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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (June 13, 1920)
yyilylliy III It Modern Macki tke iVlassive Stones Wkick tke -Old Druid Priests First Set. Up witk Suck Painful Effort and ?kick at juast uvertnrown , ruin The Ruins of Stonehenge, Showing' L a r alien J-aniei to its VJia riace on a op 01 a stai oi Upright Monoliths, STQNEHENQH. that mysterious circle of colossal stones which were set in place thousands of years ago on fiallsfonry Plain, England, by the painful fort3 of prehistoric, man. Is v being re stored by modern machinery. For ages the great gray monoliths bad resisted time, falling slowly and stubbornly one by one. Beneath a terrifies storm awhile ago two of the largest fell, and then it was ; realized that unless Immediate steps were' taken ! for Stooehenge'a preservation this monument of antiquity, perhaps the most extraordinary In all the world, would soon be little more than a shapeless heap. , So that Is why to-day, a donkey-engine and immense cranes are seen at the side of this ancient temple of earliest man. Workmen swarm about- the huge stones : where the Druid priests carried on their rites before hundreds of worshippers, and the monoliths that were raised with such prodigious' oil by the hands of men of the tone age are lifted with ease by the winches and cables, or swing through the air Into place by a truer magic than that whirh hv T)orular HvmerstitioTi tx'rtlaina their original placing. ; ;" The real antiquity of Stonehenge Is un known. It Is asserted that the Druids, the priests of the early Britons, used It as an astronomical observatory and a 1 temple 2,000 years before Christ. But even then it must have been very old, and prarious scientists have placed its building as from 10,000 to 50,000 years ago. It is even prob able that another race than, the Britons erected It. There are records of a power ful Neolithic, or Stone Age, maritime power which . before- history' began established colonies throughout the then lchown wbrld. This power was African, but not Egyptian. Dr. 'Cope Whitehouje, of -New York.- the . distinguished Egyptologist, has called at tention to the evidence in Egyptian rec ords of a great maritime nation, "estaV lished to the west of the Nile, that threat ened Egypt's supremacy at the height of her greatness. J : ' . . j ; According to Mr. Whitehouse's theory, these people, as a great sea-power, must have left traces of themselves all over the accessible world to ' which, their ships " traded. He holds the remarkable rock structure known as Fingall'sj Cave, in Scotland, to be clearly of human origin, and thinks it reasonable' to believe that it was the work of the forgotten; African race. . . "! If. Is also reasonablo to believe that Stonehenge is the creation' or': the , same . people, since both works belong to an ad vanced period of the Stone Age, with simi lar characteristics of rough grandeur. It need hardly be added thai the discovery by Professor Norton of a temple west of the Nile of similar workmanship to Stone henge strengthens the theory that a great maritime power, whose existence has been forgotten, covered Europe with their stone monuments. i li' i S--,' The blocks of Stonehenge were orlg . lnally arranged to form two ovals. - There are now. 140 of. them, weighing from ten to seventy tons each, i la the centre of the ovals Is a huge flat calcareous stone which the Druids used as an altar. Upon the tops of the mono liths other enormous squared blocks were ' placed like lintels. Th accomplishment of such a task by hands alone must ever remain a triumph of human determination and Ingenuity.- While 'the reconstruction Is going on the huge stone mauls and axes hat the builders used ' to rough-hew the THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAIi, PORTLAND. SUNDAY MORNING Puts: Back in Place n LB: - -- "2- jf " ''- at the Right One of the Cranes i " . glacial noulders into shape are frequently found. Apparently , the stones were then raised into the position with wooden blocks and levers. It was Sir Norman Lockyer, one . of the most distinguished English astronomers who first dissipated some of the mystery of Stonehenge by proving that Ht had been used by the Druids or other., prehistoric astrono mers somewhat as a gigantic ' ' calendar. On the longest day of the year at the time they lived the rays of " the rising sun passed over certain markers still known as the 'Slaughter Stone" and the , Heel" atone, and struck directly upon the altar. -. On no other day did this occur and so the Druids were enabled to know ac curately the beginning of their year. There is also no question that when this happened cruel sacrifices were offered. The restorers have found a circle of pits beyond the outer circle which are filled with human remains, evidently the ghostly relics of these sacrifices. It is probable that the original temple was the inner smaller ring of stones and: that the Druids built the outer ring, ar ranging the trillthons, as the pairs of up rights with their lintel are called, tn a way to carry, on thefr solar observations. The deposits about the bases of this inner circle certainly antedate those found at 1 the bases of the larger. vi . The restoration is being done by the English Office of Worts under the direc-, tlon . of archeologlsts experienced' in . tie task of restoration of similar monuments. " Never was T the most - precious of babies more carefully wrapped up than Is one of these great .monoliths before the sacri legious Jack sets to work upon At Not only is it cradled in thick baulks of tim- ber, out every cranny is tiled up and 4 padded with felt and wedges, and the whole frame work, is again supported-by, 4 4 ' ' A Druldess Sacrificing Flowers to the God of the River, A Painting by Georges Girardot Depicting One of Jthe Gentler Rites of thtf Druids. " - At Stonehenge Cruel Sacrifices of Youths and Maidens Were a,' -. Part of the Sun Worship of .Which It Was the Temple. struts and steel Joists. The " excavation round the base is done with the most soli citous care bo as to leave Intact the shape of the original holes made to hold the stones ' and also to salVe anything that may be found there, whether It be a stone hammer, a Roman sestertium, an old clay pipe or k penny of George III. It must be a very small object, indeed, that will es- . cape- the sieves of those who search. There' are many wonderful things about ' Stonehenge, and one "that strikes- the stranger with the greatest amazement is the apparently casual way in which the , stones were made fast by the original builders. A monolith weighs, as has been said, anywhere from ten to seventy tons. It' has, as, a rule, an end dressed to a roughly; tapering shape, and this end goes ' but a small number of feet underground and has round it a loose packing of bould- : era. : Incidentally, it is a curious fact that . while some of these boulders are of sar- 2 sen, the same stone as the monoliths are made of, others are of greensand. In the case of the famous "leaning stone," now set upright again the whole height of the monolith was 29 feet inches, and it was buried in the earth to a depth of eight .feet. Its -brother stone was only 25 feet long and so had but tour feet underground to support its 21 feet in the air, to say nothing of the lintel stone. This four feet of base was dressed in a particular shape, (0X420. ZatenaUoaal feature ServicLM. b Ui Ml ilUU 1 1 aipibKQl r V. 4j 2 ' it 'lot tapering, but having a large projecting boss; yet even so, it fell and now lies : on the., ground broken '.right through at its very heart. . To the amateur, at any rate, it is wonderful that with such foundations the stones have stood at. they have. In the case Cf all those 'that . are being straightened, " the packing boulders, 'their long task done, - are examined -and - numbered and then will , be reverently buried once more. In their place the stones are given -a foundation'of si reinforced concrete, which will, of course, be discreetly buried beneath the turf. ; . . While this ? giant surgery that is j being practised on the trillthons is a wonderful thing to see, there is' something else hap pening at Stonehenge less spectacular, but to the archeologist still more exciting. That is the uncovering" of the burial pits already referred to. One by one, at an . interval of about seven paces from one another, a whole ring of these newly dis covered holes has been laid bare Just in side the earthwork .which ; surrounds Stonehenge. A clue . from . the old i docu ment . known- as Aubrey's map, which Crest BrtUln RlghU Beeerved. JUNE 13, 1920. 9'-: A 7 S A Diagram Illustrating Hcy on Midsum mer Morn the Rays of the Rising Sun Shot Over the Marking Stones and Fell Upon the Central Altar of the Great ' Stone Circles. showed certain now vanished depres sions In the turf, set the searchers looking for this ring of holes by means of a heavy . steel bar with a sharp point. Once - they found the first hole, the others soon fol lowed; the steel bar, instead of encoun-' tering the hard chalk, went right through; the turf was turned back and there, with all the fascinating accuracy of a puzzle, was the hole Just where it ought to tbe. . That many dreadful scenes went on In ancient days within the great circles is certain. The human sacrifices of the Druids were peculiarly cruel, although many of -tuelr. other religious rites were v VI very beautiful and gentlSj , spirits , of the earth, the streams and woods and so on, as well as the greater ones of the sun and moon. T,he priestesses, : or Druid . esses, had charge of these softer phases - of ' the cere monials, and the . painting on this page is a famous art ist's conception of one of 'these milder rites. The Druldess, surrounded by her maidens, la offering sacrifice . of flowers to the God of the . River. jFrom relics found during the excavating those in charge have been enabled to recon struct the methods by which Stonehenge j was " originally built The immense stone hammers and mauls are - clearly;: those used In dress tng the monoliths. Not $. single netal tool of any kind was discovered only a slight copper stain on a' stone. t So the circles were almost cer tainly previous to the bronze . age, the commencement of A which fn England is placed at about 2000 B. C, T The stones appear to have been carried In the glacial Period to. the vicinity of Stonehenge and then drawa to the site of the temple by ; rollers or on wooden sledges hauled by thong ropes. A strange sight it must have been whentbe Neolithic men dragged one of these huge monoliths across the plain, hundreds of men sweat ing and panting as they hauled at the long leathern ropes. When a stone reached the temple site a hole was cut into the chalk rock of the plain, leaving an upright face on one side and a. slope leading down into the hole along which the 70-ton stone was slid. It was then raised by packing up timber levers' under-the top end until a sufficient height had. been reached to en able it to be hauled into an upright posi tion. The rubble was then packed in with supporting stones. The date of the building of 8 ton eh en ee has been the subject of much speculation and study and has given rise to several conmcung ineones. An interesting theory was advanced by Sir Norman Lockyer. director of the solar Physics Observatory, who assumed that the people who built Stonehenge were v not only sun-worshippers, but -had progressed far la their knowledge of astronomy. : , : He bases his assumption upon the ex istence of a path leading from the central altar at Stonehenge to the spot where the sun first appears above the horizon at the solstice. The path is in reality the axis of the temple, a line drawn through the centre of the Altar Stones to the Slaughter Stones and thence to another stone called the Friar's Heel. A person standing at the ; altar and looking over the Friar's ileel would see the rising sun at the .solstice, but slightly out of line. Owing to the changes in the course' of vmw bA awuua luo BUU IUQ IIB&US UlUs of the sun changes slightly every year. Sir Norman assumed that when the temple was-huilt the axis was directly In line with the rising sun at the solstice. Knowing the amount of change taking place ezxcU year it is not dllflcult for him to calculate how manr rears must have elansed ihca the axis. was exactly in line instead of ap proximately. By his computation the date of the building was given as 1680 B. C, or 3,600 years ago. ' . Other scientists, however, maintain that a Neolithic -people built Stonehenge, and tha. this race had disappeared long before the; time assigned by Sir Norman. There is fat much to choose between the several theories. Each seems quite tenable until Tie red la the light of its rival.
