Does Stonehenge have a connection to the moon? Rare lunar event will give scientists the perfect opportunity to finally find out
Stonehenge is famous for its alignment with the sun, which is why visitors flock to the ancient site at the start of summer.
But 5,000 years ago, the ancient Wiltshire monument may also have been carefully constructed with our lunar satellite in mind.
Experts believe that some of the famous upright stones were arranged to align with the moon during an event called ‘great lunar stasis’.
It only happens once every 18.6 years, and it is when moonrise and moonset are furthest apart along the horizon as seen from Earth.
Thousands of years ago, ancient Britons may have worshiped at the site during major lunar stasis, as they did for the summer and winter solstices.
Stonehenge is famous for its alignment with the sun, but the ancient monument may also have been carefully designed to align with the movements of the moon
It only happens once every 18.6 years, and the great lunar standstill is when moonrise and moonset are furthest apart along the horizon as seen from Earth
A project to investigate Stonehenge’s connection with the great lunar phase is being led by experts at the Universities of Oxford, Leicester and Bournemouth.
Dr. Fabio Silva, associate professor of archaeological modeling at Bournemouth University, said this ‘major lunar standstill season’ will run from February 2024 to November 2025.
“It happens twice a month for about 1.5 to two years,” he told MailOnline.
‘For example, last Saturday the moon was at its northernmost limit, and in a fortnight it will be at its southernmost.
‘This will repeat every month for the rest of 2024 and most of 2025.’
How exactly the moon will align with Stonehenge’s individual stones is yet to be seen.
But experts believe that during the great lunar standstill the moon will be aligned with Stonehenge’s ancient ‘Station Stones’.
Although only two still stand, the Station Stones marked the corners of a perfect rectangle with its central point at the exact center of the monument.
One of the sides of this rectangle appears to point in a southeasterly direction, corresponding to where the moon will rise during major lunar standstill.
“We want to assess whether this is likely to be accidental or whether it was intentional,” said Dr. Silva to MailOnline.
Experts believe that during the great lunar standstill the moon will be aligned with Stonehenge’s ancient ‘Station Stones’. Although only two still stand, the Station Stones marked the corners of a perfect rectangle with its central point at the exact center of the monument
The station stones are elements of the prehistoric monument Stonehenge. Originally there were four stones that looked like the four corners of a rectangle. The picture shows Station stone ‘S93’ in the south-west corner of the Station stone rectangle
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury
‘So we will assess where to stand, how many people could effectively witness the alignment, whether the moon after rising/before setting will be obscured by other stones that may diminish the experience, whether moonlight casts shadows inside the circle.
‘These are the things that, taken together, can help us build an argument for or against these adaptations.’
It is already well known that the entire layout of Stonehenge is positioned in relation to the summer and winter solstices – when the Earth’s tilt towards the sun is most extreme, either at the north or south pole.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs when Earth’s north is tilted most towards the sun, and the winter solstice occurs when it is directed away from the sun.
Stonehenge was deliberately built to align with the sun on the solstice, according to English Heritage, which manages the site.
It explains: ‘At Stonehenge on the summer solstice, the sun rises behind the heel stone in the north-east of the horizon and its first rays shine into the heart of Stonehenge.
‘Observers at Stonehenge at the winter solstice, standing in the entrance to the enclosure and facing the center of the stones, can see the sun setting in the southwestern part of the horizon.’
In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs when the Earth’s north is tilted most toward the sun, and the winter solstice occurs when it is tilted away from the sun
Largely because it is a whopping 5,000 years old, the origins of Stonehenge, including why and how it was built, are still a source of frenzied debate.
Professor Timothy Darvill, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University, believes that Stonehenge served as an ancient solar calendar that helped people track the days of the year.
The British researcher behind the theory believes that Stonehenge’s large sandstone slabs, called sarsens, each represented a single day of a month, making the entire site a huge time-keeping unit.
But another team of experts poured cold water on this theory, describing it as ‘completely unsubstantiated’ and based on ‘forced interpretations, numerology and unsupported analogies’.
Other theories include that it was a cult center for healing, a temple, a place where ancestors were worshiped or even a cemetery.
Between 3000 and 2500 BC, several centuries before the large stones were brought to Stonehenge, people buried cremated remains in the ditch and bank that now surrounds the stone circle, English Heritage says.
The Stonehenge monument that stands today was the last phase of a four-part construction project that ended 3,500 years ago
Stonehenge is one of the most prominent prehistoric monuments in Britain. The Stonehenge that can be seen today is the last stage, which was completed about 3,500 years ago.
According to the monument’s website, Stonehenge was built in four stages:
First stage: The first version of Stonehenge was a large earthwork or Henge, consisting of a ditch, bank and the Aubrey holes, all probably built around 3100 BC.
The Aubrey holes are round pits in the chalk, about a meter wide and deep, with steep sides and a flat bottom.
Stonehenge (pictured) is one of the most prominent prehistoric monuments in Britain
They form a circle about 86.6 meters (284 ft) in diameter.
Excavations revealed cremated human bones in some of the chalk fill, but the holes themselves were probably not made to be used as graves, but as part of a religious ceremony.
After this first phase, Stonehenge was abandoned and left untouched for more than 1,000 years.
Second phase: The second and most dramatic phase of Stonehenge started around 2150 BC, when around 82 bluestones from the Preseli Mountains in south-west Wales were transported to the site. It is believed that the stones, some weighing four tonnes each, were hauled on rollers and sledges to the water at Milford Haven, where they were loaded onto rafts.
They were taken on water along the south coast of Wales and up the rivers Avon and Frome before being towed over land again near Warminster and Wiltshire.
The final leg of the journey was mainly by water, down the River Wylye to Salisbury, then the Salisbury Avon to west Amesbury.
The journey spanned nearly 240 miles, and once in place, the stones were set up in the center to form an incomplete double circle.
In the same period, the original entrance was widened and a pair of heel stones were erected. The nearest part of the Avenue, connecting Stonehenge with the River Avon, was built to align with the midsummer sunrise.
Third stage: The third phase of Stonehenge, which took place around 2000 BC, saw the arrival of the sarsen stones (a type of sandstone), which were larger than the bluestones.
They were probably brought from the Marlborough Downs (40 kilometers, or 25 miles, north of Stonehenge).
The largest of the sarsen stones transported to Stonehenge weighs 50 tons and transport by water would not have been possible, so it is suspected that they were transported by sleds and ropes.
Calculations have shown that it would have required 500 men with leather ropes to drag a stone, with another 100 men to place the rollers in front of the sledge.
These stones were arranged in an outer circle with a continuous run of lintels – horizontal supports.
Inside the circle were five trilithons—structures consisting of two upright stones and a third across the top as a lintel—placed in a horseshoe arrangement that can still be seen today.
Last phase: The fourth and final stage occurred just after 1500 BC, when the smaller bluestones were rearranged into the horseshoe and circle seen today.
The original number of stones in the bluestone circle was probably around 60, but these have since been removed or broken up. Some remain as stumps below the soil surface.
Source: Stonehenge.co.uk