adytum projected the plan of the Surgeons theatre in London, a fabric for seeing and hearing much admired by all good judges. And which my Lord Burlington, out of a spirit truly noble, and a great love for the architect’s memory, has lately repair’d, with his own charges and excellent skill. I find the Surgeons theatre (or rather amphitheatre) is form’d from the same proportion as our adytum, the transverse and conjugate diameters being as 4 to 3, viz. 40 foot and 30 foot. And this appears to me a strong presumption, that Inigo Jones did not make the ground-plot of Stonehenge, publish’d under his name. The Surgeons amphitheatre is a good deal less than our cell.