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From The Times Literary Supplement
June 11, 2008

Comprehending Stonehenge

Reckless, megalomaniac, elitist in construction: but the mysteries
behind Stonehenge remain

Why is Stonehenge the most famous prehistoric monument in the world? A
large part of the answer lies in the domination of modernity by Western
nations, and the supremacy of Britain among them, both in military and
economic terms, as that modernity was being developed. In that sense
Stonehenge was simply the top antiquity of the top nation at a critical
moment in history. Situation helped its fame, as it is set in the
heartland of the realm. Indeed, for almost 200 years it has been right
next to the London-to-Exeter highway, a position which is now its
greatest liability as the stranglehold of main roads around it has so
far prevented any redevelopment of the site to make it more attractive
and appropriate for visitors. Just as important, however, has been the
fact that Stonehenge simply looks like nothing else: no other ancient
structure in Europe has its trademark form, of a freestanding pattern of
door-jamb-and-lintel settings composed of megaliths. It is clearly the
work of human hands, but has an unusually primordial and organic
appearance, of mighty boulders smoothed, shaped and fitted together in
such a way as to enhance their natural power as well as to create a
building. As such, it has attracted curiosity and admiration ever since
the twelfth century, and probably for much longer.

Since 1900, archaeology has made one considerable contribution to an
understanding of Stonehenge: to establish firmly that it was a creation
of the late Neolithic. The stones that we see now were mostly erected in
a series of still hazily understood phases between about 2600 and 2000
bce, within a much older earthwork that once probably contained a timber
circle. Other than that, we are still left with a conclusion which can
be surmised without the aid of excavation: that it was the work of a
bunch of reckless, megalomaniac, elitist carpenters. They were clearly
carpenters because they worked stone with techniques much more
appropriate to wood, such as mortise-and-tenon joints. They were
megalomaniac to have tried that at all, and even more so in their choice
of stone. It is very rare to find a prehistoric monument in Britain made
of large stones that were obtained from more than five miles away. The
huge sandstone uprights and lintels of Stonehenge were dragged about
twenty miles, while the smaller but still substantial blocks called the
Altar Stone and the bluestones were obtained from more than a hundred
miles further than that; as the crow flies and not as the person tugs,
paddles and sails. Such an enterprise is unique in the British
prehistoric record, and may be in Europe. To do all this argues for
recklessness in itself, but in addition the plan pushed at the very
limits of the possible, and perhaps beyond them. For the biggest
three-stone setting, the Great Trilithon, no second upright could be
found large enough for the design. In the end a shorter one was used
with a sideways bulge at the bottom end, in the hope that this would
anchor it. It did not, and the huge arch fell and broke, although it may
have taken millennia to do so. It is not even absolutely certain that
the monument was finished; definite proof seems still to be lacking that
the arc of stones in the outer ring that is missing today was ever
completely there. The makers may simply have run out of materials, or
willpower, or else had some reason for leaving the structure open on one
side. Finally, they were elitist because, unlike the hundreds of other
stone circles of Neolithic Britain, Stonehenge was constructed as a
series of screens, to conceal the activities of what could only have
been a relatively small number of people (or deities or spirits) in the
centre.

Beyond that, all is speculation. Among archaeologists it currently comes
in two favourite forms. One, most prominently associated with Mike
Parker Pearson, is that Stonehenge was essentially a place of the dead,
to which the living came at the winter solstice, to commune with their
ancestors and consecrate the remains of the recently deceased. They did
so in procession from the huge earthwork and timber monuments at
Durrington Walls, a few miles away, after enjoying pig roasts and other
fun of the fair. The other speculation, of which Timothy Darvill is the
main exponent, is that it was essentially a temple sacred to a
particular god or god and goddess, to which people travelled on
pilgrimage to question oracles and to be healed. As usual with
archaeology, both concepts were inspired by ideas from outside the
discipline: the former is based on tribal customs in Madagascar, and the
latter on ancient Greek tradition and the medieval pseudo-history of
Geoffrey of Monmouth. Both have strong circumstantial evidence in their
favour, and neither can be proved.

Now two more books have been added to the annual number of publications
on the monument, both from respectable scholars operating beyond the
mainstream of academic archaeology. Rosemary Hill is an architectural
historian, contributing a volume to a series of short introductions to
major buildings of the world. As such, her concern is mainly with the
way in which Stonehenge has been perceived and interpreted in historic
times, and covers ground that has already been traversed, with the
advantages of more space and more pictures, by the successive editions
of Christopher Chippindale?s Stonehenge Complete. Hill copes with this
problem by taking a more thematic approach to the subject: there is less
on archaeology and more on poems, paintings, novels, films and rock
music. Both she and Chippindale score equally highly when dealing with
the recent and ongoing tussles over access to the monument, and
redevelopment of the site; but she is naturally more up to date. She
brings genuine originality to the cultural history of Stonehenge; nobody
has until now considered it as literature, poetry and art, in this
comprehensive way. In addition, she shows real flair in explaining, to
an ordinary readership, what made leading characters in her story tick,
such as Inigo Jones, drunk on the beauty of classical architectural
proportion and seeking to discover it in Stonehenge (with dreadful
results), or John Wood, in whom love of building, religious devotion and
local patriotism made a bewitching mixture that transformed the
appearance of the city of Bath for ever.

One curiosity of Hill?s book is that it gives the impression that the
proponents of the view that Stonehenge was designed as an astronomical
observatory, or giant computer, so prominent in the 1960s, were
basically correct. This sits badly alongside the conclusion of Clive
Ruggles, in his magisterial survey of the evidence for prehistoric
astronomy in Britain, published in 1999 (which is quoted in other
contexts), that there is no convincing evidence that it ever functioned
as such. There is in fact only one unequivocal alignment built into
Stonehenge, and it is one also found in other contemporary monuments in
the vicinity, such as Durrington Walls: between the midsummer sunrise
and the midwinter sunset. The former event has attracted thousands of
revellers to the site for over a century; the effect of the latter, once
probably more impressive, was ruined long ago by the collapse of the
Great Trilithon. This is all fully appreciated by Anthony Johnson, who
trained as an archaeologist but is by profession a specialist in
surveying and computer analysis of archaeological data. He recognizes
the truth of Ruggles's warning, while making the balancing observation
that alignments on the moon and stars, though probably beyond proof,
cannot entirely be ruled out.

His Solving Stonehenge is packaged by Thames and Hudson with maximum
hyperbole. In addition to the strident promise of the title, the jacket
blurb offers us ?clues to the enigma of the stones? and ?remarkable new
insights?. What the work actually provides is three things. The first is
another summary of how the monument has been interpreted in historic
times, this time brief, and less sure on earlier periods than later, but
with some useful insights. The second is a survey of what is currently
known about the phases of construction: probably the best concise one
available at present, though Julian Richards?s Stonehenge: The story so
far, published last year, is better contextualized. The original
contribution is a detailed investigation of how the main stone
structures were planned and built, using the latest computer technology.
This is genuinely useful, though the only solid conclusion ? that the
main circle and trilithons were conceived and built as a single scheme ?
merely reinforces what has always been thought most likely. In the
process of laying out their strings, the ancient surveyors created
various geometrical figures, but whether these had any arcane
significance to them cannot now be known. Johnson thinks that they had,
and brings in Greek tradition and Geoffrey of Monmouth in support of his
ideas, thereby providing a mathematical supplement to what Tim Darvill
has argued. He also, suggests, however, that once built the monument was
left as a home for spirits, which matches Mike Parker Pearson.

The most famous modern comment on the monument was made in the 1960s by
the ?popular? archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes, who suggested that every
age ?has the Stonehenge it deserves ? or desires?. The present one seems
to have neither. There has never been a time before when Stonehenge has
been under such pressure: from visitors, traffic, scholarly
interpretation and political argument. Its current huge symbolic
importance ? to the world (to whom it belongs as a designated Heritage
Site), to the nation (to whom it belongs in law), and to special
interest groups who represent different aspects of that nation, such as
heritage agencies, local government, archaeologists, historians, the
police, modern Pagans and festival-goers ? makes an obvious contrast
with the present squalid, constricted and universally deplored condition
of the site. One of the values of historical surveys of the sort made by
the two books reviewed here, and by Christopher Chippindale?s, is to
remind us that there has never been agreement over the meaning and
purpose of Stonehenge. We cannot condemn the present age for a
postmodern hubbub of belief and attitude concerning it, succeeding
simpler and more harmonious times. We are faced by a unique combination
of a critical need to do something better with the monument, and a
deadlock over the practical and ideological measures to effect this. We
certainly don?t have the Stonehenge that we desire; and I still believe
that we don?t deserve it either.