Stonehenge

The Shifting Stones of Stonehenge

| Steve Tanham

Not to be outdone by the recent discoveries on Orkney, Stonehenge – one of the world’s most famous stone circles – has thrown up a whole new story about its origins… and its original face.

(1100 words, a ten-minute read)

(Above: Stonehenge – source Pixabay)

It was the end of the archeology ‘dig season’. Strong winds and heavy rain had blown for weeks across the exposed face of the hillside on the west coast of Wales. Everyone was ready to call it a day and go home – an action that would doom the last attempt by Professor Mike Parker Pearson of University College London to show that there was a much deeper link between this saturated hillside and faraway Stonehenge than anything dreamt of, before…

One of the dig team called out – a large stone had been found, not far beneath the surface. Professor Parker Pearson set off across the mud, holding his breath…holding on to the possibility that it might be a Bluestone, or even better, a ‘socket that had held a known tooth’.

(Above: The location of Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, and its unlikely link with the Preseli Hills, 150 miles away in Pembrokeshire, Wales)

If you’ve visited the famous Stonehenge stone circle in Wiltshire, you may recall that the Neolithic monument, 5,000 years old, actually comprises two rings. The outer circle consists of 15 of the larger Sarsen stones, familiar to us from images of the site. Each of the Sarsen stones average 13 feet in height, and an astonishing 7 feet wide. The average weight is 25 tons, though the largest, the Heel Stone, weighs about 30 tons. The stones are connected with matching overhead lintels. Recent developments in geochemical techniques have placed the origin of the Sarsen stones at West Woods near Marlborough, 20 miles from the stone circle.

(Above: the innermost of the two outer circles is the ring of Bluestones. Source Wikipedia CC by SA 3.0

But within the mighty ring of Sarsen stones is a secondary circle of smaller ones – the focus of this post.

Within these, in the centre of both circles was originally a third group of free-standing trilithons, each comprising two vertical Sarsens joined by a lintel. The whole monument is oriented towards the sunrise on the Summer solstice, the longest day and shortest night, and a time of immense cultural importance for the people who constructed the stone circle, 5,000 years ago – using only stone tools.

The two different outer stone circles have long been a puzzle. The types of stone quarried for the Sarsen stones is quite different from that used for the inner circle. The latter has a blue hue and hence their name: Bluestones. Decades ago, geologists located similar stone outcrops in the Preseli Hills (see map) in the far west of Pembrokeshire, the last bit of Wales before the Irish Sea. But that’s a long way from Wiltshire, and the prospect of moving the massive stones 150 miles east begs the question: why on Earth would anyone do that? Wiltshire is not short of its own durable stone…

(Above: Professor Mike Parker Pearson)

Professor Parker Pearson had a theory… actually, he had two, but he wasn’t telling many about the second, which was more of a slim possibility. His first theory was that the long-accepted origin of the Bluestones, whilst being the Preseli Hills, wasn’t the hilltop outcrop at Carn Menyn that had first been assumed. Part of his reasoning was that nothing else related to Neolithic ritual and burial activity was to be found nearby – yet Pembrokeshire is famous for such sites.

The professor is a world authority on the prehistory of Britain and Western Europe from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. He is also one of the authorities on the archeology of ‘death and burial’ during this period; a topic that unites and divides in seemingly equal measure. For the whole spring and summer of 2018, his team excavated two sites a few miles from the rejected Carn Menyn. At first, the work went well, with a high chance of success. But, as the season wore on, conflicting evidence suggested that nothing conclusive could be found – much to the dismay of the locals, who were great supporters of the work; and the potential revelations it would bring about the location’s link to the ancient past.

With the dig-season running out, Professor Parker Pearson turned his attention to a nearby boggy field, Waun Mawn, the site of four small monoliths and well known to the locals. But a full excavation, there, had never been carried out. It was the last possibility. Pearson’s exhausted team dug in for days, fighting the wind and rain… then the cry went up… a new and large stone had been found.

The results are astonishing. The original circle at Waun Mawn comprised a full stone circle of between 30 and 50 large stones. The circle is the third largest in the UK, even bigger than Long Meg, in Cumbria. The stones were of a blue hue… and one of them had a socket hole with no stone; and that socket matched one of the stones at Stonehenge, exactly. The socket had found its ‘tooth’ – 160 miles away. All of this had been protected by the Welsh peat for 5000 years.

The full story almost needs a stiff whisky to absorb… The Bluestone circle at Stonehenge was the original circle, transported by the tribe from Preseli who migrated to Wiltshire, taking their most treasured object with them. The massive, outer Sarsen stone circle was added, later, at a time when the makers had perfected their art… but they never abandoned their beloved original circle…. which is still there for us all to see and feel – the inner ring of Stonehenge…

All of this is the subject of an excellent BBC documentary, available for the next ten months on the BBC’s iPlayer service, presented by Professor Alice Roberts.

(Above: The BBC programme Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed. Copyright BBC)

And there my narrative was due to end, but then, preparing the blog post from last Thursday on the new findings from Orkney, I saw footage of Professor Parker Pearson walking with Neil Oliver at the intact Neolithic village of Skara Brae.

Last week’s blog discussed the findings that Orkney was the place of origin of all the British stone circles, whose journey took them (predominantly) down the west coast of the British Isles… culminating at Stonehenge in what is now Wiltshire, where the last of their Bluestone masterworks was given its new and final home, set within the most magnificent stone circle ever created.

And you have to ask, assuming they survived, what did these remarkable people build next? But that’s for another day… not that I have the answer, mind you. But I’m watching the people who might have, very closely…

Professor Parker Pearson is the co-author of an interim report on the dig at Waun Mawn. The link to the PDF is here.

If you want to follow the Silent Eye’s workshop on the trail of the Picts and Sacred Orkney, here are the other parts of that series:

Sacred Orkney:

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine – end,

The preceding Pictish Trail weekend blog posts:

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine

©Stephen Tanham, 2021.

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye – a modern yet mystical journey through the forest of personality to the sunrise of Being.

Interlude ~ Being There

| Sue Vincent

It was quite strange, really. After a brief, initial wander around the inner stones of Stonehenge, marvelling at the scale and workmanship, almost all of the little party of out-of-hours visitors congregated by the storyteller to listen to and question his words. To be fair, he was an interesting and knowledgeable guide, but knowledge you can find anywhere and anytime… experience, presence, feeling the spirit and atmosphere of a place? That can only be a gift of the moment and once past, such moments may never come again.

That was certainly the way I was feeling, as I walked between the stones, greeting old friends I had not seen this closely in over forty years. You cannot touch the stones these days…but then, you do not need to. The magic of the place wraps itself around you like a warm blanket.

Stonehenge is a place where legend and mystery meet and meld. It was raised by the giants who once inhabited these blessed isles… or by the Devil, stealing the stones from an old woman… or by Merlin, asked to build a monument by Uther Pendragon for his fallen men, using stones carried by magic, by water and by music all the way from Ireland… Although, of course, the usual Arthurian myths go back only a thousand years to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Nowhere near far enough for this ancient circle, although Monmouth’s stories may have reached back into a more ancient past for their source and inspiration. Oddly enough, though, the old stories do tie in with the idea of music or vibration as part of the stone circle’s properties and with the idea that the stones were carried here by sea.

The first phase of Stonehenge was completed around five thousand years ago. Whatever the original purpose of the monument had been, by four hundred years later, it had become a burial ground. Not only were the original, ritualistic interments still present, but many other cremations and some unburned bones had been randomly buried in the Aubrey Holes and ditch. Some kind of wooden post structure had been erected too, and I have to wonder if it is not from this point in time that the site, its solar alignments clearly marked and probably celebrated still, gained a reputation for healing.

If the purpose of the original builders had fallen into desuetude, leaving behind only the rumour and echo of power, might it not be that people brought their sick here in hopes of a cure? Even today, the bluestones of Preseli are credited with healing properties, while those that were carried across the country to build Stonehenge must have been seen as utterly magical.

For myself, it was magical too, with so many memories flooding back of time spent within the stones as a child held at the centre of a family, and later as a young woman, always aware that the stones were more than they appeared on the surface. But it was already the end of a long day. I had driven for much of it and the long drive ahead would make us late getting home. I was bone-weary and, looking at the photographs that were taken, was gaunt, grey and haggard. If anyone was in need of a little help that day, it was me.

To heal is not necessarily to cure. The two may, or may not, go hand in hand and may, in fact, have little to do with bodily ills. There was certainly healing to be had walking between the stones that day… a softening of hard edged tension, a gathering of resources and whatever it was that would tip me over the edge to a place where seeking help became a life-saving necessity rather than a dithering choice. We had barely begun to explore the wonders of the construction, but for a while, it was simply enough to just be there.

Interlude ~ Sound principles?

| Sue Vincent

We waited for a few minutes while our small group took pictures of the stones of Stonehenge. It is rare to be able to photograph the monument without hordes of people, but with the gates closed to the general public, calm descends. We were all waiting to be allowed within the circle of stones, but I wondered how many had realised that we had actually been within Stonehenge itself for quite some time.

The remains of the outer embanked ditch, situated outside the normal visitor path and often overlooked.

Over five thousand years ago, our ancestors created a circular ditch and embankment, some three hundred and sixty feet in diameter. It was dug out using antler picks, and yet, curiously, they buried animal bones, flint tools and antlers of a far greater age in the bottom of the ditch itself. These were not simply old things that they had cast away, they were placed there with care after being looked after for many years. Why such reverence? What did these animals represent for the diggers of the ditch? Were they perhaps invoking the guardianship of the clan’s Spirit Animals… or that of the Ancestors themselves? As the bones belonged to deer and oxen, perhaps they were attempting to ensure that the herds were kept safe and plentiful, and that their bounty would serve the clan’s needs.

It was not until the seventeenth century, that antiquarian John Aubrey discovered fifty-six pits, arranged around the inner edge of the ditch. These became known as the Aubrey Holes. In 1920, the early days of modern archaeology, William Hawley excavated over fifty thousand bone fragments, dumping them unceremoniously together into one of the Aubrey Holes, as being of no importance.

Scale model showing the embankment and ditch, within which the Aubrey Holes hold the bluestones. Image: Stuart France

The bones belonged to sixty three men, women and children, each of whom had been cremated and their remains interred with meticulous care. In 2013, Mike Parker Pearson and his team brought more rigorous modern methods to bear on the bones and the pits, finding that each pit may have held a bluestone, which they suggested may have been as a grave marker. I have to wonder at that…

The bluestones are not the huge trilithons, but substantial pillars of stone that now form the inner circle. They were famously quarried and carried to the spot from Wales, over a hundred and fifty miles away. This discovery meant that the first ‘stone circle’ at Stonehenge was possibly five hundred years earlier than had been thought. Not only that, but analysis of the bone fragments showed that most of those buried had lived most of their lives in Wales… not on the Plain around Stonehenge.

So, just who were these men, women and children whose calcined bones merited burial beneath a sacred stone, carried all the way across the country? Why would such stones be placed as simple ‘grave markers? Were the stones perhaps more intimately connected with the men and women who were buried beneath them?

We can only speculate and attempt to put ourselves in the minds and hearts of those who walked the land thousands of years ago. What if the dead had served the stones or the clan? Or both, considering how far they had travelled together. Was the burial a way of assigning a guardian to each stone and its properties… enshrining an Ancestor to act as intercedent and wisdom keeper, perhaps?

And why were the bluestones so special? What did they bring to the spirit of the place?

As we were finally allowed into the circle, I thought about the research that has been done on sound. The bluestones of Preseli have been tested, and ring like bells when struck. A scale model of the completed monument has been tested in an acoustic chamber, proving conclusively that sound made within the open-to-the-winds structure would have been amplified and acquired the resonance of an indoor amphitheatre. I have seen visual representations of soundwaves that look like the petroglyphs carved in ancient tombs… and I thought back to the experiments we have been drawn to do with sound and chant within the sacred places. Of ‘lighting up’ the stones of Bryn Celli Ddu after we had chanted and verbally renewed our dedication. Of potentially hitting the right note or vibration to ‘unlock’ the stones…

Long ago, the only enclosed spaces would have been the caves, which our earliest ancestors made their homes and sanctuaries. They would have learned to understand acoustics, simply by living there, listening to the echoes and distortions, perhaps even using such sounds to navigate the passageways.

Barrows across the wider Stonehenge landscape look like star systems… Image: Stuart France

The caverns would not merely have been a place of safety and refuge from the weather, they would also be the belly of the earth… a place in which you were held safe within the Mother. It was not until we began to build our homes and settlements that other such ‘inner spaces’ would be created. But you can imagine how magical the sound of inner space would be when you are out beneath the stars…

If sound were key to the bluestones, that would make sense… especially as they are not really blue; the dolerite stones look like the darkness of interstellar space scattered with swirling galaxies…

And yet, a short while later, as I stood between those bluestones once more… none of the ’mind stuff’, research or even logic mattered while Stuart chanted for me, quietly and unobtrusively, for healing. All I could feel were the waves of sound, wrapping around me and lighting my spine as we had once lit Bryn Celli Ddu…

Interlude ~ Before the Stones

| Sue Vincent

The trouble with writing about somewhere like Stonehenge… somewhere that almost everyone recognises and feels they know something … is that most of us know nothing at all apart from the familiar form of the circle and trilithons.

We just accept that this is an ancient monument, built by people who were maybe not quite as savage as we generally think, for some strange ritual purpose… probably to do with the stars or planets. Or it was built by the Druids? And all the stones came from Wales… And that really is about all most of us know…and most of that is wrong or at least, woefully incomplete.

Stonehenge… the first part of the name is thought to come from the old word for ‘hanging stones’… or ‘stones suspended in air’. The ‘henge’ refers to an outer and circular earthen embankment with an internal ditch, such as the one around the great circle of Avebury, where we had been earlier that afternoon. At Stonehenge, however, the ditch is outside the embankment; just one of many of the anomalies of this site that make it quite unique. Time, feet and erosion have taken their toll on the henge, but the ditch and banks, overlooked by most, can still be seen on the outer edge of the monument field.

Then there are the misconceptions about its timeline… for the circle was built in phases on a site already held and made sacred by the many burials it contained. And then there is the sheer scale of the site… because you simply cannot ignore the number of other archaeological features that cluster around the circle, rippling out across the wider landscape to include many miles and the mindboggling possibility that the vast sites around both Stonehenge and Avebury were designed to work together. And, even when you stand within the circle, it looks something of a jumble to begin with until you begin teasing apart the layers of history. So where do you begin?

Showing just the major monuments immediately around Stonehenge. Image: © Martin J. F. Fowler

At Blick Mead, about a mile from the circle of Stonehenge, is a freshwater spring that neither fails nor freezes all year round. Not only would this water source have made the area useful for both people and animals… it was also a magical spot. And its magic remains to this day, suggesting a second reason why our ancestors chose to settle here. The water of the spring contains a rare algae, turning stones that have been in the water red within an hour or so of being exposed to air. Not surprising, then, that ten thousand years ago, towards the end of the Mesolithic period, when the hunter-gatherer culture of the Middle Stone Age was beginning to settle in one place instead of always following the herds, a settlement should have been built at Blick Mead.

We know from other sites across the country, such as Star Carr in North Yorkshire, that there was a sense of magic and ritual within the human community at that time. The ground conditions at Star Carr preserved unusual amounts of organic material, including a number of headdresses… antler frontlets, made from the horned skulls of red deer, artworks and ornaments. Some of these had been deliberately broken, which implies either gratitude or a sacrifice to some higher power. Which in turn suggests that reverence and spiritual beliefs were well-formed and ingrained.

Unsophisticated caveman?

We know too from sites such as Warren Field in Aberdeenshire, that these Mesolithic peoples were capable of constructing complex sites. Warren Field also dates back ten thousand years and its pits and a midwinter alignment within the landscape constitute an accurate lunar calendar.

The fact that these three sites alone, Stonehenge, Star Carr and Warren Field, are spread end to end across our country, tells us that there was more travel and interaction between areas and tribal groups than we might at first have thought… and thus a sharing of knowledge and techniques was possible that would rapidly disseminate ideas.

Studies run by the University of Buckingham conclude that the settlement at Blick Mead shaped Salisbury Plain to their needs over the course of several thousand years. Six thousand years ago, the trees were cleared across the Plain. A causewayed enclosure was built at Robin Hood’s Ball near Amesbury, just a few miles walk across the Plain. Long barrows began to appear too… and there are well over three hundred known barrows within just a two mile radius of the circle at Stonehenge… around eight hundred in all.

Timeline of major landscape features around Stonehenge.

Not every body warranted a barrow burial, but many of those who were so buried were interred with rich and beautiful things. This gives an idea if the importance of the area in spiritual or ancestral terms. As each of the ancestors were lain in earth, perhaps their spirits added to the cumulative wisdom of the land and its people. Perhaps the presence of the dead rendered the living fit for the priesthood. Perhaps, after millennia of association, it was from the community at Blick Mead that the idea sprang to raise a forest of stone beneath the stars…

Interlude: Looking Back…

| Sue Vincent

The mere idea of “saving the ‘best’ till last” was feeling all too prophetic. Especially as ‘best’ is debatable anyway.’ Most iconic, perhaps, best known worldwide, most unusual… but just ‘best’ is  too subjective. From the magic of mountain-girt Castlerigg, to the intimacy of Barbrook, where ancestral voices still whisper, each circle has its own feel and character. Perhaps Stonehenge is the Westminster Abbey of stone circles… but it is in the quiet chapels of the tiny parish churches where the prayers of centuries are most often felt.

Where we ought to have been recently, on the Orkney Islands, we might have touched something similar, something older, for there are theories that the Megalithic culture spread from those isles… or perhaps they too were just another stepping stone back towards an even more ancient vision.

But we were here and now. It had been a long day. I had already driven for hours and would have hours more to drive before we were home. I was ill, struggling and, had we had any sense whatsoever, we would not have even considered such a trip under the circumstances.

But then, sense does not come into it when you are called… and there had been far too many synchronicities for us to think otherwise. Even the group who would finally be allowed within the circle was less than half its usual permitted number; it was a mere handful of strangers, therefore, spread across two buses, who would be free to wander within the stones of Stonehenge.

“I saw you at the stones wrapped in wings,” had said my healer-friend, so I had worn my favourite scarf, surprised it was warm enough to be without a decent shawl at this time of year and evening. I would have liked to walk to the great stones, each step carrying me one step closer to both past and future across the long-sacred earth. A pilgrimage, of sorts and a homage to memories of my own long-ago. But the ravens walked with me as I lagged behind, failing to keep up, even on the short path from the bus.

I was not at all in the frame of mind that I should have been. I think, most of all, I was afraid that the circle would have closed down… that it would no longer feel ‘right’ after so much attention by so many people…many of whom are simply gawping at something they will tick off their tour list as having ‘done’. Were my memories of the place, of the feel of it, anywhere near accurate… or any reflection of what was left, now the site was under corporate protection?

I desperately wanted Stuart to be able to feel some trace of what I had known when the stones stood free to the wind and to the worship. Not how they had felt from outside when last I had brought someone here, milling around the edges with thousands of others…

Our guide and guardian, a storyteller, took us to the edge of the grass, allowing us a few minutes to take people-less photographs of the circle before we went inside. And as soon as my feet touched the forbidden green beyond the barriers, seeing all the faces emerge from the stones, I knew my fears were groundless.

The circle opened its heart to welcome me back… and ‘welcoming’ was exactly the feeling Stuart reported later, with a good deal of surprise. It was not what he had expected from the place at all. It is hard to find words that describe it… as if each of the different types of stone… the sarsens, bluestones, gneiss and many others… all sing a different note, but no matter how beautifully they harmonise, their song needs to pass through the human heart in order to be heard, felt and lived. So it was with tears of gratitude streaming… and probably a very silly grin… that we finally entered the circle of stones.

 

Interlude ~ Saving the ‘best’?

| Sue Vincent

So, while we should have been on a workshop and holiday, I was stuck in that limbo between the medics telling me it ‘looks like cancer’ and them doing something about it. I was determined that, before the doors closed on adventure, at least for a while, we would have at least one more. And it needed to be a good one.

We had revisited Rollright, paid our respects at Churchill’s grave, nodded to half a dozen White Horses and spent some time with the great stones of Avebury. There was really only one thing left that we could do… at least at this end of the country. And, even then, it would be pushing it for me to drive the distance.

We had to go to Stonehenge.

As a child and young woman, before the barriers and management rolled in, roping off the stones to protect them from further damage, I had spent a lot of time with them, getting to know the feel of them and wandering amongst their strange presence.  Since before the building of the henge and circles, before the barrows,  it would seem that humankind has held this place sacred, as not only settlements but burials have been found here dating back a full ten thousand years. We had passed the site several times now on our travels, each time considering that we ‘ought’ to visit the stones, as Stuart has seen them only from a distance… and each time deciding that we just could not do it.

The stones, seen from the road in high summer, seem like some magical creature with its wings clipped and caged in a zoo, visitors are funnelled around the outside of the circle at a safe and respectful distance. There are crowds. Noise… hubbub. On the one occasion I had taken friends there who are sensitive, it had ended in grief and tears… the atmosphere is wrong. No matter how carefully the authorities site their visitor centre, how lightly they appear to touch the landscape, the simple fact that around a million and a half people come to visit this one stone circle, every single year, cannot help but leave its psychic mark.

But this year, there had been the COVID lockdown. The site had been closed for month. There had been less travel, fewer visitors… time for the stones to take a deep breath and recuperate… There had to be something good to come from the social distancing measures.

And, given the circumstances, this might well be not only our best chance but also our last to visit the most iconic stone circle in the world. It had to be done.

But, we would still be kept at a distance from the stones… behind the barriers… walking around them in frustrated circles… and you really need to be within the circle. Having known it myself in earlier times, I wanted to be able to share that experience… because it changes everything.

I booked our timed tickets… and could not believe that I was lucky enough to be able to book, for that day, when it is usually fully booked months, sometimes years in advance, as part of a handful of people who would be allowed beyond the barriers, within the stones, after hours. A wholly unexpected birthday gift would, ‘coincidentally’ cover the cost. As compensation for missing both the Scottish weekend and our holiday, it was as much as we could do… and all fell into place so neatly…

And yet,  I still pulled up at the visitor centre filled with trepidation. It had been a long time since I had last visited Stonehenge, up close and personal… What impact has the new centre had on the landscape? It looked quite discrete to be fair, at least now when it was empty of visitors…

What protective measures would be in place and would we really be able to get a feel for the stones in the way I remembered? Our ever-present robin seemed to laugh at my fears as we waited for the bus that would take us across the monument fields. We could only wait and see…

Going west – walking with angels

| Sue Vincent

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We didn’t have to climb the whole height of the mountain; there is a makeshift car park about halfway up. I was glad of that, as my poor, much abused feet were not happy. I spend much of my life barefoot, the soles of my feet offer better protection than most of my shoes these days and anyway, I like to feel the earth beneath my feet. Left to my own devices, I would have walked in the flimsy lace slippers that allow them to breathe and expand, but common sense demanded the walking shoes be worn. It would be a long way to carry an idiot with a twisted ankle back down the mountain and we had been warned of a scramble over loose scree at the top.

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Walking shoes come into their own in rain and winter weather…or when crossing the boggy stretches of moorland born of upland springs that bar your way, even when it hasn’t rained for weeks. Their soles are thick and rigid with excellent grip, their uppers breathable, their construction protective and waterproof and they hug the feet securely. They are faultless and comfortable… except when it is already hot and said feet are gasping for air and threatening to go on all-out strike if not given worker’s rights.

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Just to add insult to injury, as soon as my feet overheat at present, the pain and the itching of the spider bites returns. Consequently, my ascent of the mountain was slow, punctuated by muttered expletives and lacked the grace of the supercilious sheep and the ponies that watched our progress. They, I noted, had surrendered to the heat of the day and were comfortably lying on the grass.

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It is one of the inevitabilities of the ageing process that the body starts to impose limitations long before the inner self has begun to slow down. I am not sure that we ever have to leave our youthful eagerness and joy in life behind… but the consequences of the lives we have lived etch themselves on muscle and bone. Growing older is a privilege that should be appreciated for the gift it is…and one we would probably appreciate more often if it didn’t hurt so much.

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Sometimes, though, a slower pace is not such a bad thing. A leisurely stroll with frequent stops gives plenty of time to observe the land and its creatures, and this landscape was certainly worth more time than we would have. You could probably spend a lifetime on the mountain and still not learn all its secrets. Sometimes, too, that slower pace has unseen reasons that shadow forth a purpose other than our own. Without the aching feet, I would have missed something that will remain with me for a very long time.

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St Brynach, a local saint of the 6thC, is said to have climbed Mynydd Carningli many times,  when the busy life at the monastery he founded in Nevern became too much for him. He would walk to the summit to pray in the silence, surrounded by the beauty of his God’s Creation and ‘commune with the angels’.

Carningli_hillfort map by Brian John
                      Map of Carningli hillfort by Brian John, who set the hill at the heart of his books.

Mynydd Carningli, the ‘Hill of the Angels’, is an ancient volcano that rises some 1,138 feet above the sea and its origins are written in its stone. It is part of the Prescelli range of hills from which the famous Bluestones of Stonehenge were quarried and carried  some 140 miles to their home at the heart of the Hanging Stones. It appears to have been a sacred place for much of mankind’s history and is rich in archaeology. There would be no time to explore the massive hillfort that crowns the mountain and which goes back to the Bronze Age, or to go searching for the hut circles, gateways and revetments that make this such a fascinating, as well as such a beautiful place. We were climbing for other reasons.

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I wasn’t the only one struggling with the ascent that day. The fittest amongst us were way ahead of us, stopping occasionally to allow us to catch up for a while. The laggard group fell further and further behind and one of our Companions, already beyond his usual limits, started looking for another path back down.

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I could sympathise, but was determined to make the top. Our guide for the weekend was taking us to places that spoke to her heart and soul in words of silent beauty. They meant something to her, far beyond their undoubted historical or aesthetic value. In sharing them with us, she was opening a door through which we could see a glimmer of her own inner light. That level of trust a  thing of great beauty in itself.

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And there was another reason too… we planned on a sharing a healing meditation there for a much-loved friend whose health was giving cause for concern. I voiced this, as much to affirm my own determination as for any other reason and witnessed what was, for me, the most singularly beautiful moment of the whole weekend. “I needed to hear that right now,” said our weary Companion, straightening his back and striding on up the mountain. What he might not have attempted for himself he would do for Love.

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You have to climb to reach any summit, just as you have to travel to reach any destination. That journey is not only part of the experience, but gives value to its attainment. Stuart has a theory that the effort of the ascent is the willing sacrifice we make when we climb these sacred hills and what may be granted in return is exponential to the offering of self that you have made. Watching that determined back precede me up the mountain is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It is in such moments that you glimpse the true strength and beauty of the human heart and soul.

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Out of time – a human story

| Sue Vincent

avebury_reconstruction
CGI reconstruction of Avebury Henge, from ‘Standing with Stones’, by Rupert Soskin and Michael Bott

In 1939 a sculpture was found in Stadel-Höhle im Hohlenstein. Carved of mammoth ivory, the Löwenmensch, as the lion-headed anthropomorphic sculpture became known, was determined to be some 40,000 years old and is one of the oldest known examples of figurative art in the world. It is surprisingly sophisticated and, at first glance, could easily be mistaken for an artefact of the ancient Egyptian culture some 35,000 years later. The fusion of human and animal would imply a level of thought beyond the mundane… perhaps some magic to ensure a good hunt as the usual explanation would suggest, perhaps a desire to endure the strength of the lion for the hunter… we cannot know. What is clear that already our ancestors were looking at a reality beyond the purely physical realms… reality where such magic was possible, or where perhaps they had the intimation of a divinity behind the forces of nature.

The caves where the figurine was found also yielded other carvings, some thousands of years older still, along with evidence of instrumental music. Hardly what we generally expect from our idea of ‘cave men’. The cave paintings of Lascaux date back some 17,300 years. The swimming reindeer carving from Bruniquel is 13,000 years old. Our ancestors were evolving a more and more complex culture, with an obvious appreciation of art.

The Löwenmensch
The Löwenmensch. Image Wikipedia

Art is a luxury in many ways. It can only be created when there is no desperate struggle for survival. Its very existence at this far off time implies a certain amount of stability and ‘civilisation’. Its vision and complexity implies thought and creativity…and that was flourishing. From the simple napped flints of 50,000 years ago to more complex and purpose-designed tools like fish hooks and needles, the technological advances were spreading widely through cultural groups across Europe, Africa and Asia.

Nine thousand years ago the land mass known as Doggerland still connected Britain to the rest of continental Europe. It is from this time that the earliest traces of human activity have been found at Avebury. It was not until much later still, a mere 4,600 years ago that the great stone circle within its henge was constructed, contemporaneously with the pyramids of Egypt.

It is astonishing that some still look upon the great monument as no more than a stock enclosure or defensive structure. Most, however, look at the wider landscape and see the enormous undertaking as a Temple complex. The circle of Avebury does not stand alone. The Avenues, the Sanctuary and the vast mound of Silbury Hill are all too close to each other to ignore… and that is without the incredible number of round barrows, the beauty of West Kennet and the other long barrows, or the fragmented circles that dot the landscape, many lost over the centuries to farming.

From the caves of Lascaux
From the caves of Lascaux. Image Wikipedia

Merlin’s Mound is a mere six miles away, Marden henge, another huge bank and lost circle, just ten miles southwards, and Stonehenge ten miles south of Marden. It seems inconceivable that the three should not be linked to the same purpose.

My personal opinion, and that of many, is that our ancestors knew more than we give them credit for. If it is acceptable that Egypt could align pyramids with the stars and build fabulous temples, creating a beauty and a body of knowledge that has been preserved through five thousand years, how can we not credit the builders of these circles with as much sophistication?

Much of what we know of Egyptian culture only became accessible after the finding of the Rosetta Stone that allowed the decoding of the hieroglyphs. The builders of the stone circles left us nothing so simple as a written language to decode… they left us stone and earth, art and geometry. Theories spring up daily about intent and purpose, alignments are discovered… and dismissed… from the convincing to the ridiculous. There is a fascination that leads us to question and wonder… and perhaps we will never know the answers.

Perhaps we do not need facts carved in stone to begin to understand these sites, at least at a very human level. Whether or not we can interpret these immense landscapes, we can at least tread them with a shared reverence for the earth. The questions that echo in our own hearts, the search for understanding in our minds may not be so far removed from those behind the building of these temples. Life and death, purpose human and divine, the nature of being itself… I do not think the quest for understanding is exclusively the preserve of our modern society, but a human and global one. For those who walk within the stones of Avebury, as we did for the Mountains of the Sun weekend, there is a sense of connection that does not span time, but transcends it, and snakes, like the stones of the Avenues, across the face of our shared and continuing story.

Avebury, the Avenue. Image S. Vincent
Avebury, the Avenue. Image S. Vincent