Stonehenge Barrows

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Megalithic Site Name: Stonehenge Barrows
Nation/Country/State: United Kingdom, England
District/Region/Parish/County: Salisbury, Amesbury
Local Location: Salisbury Plain
GPS: 51°10'44" N, 1°49'35" W
Grid: SU 1224 4218
Monument No.: SU 14 SW 4
Unique Identifier: 219434
Special Features of the Barrows: The Stonehenge Barrows are clumped together in groups which have definite shapes - we allege these represent stellar constellations - and which surround the central Stonehenge site to a maximum distance of about 2 to 2 1/2 miles from the center.
Directions: On the A344 off the A303, 2 miles W of Amesbury & 9 miles N of Salisbury
Site Access: English Heritage & National Trust Members admitted free. Adults £5.90. Children £3.00. Concession £4.40. Family (2 adults + 3 children) £14.80. Closed Dec. 24-26 & Jan. 1. Opens daily 9:30 a.m. (9:00 June 1 - Aug. 31). Closes 4:00 p.m. (Oct. 16 - March 15), 6:00 p.m. (March 16 - May 31, Sep. 1 - Oct. 15), 7:00 p.m. (June 1 - Aug. 31).
Administration: English Heritage, The National Trust
Protection Status: World Heritage Site

The Book by Andis Kaulins
(2003 softcover)
(2006 hardcover)

click for details

STONEHENGE DECIPHERED: | Barrows | Groundplan | Sarsens | Trilithons | The Book |

STONEHENGE and its BARROWS, a book by William Long, 1876

Stonehenge and its Barrows is a book by William Long (Esq., M.A., F.S.A), published by Devizes in 1876 from the original publication in Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol. xvi.

STONEHENGE AND ITS BARROWS

Stonehenge and its Barrows front cover

STONEHENGE BARROWS
The graphic below is a scan composite (6 scans combined into one) by Andis Kaulins of a large survey map of the Stonehenge Barrows found in the book, Stonehenge and its Barrows, by William Long, 1876, Devizes, from the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol. xvi. The map is titled "A Map of Stonehenge and its Environs" with the circle of stones that we know as modern Stonehenge located in the middle as a small double circle.

Stonehenge Barrows

Our Stonehenge Barrows Astronomical Interpretation is found below. The barrows are marked as dark round dots on the map, which extends about two miles left and right in each direction and about one and a half miles each to top and bottom.

STONEHENGE BARROWS DECIPHERED

The authoritative historical work for the Stonehenge Barrows is a book by William Long (Esq., M.A., F.S.A) titled Stonehenge and its Barrows, published by Devizes in 1876 from the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol. xvi. That book has a survey map of the barrows which surround Stonehenge to a maximum distance of about 2 to 2 1/2 miles around the Stonehenge central stone circle.

These barrows are not scattered randomly throughout the countryside but are clumped together in definite groups, some of which look very much like known asterisms viz. constellations of the stellar heavens, i.e. bright stars that can be grouped together to form a recognizable shape, even though these groupings may not have been exactly the same in ancient days as they are today. At the Stonehenge Barrows, this unmistakeable similarity holds particularly true for the stars of Scorpio, which in prehistoric times marked the line of the Equinoxes.

Andis Kaulins thinks that the Stonehenge Barrows are the key proof for the astronomical orientation of Stonehenge and its environs. Kaulins thinks - quite apart from any other use to which the barrows may have been put by ancient megalithic man in the Neolithic Era (Stone Age)- that the Stonehenge Barrows mark stars of the sky in an organized formation called a planisphere, a hermetic practice evidenced for example among the archaic traditions of Native American Indian tribes and described, for example, in an article by Alice C. Fletcher in the 1902 issue of the American Anthropologist.

In the graphic below, our interpretation of the Stonehenge Barrows is an astronomical one, showing that Stonehenge marked the Pole Star in ca. 1750 B.C., an era to which Gerald Hawkins assigns the building of Stonehenge. However, the surrounding barrows mark a date closer to 3000 B.C., suggesting that the barrows were created long before Stonehenge was built. The surrounding barrows mark the following familiar stars and stellar groups, though they may have been seen somewhat differently in that age: Antares and the front of Scorpio (the straight ruler-like elevation in the land is clearly human-made and marks the level of the Equinoxes in this era), Ara and the back of Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquila and Sagitta, Cygnus, Lyra, Cepheus, Cassiopieia, Andromeda and Aries, Perseus, Auriga, Eridanus, Aldebaran, Orion, Gemini, Procyon, Leo, Corvus, Ursa Major, Hydra, Virgo, Spica, Lupus, and Libra. It looks almost if the terrain has been modeled in part by human hand to respresent the Milky Way.

Stonehenge Barrows Astronomical Explanation

Stonehenge Barrows Astronomical Explanation

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The owner and webmaster of Megaliths.net is Andis Kaulins
B.A. University of Nebraska; J.D. Stanford University Law School
Former Lecturer in Anglo-American Law, FFA, Trier Law School
Author at Langenscheidt Fachverlag, Germany
Alumnus Associate of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, NYC
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This page was last updated on March 31, 2008.

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