Durrington Walls in Wiltshire is located at the centre of the newly discovered prehistoric site
known as Durrington Shafts. Photograph: Heritage Images/Getty
In yesterday's Groundling blog entry I reflected on the Summer Solstice and the virtual gathering for half a million registrants at Stonehenge, in Great Britain. Many of us have visited the 2,500-year-old Stonehenge and since I'm bordering on Neolithic myself I'll admit that when I was there nearly 45 years ago visitors could still walk up and touch the monumental stones.
The Druidic Stonehenge was probably built as an astronomical, astrological, and religious mash-up. While for centuries it was largely ignored, surrounded by farmers' fields, it is now protected and revered by many,
Recently researchers discovered another remarkable circle of shafts about two kilometres in diameter and three kilometres to the east of Stonehenge, the largest prehistoric structure ever found in Britain. In a Guardian article Prof Vincent Gaffney, a leading archaeologist on the project is interviewed:
While Stonehenge was positioned in relation to the solstices, or the extreme limits of the sun’s movement, Gaffney said the newly discovered circular shape suggests a “huge cosmological statement and the need to inscribe it into the earth itself”.
He added: “Stonehenge has a clear link to the seasons and the passage of time, through the summer solstice. But with the Durrington Shafts, it’s not the passing of time, but the bounding by a circle of shafts which has cosmological significance.”
The boundary may have guided people towards a sacred site within its centre or warned against entering it.
Once again we're reminded that throughout time humans have expressed their spiritual selves as an essential aspect of culture. Often it is connected to the cosmos, a sense of wonder that goes far beyond the mundane demands of everyday life
Here is the link to yesterday's Groundling blog
More thoughts about the Summer Solstice from the ever funny Pluto...who seems to think that the stone circle in England is called Stone hedge.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAyXg-QePao
ReplyDeleteQuite smart -- for a dog. Let me know if you mustered up a two-legged bark at the sun Shirley!
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