Description

‘HOW TO READ STONEHENGE’ provides a clearly written visual guide that showcases how the sky-watching architects of Stonehenge cleverly combined pairs of stone formations to provide stunning, multiple-slit viewing perspectives that indicate the solar migration movements – and not just the June summer solstice sunrise and December winter solstice sunset, to which the axis was aligned. Using detailed illustrations, author Colin Parker invites the reader inside the monument – granting access on paper, given visitors no longer have access to the area around the stones in actuality – and demonstrates how these solar migration movements, charted by the monument’s stones, divide not only the Neolithic but also today’s vitally important agricultural year. After reading How to read Stonehenge, you’ll never look at the monument in the same way again. Colin Parker

Stonehenge Astronomical Observatory. Many ground-breaking discoveries are presented in “Stonehenge Astronomical Observatory”. You will not find this information in any other book at this time. Good evidence has been found which demonstrates that Stonehenge was indeed an observatory. The principle of operation is very simple, but the implemention is remarkably complex, which then permits the observation and mapping of the entire visible sky, not just of the sun and moon positions, but of the stars and planets also. Writing this book has been a tremendous journey of discovery for me, and I do feel enormously privileged to have done it. At times I have had an overwhelming sense of the close presence of the people of Stonehenge. This can only come from an understanding and empathy with their lives and their experiences, which in many ways are very much our own experiences, but also in many ways are so different. The journey of discovery has only just begun however, and there is so much more to see in the coming months and years. My findings are presented in a logical way, and are very much grounded in careful observations. I have re-interpreted a number of long-held assumptions, which I feel make a much more satisfying and logical account of the phases of construction of Stonehenge. This has led me to devise a new theory for its decline and destruction. This theory may seem far-fetched at first, but there is a logical progression, and it accounts for the mysterious Y and Z holes, which have been a puzzle for so long. It will be interesting to see how our collective understanding of the people of Stonehenge broadens and deepens in the future. Nevertheless, I do have a strong sense that the people of Stonehenge are calling out to us across the millennia, a very wide gap that appears to divide us. Their story is more than one of purely academic interest, and we must surely learn from their wisdom, and indeed disasters, and so to apply that knowledge to the world of today. Hugo Jenks

Stonehenge Biography of a Landscape. More than a million people visit Stonehenge World Heritage Site every year, pondering the stones and soaking up the surrounding landscape. Timothy Darvill questions; When was it built? Who built it? What was it? How did it work? Here Tim Darvill argues that around 2600 BC local communities transformed an existing sanctuary into a cult centre that developed a big reputation: perhaps as an oracle and healing place. For centuries people came from near and far, and even after activities at the site began to decline the memory lived on and people chose to be buried within sight of the stones. But Stonehenge itself is only part of the story that involves the whole landscape. People came to the area during the last Ice Age nearly half a million years ago. Long before Stonehenge was built they were erecting posts, digging pits to contain sacred objects, and constructing long mounds to house their dead. By the Age of Stonehenge this was a heavily occupied landscape with daily life focused along the River Avon. Later, farms and hamlets were established, Roman villas came and went, and from about AD 1000 the pattern of villages dotted along the valleys and the town of Amesbury came to prominence. In the last hundred years or so the army established training grounds and camps, but the biggest battles in recent years have been over the future of Stonehenge landscape. Timothy Darvill