The Sanctuary Stone Circle
The Sanctuary - an astronomical calendar - part 2
(part 1 click here)
Close to Silbury Hill on the
A.4 road from Marlborough lies the site of a ruined stone circle
that holds many puzzles.
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Picture of what remains today of
the Sanctuary Stone Circle |
- This circle comprised a series of concentric
circles formed by stones and timber posts which archaeologists
believe could have been a hut temple, for it marks the start
of the Avenue of stones that leads to the henge monument of Avebury.
In addition this site could easily have been used as a sophisticated form
of astronomical calculator.
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- The article below enlarges on
this theme.
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- The Sanctuary Mystery
(extract
from the book 'The Keys to the Temple')
The Marlborough Downs area
includes a number of enigmatic megalithic structures. Silbury
Hill is certainly one of them, but so too is the Sanctuary. This
circular monument standing an the edge of the A.4 road with good
views to Silbury Hill and the long barrows of East and West Kennett,
comprises a number of concentric rings of both post holes and
small standing stones. It is thought to have been put up in several
stages commencing around 2,900 BC, with the posts supporting
a thatched roof circular building, but little else is sure on
the reasons for the erection of this edifice.
In order to calculate the rhythm of the seasons some system needs
to be established which measures the angular declination of the
Sun. One way to do this is by tracking its sunrise and sun set
positions as it moves across the horizon. Monuments such as Stonehenge,
which indicates Midsummer sunrise, Newgrange which shows Midwinter
sunrise and Maes Howe which depicts Midwinter sunset provide
this function.
I used to live on the western side of the Malvern Hills with
extensive views out towards the Welsh Hills and in particular
Hay Bluff near the town of Hay-on-Wye. During the spring and
autumn months the passage of the Sun was very marked by its sunset
positions as it moved forward in the Spring and back in the Autumn
along the line of the distant hills. In early October and late
February it set in a notch in the hills created by Hay bluff.
I would often take the trouble to watch out for this moment and
it was so apparent when watching the last rays of the sun dip
below the horizon how powerfully this could act as both a religious
experience as well as an astronomical calculator.
Another way to track the movement of the Sun is with a sun dial.
Placing a vertical post in the ground or on a level surface will
indicate the approximate time of day (providing the sun is shining)
and by measuring the length of the Sun's shadow at noon the season
could also be marked. To make these necessary calculations one
effectively needs a giant sundial.
It so happens that the Sanctuary monument provides all of these
requirements and much more. Fortuitously it does have a post
hole right in the middle of the monument which we could suppose
held a circular upright post with a pointed end. The monument
would then become a sundial indicating the times of day, the
seasons through the year and the time of the major solar configurations.
In refutation of Professor Thom's Megalithic Yard Aubrey Burl
cites the concentric rings of the Sanctuary as evidence that
megalithic peoples did not build in multiples of these units.
For as he states:
"The
Sanctuary with its seven concentric rings offers a unique opportunity
to examine the validity of this 'yardstick' (Megalithic Yard)
because consistency would be expected in the counting and measuring
of these closely related rings. Yet, although a counting-base
of four is manifest here from the number of posts in each ring,
four is never used in the number of Megalithic Yards supposedly
making up each diameter. Nor is any diameter an exact multiple
of this Yard. Instead of a logical progression of 4 Megalithic
Yards, 8 , 12, and so on one finds an unconvincing mixture of
4.4 Megalithic Yards, 5.0, 7.1, 11.4, 12.6, 17.2, and 23.8 Megalithic
Yards."
The reason for these discrepancies has, I am sure, nothing to
do with the existence of the Megalithic Yard. It is, I believe,
because the designers of this monument were interested in marking
significant dates of the year as part of their religious calendar.
As the Sun travelled through the seasons so the length of the
noon day shadow would either increase or decrease being at its
longest at the mid-winter solstice and its shortest at the summer
solstice.
These concentric rings could act as calendar to indicate different
dates through the year highlighted when the sun's noon day shadow
touched a specific ring of the circle. Using the measurements
given by Aubrey Burl for the position of the rings I carried
out a number of calculations based on the position of the sun's
rays for this latitude at different times of the year. Firstly
I needed to establish a hypothetical length for the shadow pole.
Without direct evidence this can only be an assumption, but certain
factual information helped.
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