New Delhi: The world’s most famous prehistoric monument, Stonehenge, has long been thought to serve as an ancient solar calendar, due to alignment with the solstices. A new study has now identified how the solar calendar may have worked.
The study, led by researchers from Bournemouth University, England, was recently published in the journal, Antiquity.
Professor Timothy Darvill from the University of Bournemouth decided to take a fresh look at Stonehenge after new finds about the stone circle’s history were recently made. Darvill’s analysis of other ancient calendar systems concluded that Stonehenge was designed as a solar calendar.
In a statement issued by Bournemouth University, Darvill said that the clear solstitial alignment of Stonehenge has prompted people to suggest that the site included some kind of calendar since the antiquarian William Stuckley, who pioneered the scholarly investigation of Stonehenge.
Stonehenge Was A Calendar Based On A Tropical Solar Year
Darvill said that recent discoveries brought the issue into sharper focus and indicated the site was a calendar based on a tropical solar year of 365.25 days.
According to recent research, Stonehenge’s sarsens were added during the same phase of construction around 2500 BC, and were sourced from the same area and subsequently remained in the same formation, indicating that they worked as a single unit. Sarsen stones are a type of silcrete rock, which is found scattered naturally across southern England. Sarsens were used in constructing prehistoric monuments including Stonehenge.
According to the study, Darvill analysed the stones. He examined the numerology of the stones and compared them to other known calendars from the period.
How The Sarsen Stones Served As A Physical Representation Of The Year
Darvill identified a solar calendar in their layout. This suggested that the stones served as a physical representation of the year that helped the ancient inhabitants of Wiltshire keep track of the days, weeks, and months, the study said.
Darvill said that the proposed calendar works in a very straightforward way, and that each of the 30 stones in the sarsen circle represent a day within a month, itself divided into three weeks each of 10 days. He noted that distinctive stones in the circle mark the start of each week.
Structures Of Stonehenge Also Represented An Intercalary Month
The study said that an intercalary month of five days and a leap day every four years were needed to match the solar year. Darvill said that the intercalary month, probably dedicated to deities of the site, is represented by the five trilithons in the centre of the site. A trilithon is a megalithic structure consisting of two upright stones and a third across the top as a lintel.
Darvill also said that the four Station Stones outside the Sarsen Circle provide markers to notch-up until a leap day. .
How Solstitial Alignment Of Stonehenge Helped Detect Errors In The Calendar
Every year, the same pairs of stones would frame the winter and summer solstices. According to the study, one of the trilithons also frames the winter solstice, indicating it may have been the new year.
Also, the solstitial alignment helps calibrate the calendar. This is because any errors in counting the days would be easily detectable as the Sun would in the wrong place on the solstices.
A calendar with 10 day weeks and extra months may seem unusual today, though calendars like this were adopted during that period.
Darvill said that such a solar calendar was developed in the eastern Mediterranean in the centuries after 3,000 BC, was adopted in Egypt as the Civil Calendar around 2,700 BC, and was widely used at the start of the Old Kingdom about 2,600 BC.
The study said that this raises the possibility that the calendar tracked by Stonehenge may stem from the influence of one of these other cultures.
Darvill explained that finding a solar calendar represented in the architecture of Stonehenge opens up a whole new way of seeing the monument as a place for the living. This is a place where the timing of ceremonies and festivals was connected to the very fabric of the universe and celestial movements in the heavens, he said.