Stonehenge Solved Its Three Observatories, Who built them, How and Why

When I explain my conclusions about the Stone henge, I am often asked "How do you know?" While the answer is a simple one in principle, demonstrating it requires patience and attention to detail: the monument itself tells us what it did and who built it. But between the clues it provides, and our achievement of understanding, are seven veils. Like the audiences of Eastern dancers, we must patiently see their discards before appreciating the ultimate, intriguing reality. However, ours is the more challenging task because it is we who have to identify each veil and arrange its removal, and the most difficult is the first, because it is of our own making. It is to put behind us all that we have seen and heard, along with our own past thoughts on the matter, and approach the Stone henge with a blank, but open and curious mind. We are preparing ourselves for close analysis of the observable, not inspired generalisations, a difficult first veil indeed. For the time being our mantra must be 'Suspend Judgement'.

The next two veils are very much the outcome of the Stone henge standing on Salisbury Plain for 4000 years. As many illustrations make clear, and self evidently as we approach the monument from a distance, it is a seeming jumble of stones, of various shapes and sizes, as though it has suffered collapse, as indeed it has, from a number of causes, natural and man-made. To collapse we can add vandalism of various sorts, ranging from bits of stone being chipped off as souvenirs, to stones being carried away for construction work elsewhere. Our task here is how to return all the stones to their original positions in our mind's eye and this is not as simple as may appear at first sight. While mistakenly assuming an empty space was occupied by a particular stone, a seemingly undisturbed one may not have been part of the original design, but part of the construction process.

Our third veil is comprised of all the effects of weathering. Where today the large stones, called 'sarsens' are an unrelieved grey in colour, when first fashioned and erected they had a pinky grey appearance. Most of the small ones tend to be blue when fractured and hence collectively are often referred to as 'Bluestones'. A damaging effect has been rain entering fissures in the stones, to become ice during frosts, ultimately resulting in local crumbling, a process complimented by expansion in hot sunshine. The ground itself has not escaped; soil erosion has resulted in its surface today being about 30cm (12 inches) lower than when the stones were erected; wind, rain and again frosts, are the culprits.

Most of the upright stones we see have been re-erected, having fallen over, or have been reinforced with concrete to prevent this, and this brings us to the fourth veil: the consequences of restoration. Are they in their original positions, and are they accurately placed? Fortunately, with one exception, a lintel on the west, they seem to be. We can add the deleterious effects of excavations, but these are largely limited to a fierce scouring of the entire top surface of the ground to several inches deep, on the east half of the monument. The west side remains largely untouched in this respect.

In contrast to the previous ones, the next two veils are very helpful because they provide vital clues, both to the intended design and to the construction methods and process. But we need to recognise them for what they are: poor workmanship and deviations from the intentions of the original designers; these are not necessarily the same. Poor workmanship can give rise to the necessity for rectification, or in the absence of this, possible failure in service. Deviations from the intended design can possibly arise from mistakes by workmen, or contrived by them to overcome difficulties unforeseen by the designer.

Our last obstacle is not so much a veil as a quartet of siren voices: four rings of holes outside the sarsen stone circle which fall into two categories, the innermost three being concerned with construction of the Stone henge. These are known as the Z, Y, and 'Aubrey' holes, as we move outwards. The outer fourth, more an arc of small holes rather than a ring, is in the southeast sector, squeezed between the bank and the Aubrey holes. But to these can be added four small upright stones sited on the same circle as the arc, and at the same time constituting four corners of a rectangle; in aggregate these constitute the Final henge. (This arc of holes is invariably absent from plans and illustrations.) For the time being we can ignore these rings of holes until they assume their logical places in the scheme of things, Fig 1.

Be all this as it may, we need to arrive at two clear pictures, above all, the intended design, but also how the monument looked when building work ceased. Potentially there may be big differences between the two. At this point, possibly, can come the realisation that the whole truth about the monument may be stranger than fiction, and perhaps more exciting than romancing.