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Lefteris Pitarakis / AP
People raise their hands in meditation during the 2010 summer solstice at Stonehenge.
Researchers say they've found two pits to the east and west of Stonehenge that may have played a role in an ancient midsummer ceremony. The discovery suggests that the 5,000-year-old circle of stones we see today may represent just a few of the pieces in a larger geographical, astronomical and cultural puzzle.
The previously undetected pits could provide clues for solving the puzzle.
"These exciting finds indicate that even though Stonehenge was ultimately the most important monument in the landscape, it may at times not have been the only, or most important ritual focus, and the area of Stonehenge may have become significant as a sacred site at a much earlier date," Vince Gaffney, an archaeology professor at the University of Birmingham, said in a news release issued over the weekend.
The pits, which measure about 16 feet (5 meters wide) and at least 3 feet (1 meter) deep, have been covered over for centuries and can't easily be spotted on the ground. But they showed up in a survey that was conducted using non-invasive mapping techniques such as ground-penetrating radar and magnetometry. The survey is part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, which was initiated last year with backing from the University of Birmingham's IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Center and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Vienna.
The placement of the pits is intriguing: They were found on the eastern and western sides of the Cursus, a racetrack-style enclosure north of Stonehenge itself that spans 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) from east to west and is up to 100 yards (meters) wide. From the perspective of an observer standing at the Heel Stone, a massive upright stone just outside Stonehenge's main circle, the sun would rise just above the eastern pit on the day of the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. The same observer would see the sun set that evening in line with the western pit.
National Geographic
A map of the Stonehenge area shows the placement of the stone circle and the Cursus, as well as another monument known as Woodhenge and a suggested ceremonial route between the monuments.
Archaeologists have previously noted that the Cursus was apparently created several hundred years before Stonehenge's 5,000-year-old stone circle was erected. The newly detected pits may have been part of a grand layout that guided the placement of the standing stones.
But to what end?
Gaffney, who led the survey project, speculated that the Cursus was the central stage for a midsummer ritual that was enacted long before Stonehenge's heyday. "The perimeter of the Cursus may well have defined a route guiding ceremonial processions which took place on the longest day of the year," he said.
In addition to the pits, Gaffney and his colleagues found a previously undetected gap in the middle of the northern side of the eroded earthwork that defines the sides of the Cursus. They propose that ceremonial leaders entered the Cursus through that gap, and then gathered at the eastern pit to conduct sunrise rituals. Over the course of the day, participants in the rituals might have made their way westward, ending up at the western pit at sunset.
"Observers of the ceremony would have been positioned at the Heel Stone, [with] which the two pits are aligned," Gaffney said.
Henry Chapman, another archaeologist at the University of Birmingham, said Stonehenge's position would have added to the symbolism. "If you measure the walking distance between the two pits, the procession would reach exactly halfway at midday, when the sun would be directly on top of Stonehenge," he said in the news release. "This is more than just coincidence, indicating that the exact length of the Cursus and the positioning of the pits are of significance."
The researchers suggested that the pits may have contained tall sighting stones, or wooden posts, or even fires to symbolize the sun. Just imagine how it would feel to watch the sun rise from a fire lit before dawn, follow its movement across the sky in time with a daylong procession, and then see it fall into the flames at sunset.
"Stonehenge may have been emerging as an important area for quite a long time, and sometimes you can't necessarily see that in the standing archaeology," Gaffney said in an MP3 podcast provided by the University of Birmingham. "The stones themselves, which are generally later, don't give you that information. You have to infer it from relationships between multiple monuments."
The researchers aren't anywhere close to finishing the puzzle: Gaffney figures there's at least another two years' worth of survey work to do. Even then, the full story of Stonehenge and its environs may remain wrapped in mystery. How much can stones and earth tell? Stay tuned ...
More about Stonehenge:
- Did Stonehenge start out as a cemetery?
- ... Or was it a place of healing?
- Gallery: Secrets of Stonehenge
- Gallery: Seven mysteries of archaeology
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Leave a Comment:
Dig deeper & look to the stars for answers. For only the Earth Based religions know, the true reason for Stonehenge.
Dig Much Deeper, your only seeing a tiny part of the bigger picture...
Blessed Be...
As an aitheist I also do not believe in "God". I think the celtic mythos is bs also, but the precepts of worship of Gaia and most of the belief patterns in that religion appeal to me as a morally correct way of life. I've taken four courses on christianity; history, structure, and present day and two courses on other religions. Each religion has it's good points, but most of the basic points revolve around people control and fiscal considerations. By researching the culture we might figure out the good points of it at the time.
....appeals to you as the "morally correct" way of life? What are morals based on according to an atheistic point of view? Where do they come from? And by whose standard are you judging to be 'correct'?
C.S. Lewis has a great book on this very topic; see Mere Christianity.
Well, you certainly have achieved your goal of thinking like an ancient self-declared idiot. :D
That is about as exciting as finding a hole in the ground.............wait that is what they found........or two to be exact.
Ah yes, but this hole has major significance. It was found next to.... a rock.
realy wow from art to trash to gods wow really what next!!!!!!
The pits may have been charred black and then filled with water to act as reflecting pools. Unfortunately the story only gives us two of the three dimensions of the pits (5 meters wide and 1 meter deep).
Thats the problem with the media, they never give you all the facts.
Maybe they was filled with water for their horses to drink from?
@the1972cat: They dont give you all the facts on purpose. Most times, they just give the information that comforms to their philosophy, anything counter to their presupposition gets cast aside as insignificant. A tragedy that has been the trade secret of many disciplines of science for decades. All disciplines of science are founded upon the laws of logic, yet few regard as such today.
The scientific facts in this story are this: there are 2 holes next to some rocks. Everything else is inference.
just wondering how many million they gonna spend researching stones and holes? People are starving and out of work!I am 62 and they were looking and researching those same rocks 50 yrs ago .
Don't know what y'all think but I had been led to believe that Aliens were here and built the henge. I am more inclinded to believe that theory then any mystical thing or some make believe gods did it.
I find it truly amazing that since every cell phone has photo taking capabilities we are no longer being visited by extraterrestrials. How many recent pictures of UFOs have you seen? Guess they're using cloaked ships now that we all have cameras...but they had no worries when they built Stonehenge or the pyramids.
Several years ago I had the wonderful experince of the awsome sight of Stonehenge. It was a dream come true for me to be able to see this wonderous creation that mear men had created. The only thing that would have made this experince better, would have been if I could have went inside and gotten the whole experince! I think it's great that they are finding more out about this and how these people lived and worshiped. Their way of life could teach us a few things.
Let's see now, this may prove the existence of aliens. A race track that is 1.5 miles long and takes all day on the longest day of the year to walk the length of implies very short legs maybe a couple of inches. (the average human walks at approximately 3 mph). Then add into the mix a privy that is 16 feet across and so many people are calling it a privy. Most privies are used by straddling them to do your business sooooo ... that implies a very big ass. So we have creatures that have 2 inch legs and 16 foot asses ... doesn't sound human to me.
Sounds like what my ex-wife morphed into after we were married a few years...
Do not be shocked if the pits prove to contain charred human remains.
And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven,
and you see the sun
and the moon and the stars,
all the army of heaven,
do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship,
or become the servants
of what the Lord has given equally
to all peoples under heaven
. Deuteronomy 4,19
HEXJUMPER I was just wondering if perhaps I could ask you if you are smoking crack, heroin, pot, or all of the above. I have never seen anyone that speaks with their ass like you in my life. I would hope you get a life and start reading up on your history so that at a later date you can speak on one of these blogs and make just a little bit of since. Your totally a moron sent from some other planet. Thats it, are you from MARS? Your a nut job for sure.....
I would say that he was dicarded by a black hole because he was useless.
The pits are where they got the dirt to build the monuments perhaps? Stand the support stones on end. Then bury it all in dirt with a ramp. Move the capping stones up the ramp and place on top. Remove dirt to next spot and repeat. After all is done place the dirt back into the pits.................
Of course the mystery is still there as to why they would do it. But they could be making too much out of the pit's themselves?
@cajunKC:
I like your idea, and in fact I think it is brilliant!
With some strong rope, it should be practical to have a dirt and stone ramp on the front and back side of two vertical stone, and one ramp could be for the stone that goes on top of the two vertical stones, while the other ramp could be used to roll a log, which when released pulls on the heavier stone on the other ramp, pulling it up the ramp until it is place . . .
Depending on the availability of trees, it could be done with two ramps reinforced with trestles and some "sleds", where the pits could have been for making mud as a lubricant, although if it was cold enough in winter, it might have been easier to use ice, in which case the pits could have been used to make blocks of ice, which then were used to build an ice ramp, really . . .
Really! :-)
@Baldenario:
Well thank you sir! I think it is very "do able" even more so with all your additional scenario/ideas! People now day's tend to over complicate everything. Sometimes the hardest thinking to set your mind on is the simplist thinking................... it takes practice and effort!
Thanks again for your comment I do appreciate it!
kc
@cajunKC:
Thanks for the kind words! :)
The more I think about your idea, the more sense it makes, where the possibilities include (a) using a counterweight in the same way that an air hammer works when one is removing the lug nuts on a vehicle wheel by making a lot of tiny rapid "hits" that slowly but surely loosen the lug nuts and (b) using a big sled filled with an equal weight of smaller things to move the big top rock and its sled up the ramp by simple gravity . . .
With a ramp on each side of two vertical stones, the top stone can be on a sled to be pulled up a little bit at a time, while a similar sled can be on the other side but instead of it having a heavy stone, it might be a big wooden box on sled rails, where the idea is to fill it with stones, ice, trees, or something that can be carried easily but when filled makes a lot of weight, either enough weight to pull the big top stone in one motion or enough weight when the sled is released to cause an "impact" once the rope tightens that pulls the big top stone up the ramp by a few inches or a foot, where it could be held in place by a series of gradually longer tree poles or something, where (a) the first strategy is to use a short rope and to keep putting stuff in the "pulling" sled container until the weight of the "pulling" sled and the big top stone are equal, at which point adding a bit more weight to the "pulling" sled maps to the big top stone sliding up the ramp as the now heavier "pulling" sled slides down its ramp but (b) the second strategy is to use a longer rope and to use the "pulling" sled container as if it were an impact hammer, where you start the "pulling" sled at the top of it ramp; fill it; and then release it so that it slides down the ramp, where upon arriving at the bottom of the ramp the rope tightens and there is a quick and powerful "tug" that move the big top stone upward by a little bit . . .
If you think about it for a while and consider the various rules from the perspective of mechanical physics regarding inclines, ramps, friction, and so forth, it might not be so difficult to do. It would require a lot of people and a good bit of physical work, but the physical work done by each person would be reasonable . . .
Whether anyone at the time knew about this stuff is another matter, but it appears that someone knew about it . . .
Presuming that Stonehenge was constructed in the range of 2,000 to 3000 B. C., this maps to the early Bronze Age, and there should have been ropes but probably no elaborate metal tools other than bronze, which put some limits on what one can do with rocks, but so what . . .
So what!
As I recall, the Irish have annual competitions where the toss logs and rocks, and one might suppose that a few hundred people scouring the countryside for rocks about the size of a grapefruit or perhaps a bowling ball would be quite productive, and with enough of those rocks and a big wooden box on sled rails, how difficult would it be to toss grapefruit or bowling ball size rocks from the ground into the wooden box until there were enough rocks in the wooden box to outweigh the big top rock on the other side?
Probably not so difficult!
If you scheduled it so that both ramps were covered with a thick coat of ice, then I think this could be quite easy to do if there were enough workers and so forth . . .
And the fact of the matter is that someone knew a good bit about geometry, although at the time there probably was nothing called "geometry", per se . . .
It is not necessary that there be a formal name for everything and a "how to do it" book . . .
Basically, it is what in physics is called a "simple machine", and the fact of the matter is that Sir Isaac Newton did not list all the rules until sometime in the late-17th century, but the rules existed and a few smart people certainly could have used the rules simply by a combination of common sense and intuition . . .
Yet another intriguing fact is that one can make ice in the desert, which has curious implications for the way the pyramids were built, where perhaps instead of sliding the heavy stones on sand, the pyramid builders made blocks and sheets of ice every night and then used the blocks and sheets of ice to move the stones, where the nearby Nile River would have provided plenty of fresh water, which would freeze sooner than salt water . . .
And for reference, I cannot recall reading anything anywhere about the possibility of using ice in the construction of the pyramids, even though nearly everyone who has had a basic course in chemistry and physics knows that you can make ice in the desert, which works on the same principle as the canvas and leather water bottles used for keeping water cool in the desert, where a tiny bit of water seeps through the canvas or leather and then evaporates, which cools the contents of the water container, such that even though it the ambient air temperature might be 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the desert, you have cool water to drink, and in desert locations this technique is used for inexpensive air conditioning, where the strategy is to have a fan blow air through a continually damp bunch of straw or whatever, where the water evaporates, which provides the cooling affect . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_cooler
This wikipedia video from the Prelinger Archives shows how a set of ramps is used to load blocks of ice into a horse-drawn wagon, which as a proof of concept type of thing looks to qualify for the idea of using blocks of ice to construct Stonehenge . . .
[NOTE: The ramps and ice blocks are shown starting around 3:00 in the video, which is a silent movie . . . ]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amateur_film_ice_harvest_pocono_manor_1919.ogv
And as best as I have been able to determine, there probably were cold winters in England in 2,000 to 3,000 B. C., which puts ice on the table as a possible construction tool, really . . .
Really! :)
To Charles the Hammerhead, archeologist of 1000000 CE would probably think our garbage dumps are just that! Garbage Dumps. [pretty much like this blog]
Man, and here I was hoping for some ancient secret bar-B-Q pit!!!
I find this very interesting. As a guy who loves to clown around, and an artist...I have always wanted to create something weird...Then bury it...Just to mess with people in the future....LOL
Perhaps I already did this in a previous life? Oh man...I gotta write this down!
A similar discovery was made in S America predicting our demise in 2012!
Ancient Prophesy
There once existed in Central America a highly advanced Mayan Culture. They were noted for the only fully developed written language of Pre-Columbian America. They excelled at art, architecture, mathematics and astronomy. The Maya Calendar was very sophisticated and extremely accurate. Their Calendar predicted the end of the world in the year of my lord, 2012. Did the Mayan’s know of the coming of BaRack Husein Obama? How could they know that a charismatic historic transformative man lacking wisdom would arise? Those Mayan intellectuals must have been aliens. How could any man accurately predict that future? The prophecy was so grim, that in panic they fled from their cities hundreds of years before his coming.
Life was simpler back then... before the damn bible screwed up this world. A few guys wrote a book to scare people into submission so they can live their lives on easy street. Those sheep are still around today, just modernized. All the sheep that follow the bible and it's 1000's of translations and interpretations are still here today. Christian, Muslim, Jew etc etc. All to support those few at the top selling want everyone wants... salvation forever. All because of some book written a couple thousand years ago... When are people going to modernize their thinking? Just LOOK at the billions killed (over the course of history) in the name of god from the bible. Nothing creates more hate in other men than the bible, despite what it says.
Hey, I think Satan is looking for you? You are the awarded the number 1 living demon award. Look into your pit for further instructions. PS - you now have one billion Muslims looking for you. I overheard some mentioning castration before beheading.
Those gigantic rocks had to have been levitated by magicans called Ancient Aliens. Michael Moore said so and is coming out with a book on it with a film to follow $$$$$.............
Since you believe what Michael Moore spouts we can skip the psych eval and go right to the heavy psychotropic meds. Please take them and stop bothering others.
These ancient "guide stones" were how these people tuned in their DirecTV satellite dishes.
Seriously, it is not what is above, but what is below that matters. The major govts of the world have known this for some time.
People only died , when they decided to disobey God,
GOD can protect His WORD, if HE could not, would not be God.
And when your eyes are lifted up to heaven,
and you see the sun
and the moon and the stars,
all the army of heaven,
do not let yourselves be moved to give them worship,
or become the servants
of what the Lord has given equally
to all peoples under heaven
. Deuteronomy 4,19
... and this is relevant how?
It dangles the carrot in front of the sponsors providing the funding. That's the only relevance I see.
It is funny to see all the elaborate stories they come up with to explain the findings. Heck, stonehenge could have been the frame of a grocery store for all we know. LOL
I know I will never get to see the original stonehenge, but in Goldendale, Oregon there is a replica that is amazing.
the Man that had built maryhill now known as maryhill museum and winery along the columbia river.
I know I will never get to see the original stonehenge, but in Goldendale, Oregon there is a replica that is amazing.
the Man that had built maryhill now known as maryhill museum and winery along the columbia river.