Public Libraries of Suffolk County, New York

Solving Stonehenge, the new key to an ancient enigma, Anthony Johnson

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 278-283) and index

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Solving Stonehenge

Anthony Johnson

the new key to an ancient enigma

This work presents a new solution to the key puzzles of Stonehenge. As the author reveals in this book, patient detective work and detailed computer analysis of clues hidden within this famous monument can be made to yield remarkable new insights into how the earthwork and stone circle were conceived and laid out. The story begins with a reappraisal of over 250 years of fieldwork, excavation, and speculation, including John Wood's highly accurate but often overlooked survey of 1740. It is the most important record of Stonehenge ever made, and the only reliable plan of the monument before the fall of several major stones and their subsequent re-erection in the twentieth century. The prehistoric engineering skills involved in the construction of Stonehenge have long been recognized, but the author presents for the first time tangible evidence to show that locked within the symmetry of the stones are precise formulae that determined their numbers, spacing, and relationships. He explains how the Neolithic surveyors set out the fifty-six Aubrey Holes, four Station Stones, and the thirty stones in the Sarsen Circle; and the significance of the horseshoe arrangement of massive trilithons at the heart of the monument. The implications are far reaching, demonstrating that the people who designed Stonehenge in all its phases of construction, spanning over 1,000 years, employed simple and elegant geometric rules. Elaborate sightline theories, alignments, and astronomical computations are questioned, allowing the rationale behind Stonehenge and other prehistoric sites, some of which conformed to the same model, to be reassessed

Seeking explanations -- Landscape & opportunity -- Myth, legend & the early antiquarians -- Fieldwork, excavation & speculation -- The early earth & timber monument -- The stone monument -- Astronomy or architecture? -- The prehistoric surveyors -- The geometry of the early monument -- The geometry & construction of the stone monument -- Reassessing Stonehenge

adult