THE TEMPLE AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD

 

THE TEMPLE AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD

 

Over the years I've worked at Stonehenge, there is a question which is repeatedly asked and to which the expected answer is "It's a mystery, we don't know." It is: "Why was Stonehenge built HERE?" I believe there is a  plausible and fascinating answer to this question which fits all the evidence, but for which there is and probably never will be any absolute proof.

The environmental evidence, from snail shells, pollen (rare here), and other sources seems to show that the landscape around Stonehenge was relatively open grassland as far back as the Mesolithic. Near the river and perhaps up some of the side valleys there was woodland, but away from these there were only a few small copses scattered amid the rolling grassland of the plain. This in itself must have been rare in southern Britain, and may in part account for the special status of the area in Mesolithic and early Neolithic times.

During the Stonehenge Riverside Project's excavations (2004 - 2009), archaeologists found that the ditches of the Avenue enclose a set of roughly parallel periglacial gullies running down the slope, apparently formed by melt-waters from the permafrost at the end of the last glaciation. At some point, then, someone utilising this unusual landscape must have noticed the stripes of greener grass over the gullies running exactly along the alignment of the Summer Solstice sunrise - Winter Solstice sunset. To minds ready to read symbolic meaning into every part of the landscape this must have seemed more than coincidence and rendered it a place of special supernatural interest (an SSI of its day?). But that would have been nothing to their reaction when they climbed the slope to the top of the stripes and looked around.

Six years ago one of my colleagues, Simon Banton, pointed out to me the level horizon visible from the monument at Stonehenge. His interest was in the opportunity for astronomical observations this would have presented to Neolithic star-gazers: not only is the horizon from this point horizontal within a degree or so, but it would have been mostly clear of trees, and ideal for accurately locating the positions of solar and lunar standstills, not to mention all the stellar peregrinations they might have felt were significant.

Whilst I agree with this idea, and would be surprised if such an ideal site was NOT used as an observatory at some point, I think there is something else that the Neolithic stripe walkers would have seen when they reached more level ground at the top of the slope. Laid out around them and above them was a fine model of the cosmos, and there they were, standing at its very centre, on a site indicated by the solstice-aligned striations.

Before I expand on the 'model of the cosmos' idea, let me just reiterate what I have said before: that although the evidence for it is lacking across what is now England, I consider it likely that the religion of these islands, and indeed that of most of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Europe north of the Mediterranean, was a form of shamanism. In this view, the world - indeed all levels of the cosmos - are populated and run by spirit beings, some of which in some places were elevated at this time to the status of gods. The shamans were part-time priests, in that they were also farmers and warriors like other men and women, and were probably a small portion of the population (although in some hunter-gatherer societies many more people may have been shamans). They were of high status, and as hierarchies developed in societies across the continent, they may well have been among the elite from whom leaders were chosen (however that was done - by vote, by heredity, or by strength).

 Above: South-eastern Native American Cosmos. Below: Old Testament Israelite Cosmos.
(both artist's impressions)

Recent societies still operating within shamanic systems of belief (ie those whose beliefs have been recorded by anthropologists or other writers), whilst they show great variety in their practices, share a remarkably constant view of their world and the cosmos around it. Peoples as far apart as Siberia and Africa, the Amazon and Australia, share a broad set of beliefs in which the world we live in is a thin surface populated by both living animals and a wide variety of spirit beings. There are also one or more levels above the surface in which the sky spirits and/or gods dwell, and a matching number of underworld levels with their own sets of spirit inhabitants. In some of these, at least, the various levels are seen as disc shaped, just like the view visible from Stonehenge. This combination of a naturally open landscape and a circular, level horizon would have been almost unique in Britain at the time and would surely have been seen as highly significant in religious terms. The astronomical implications would have been an added bonus, and would have added to the overall impression that they were standing at the heart of a symbolic cosmos, which with just a modicum of reality adjustment could become real.

It is almost impossible at this time to be sure of any of the beliefs or perspectives of the Stonehenge people, but if they were anything like those I have suggested here, Stonehenge would have been a very special place indeed. This great stone temple was built on a site marked by the spirits as the centre, or at least on the axis, of the universe and of the shamanic reality. It was, quite literally, located at the Heart of the World.

Above: The Mayan Cosmos

STONEHENGE AS A CLASSICAL TEMPLE

 

STONEHENGE AS A CLASSICAL TEMPLE

When I tell people about Stonehenge, I find myself increasingly stressing two things. Firstly,  the stone monument of c.2500 BC was carefully and thoroughly planned, and built to a pre-determined design. For such a complex structure, there are few if any discernable mistakes, which indicates a planned project, designed presumably to fulfil its function  effectively. Second, although we do not know how it was used and are unable at present to prove that core function, there is little doubt that that function will be a religious one. Because, apart from anything else, this planned design bears an uncanny resemblance to later European religious buildings, most notably to the Classical Greek and Roman Temple.

Let me be clear about this. There is an almost 1800 year gap between the two structural forms, and I'm not suggesting that Stonehenge was used in the same way as the later temples, except in the broadest sense that both are religious buildings, designed to impress the visitor with their magnificence  and  power, and to increase the focus of the mind as he or she moves towards the centre of the building. The elements that make up the two building types are, however, directly comparable, suggesting that at least the concept of what constitutes a space for religious participation is already present in the minds of Neolithic Europeans. The ritual uses of the elements is likely to have changed in two millennia, as religion itself became more structured and the nature of worship evolved with the growth of stratified urban civilisations and stratified pantheons.

 

A RECONSTRUCTION OF STONEHENGE POST 2500BC

(Original source not given)

Now, most classical Greek Temples (let's stick with them, as the Romans tended to deviate more from the basic pattern), are composed of several concentric layers leading from the profane outside world to the sacred presence of the God deep inside. A perimeter wall encloses the temple precinct, in the centre of which stands the temple. The area behind the temple often contained storerooms and facilities for the priests, whilst the forecourt was used for low-level religious observances, private altars, and religious or other dealings between the priesthood and the public. At Stonehenge, there is a similar area between the outer boundary bank and ditch and the stone monument.  There is little evidence to show how this was used, but it is interesting that postholes (undated but normally considered to be older than the sarsen structure) form distinctly different patterns - indicating different activities - to the back and front of the stones.

 

The temple itself always presented its most impressive facade to the forecourt and normally comprised a tall building containing a usually rectangular hall (sometimes with side chambers) surrounded on all four sides by a colonnade of decorated stone pillars supporting the roof. The area between the inner hall (known as the cella) and the colonnade was used for religious processions and for more private consultations between priests and their public. This area - which became the ambulatory in later churches - is represented at Stonehenge by the outer circle of Sarsens with their lintels and the space between them and the inner "horseshoe" of trilithons. It is further accented by the inner circle of Bluestones which would have created a very believable ambulatory before the collapse of the structure.

At the centre of the temple is the sarsen Horseshoe, emphasised by the rearranged horseshoe of bluestones. which defines the most sacred area of the monument, equivalent to the Cella of classical temples. In Greek and Roman Temples, the focus of veneration is represented at the inner end of the cella by an altar and the statue of the god. In Christian churches the statue is replaced by a usually small cross or crucifix on the altar, and the awe that the statue is meant to create is enhanced by the morning light through the huge east window. At Stonehenge, we have no representations of gods (indeed, I would argue that we are in a pre-deity stage of religion) but we have the focus created by the altar stone and the positioning of the tallest trilithon, behind which the sun sets spectacularly at the end of each year.

All the elements of later temples are therefore present and presaged by the arrangements of stones at Stonehenge. The elements are present in earlier stone circles, such as the Rollright Stones, Castlerigg, Stanton Drew, and of course Avebury, but the concentric arrangement is new at Stonehenge, one of the last of the great stone circles to be built in Britain. It might be tempting to suggest that it is Stonehenge that sets the example which later European temples follow. Or is that a step too far?

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