According to two physicists, the iconic British moment may have been aligned with the solstices – but that was where its connection to the changing sky ended.
The notion that Stonehenge was erected to serve as an ancient calendar has been debunked — and called a purely “modern construct”. This is the conclusion of a pair of physicists who have re-evaluated a proposal — published last year — that the iconic British monument was built to reflect a perpetual calendar based on a tropical solar year of 365.25 days.
Instead, the duo argue, Stonehenge is merely aligned with the solstices, but beyond that is a “mute witness” to the landscape held sacred by its builders.
The notion that Stonehenge reflected an early solar calendar was put forward last year by the archaeologist Professor Timothy Darvill.
According to his hypothesis, the calendar in question featured a 365-day-year, which was divided into into 12 months of 30 days each, with five “epagomenal” days outside of the regular months and the addition of a leap year every four years,
This calendar is identical to the Alexandrian one introduced more than two millennia later, at the end of the first century BC, as a fusion of the Julian and Egyptian civil calendars
According to Prof. Darvill’s reasoning, the 30 sarsen lintels thought to have been present in the completed monument represent the number of days in the month, while the standing trilithons of the inner “horseshoe” recorded the epagomenal days.
The leap year, meanwhile, was tracked using the four “station stones” — large rocks which once mapped out a rectangle around the monument, but of which only two remain today.
In a new paper, however, physicists Professors Juan Antonio Belmonte of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Giulio Magli of the Politecnico of Milan have put the “Stonehenge Calendar” hypothesis under the microscope — and found it wanting.
The concept, they said, is based on a “series of forced interpretations”, as well as “unsupported analogies” and “debatable numerology”.
On the astronomical front, Stonehenge is indeed aligned with the solstices, the duo noted — but the slow movement of the Sun at the horizon in the days around the solstice would have made it impossible to practically use the monument as a calendar.
The henge — made as it is of huge stones — would have needed to be able to help distinguish between positions to within an accuracy of less than a tenth of a degree.
Instead, they argue, the alignment is proof merely of an interest in the solar cycle in the broadest sense, rather than for tracking the days of the year.