Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/200

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192
PREHISTORIC BRITAIN

implements or relics were found during his explorations.

On the supposition that the "Friar's Heel" was raised to mark exactly the line of sunrise on Midsummer Day when the structure was erected, it would follow, according to well-known astronomical causes, that in the course of time the direction of the line of sunrise would slowly deviate from that of the stone, so that the amount of change being commensurate with the lapse of time, would supply chronological data for determining the age of the building. The solution of this problem has recently been attempted by Sir Norman Lockyer, who calculated that on Midsummer Day, 1680 b.c., the sun would rise exactly over the "Friar's Heel," in a direct line with the axis of the temple and the avenue.

Looking at Stonehenge from the architectural standpoint, I can have no hesitancy in regarding it as an advanced representative of the ordinary stone circles, some 200 of which, great and small, are known within the British Isles. It is, however, differentiated from them all by having hewn stones, capstones, tenons and sockets. That its earlier analogues were chiefly used as sepulchres has been fully established, and this is presumptive evidence that the sepulchral element was, at least, one of the objects for which Stonehenge was constructed; and it was probably for that reason that it was erected on Salisbury Plain, where there already