The technology of the indigenous people, characterised by their materials of stone, flint and bone, limited their construction activities to the simple fashioning of timber, digging holes, or pits, where this was possible, and merging the two. Nevertheless they were invariably aware of what was in the ground beneath their feet (via waymarking pits), and this not only governed the methods they developed, but also their knowledge of the sources of materials, for example local clay for pottery.
In contrast they had two extraordinary skills. Firstly: quarrying, transporting across the countryside, and standing on end, huge unfashioned stones weighing up to 64 tonnes, far heavier than the largest at the Stone henge. Quarrying on the Marlborough Downs and erecting them at Avebury is the most impressive example. Handling fashioned stones one visualises as being difficult, but rough unfashioned ones of that weight, seem to be beyond belief (i).
Secondly, around the countryside (but not in the east and southeast of England) they created hundreds of installations for observing small changes in the Moon's apparent paths. As already noted, in rocky terrains this was done by observing the changes of shadow-lengths of rings of upright stones. In other areas it was done using posts, or poles, their butts secured with backfill in pits, as explained earlier. There were also other different and more ingenious methods, although far fewer, but the effectiveness of all of them was bounded by the prevailing technology, see chapter 3. This limited what could be done in balancing accuracy of observation with the stability of settings.
The installations were isolated and spontaneous, which is to say there was little or no cross-fertilisation of ideas from one location to another. But there were a few locations where a succession of developments took place in close proximity to one another, a good example being at Dorchester, Oxfordshire (see (ii) in chapter 2). The emergent, unique, characteristics of the people in this respect, were an intimate knowledge of the Moon's movements, and ingenuity in exploiting to the full the limits of their technology, which was locally developed to varying levels at their settlements.
Clearly, there is an enormous gulf between this indigenous technology and these skills on the one hand, and the sophistication of the design of the Stone henge and the construction skills it implies, on the other. Demonstrably the builders must have been visitors to these shores and the only known place for such achievements by this date is Egypt, where pyramids and obelisks already stood.
The concept of Egyptians voyaging to the British Isles is by no means far fetched, (ii). They were seafarers on the Mediterranean and this included towing rafts of timber from the Levant. They traversed the length of the Red Sea, a round trip of 2000 miles, and transported huge stones across and down the River Nile, Fig 23. Also, as we have seen, the Atlantic Ocean, Bay of Biscay and the English Channel would have been generally calmer than today.
Fig. 23 An Egyptian sea-going ship
(Click to enlarge & details)
Fortunately for us the Egyptians left their indelible mark on the installation and its site, in the form of (at least so far discovered), nine numbers, the dimensions and ratios of these being in Egyptian units (ii). Their basic unit of the Royal cubit (52.35 cm, or 20.62 inches) was divided into 28 digits, four of which equalled a palm, of which there were seven. A single example will suffice: the 'aim-design' of the inner radius of the sarsen circle was 28 cubits, its height under its beams, or lintels, 7cubits: a ratio of 4 to 1 (iii). (With one exception, execution of the 'aim-design' of every sarsen upright, ensured that one face be worked flat and smooth.) The number 28 is the hidden soul of the Stone henge.
Further evidence of Egyptian authorship is: the concept of the tray in the joint, such a feature being employed in columns in their homeland; the sheer size of their structures dwarfing humans; and as we will see, in the methods and process of construction. It is clear chisels must have been used for the fine work of the joint, but to date none has been excavated. Surprisingly none have been found in Egypt either, although self-evidently, they were used in sculpting for example, as unfinished work in museums reveals. An intriguing difference between Britain and Egypt is that while the Stone henge is a circular structure, there is none such in Egypt, where without exception, all are rectangular. This reflects the fact that the Stone henge was a spontaneous improvisation.
