Robin Heath has a science degree, and has written several books based on research into the astronomy and architecture of megalithic sites. Sun, Moon & Earth and the best selling Stonehenge are published by Wooden Books and Walker & Co, NY. A recent book, The Measure of Albion, co-written with John Michell, looks at the evidence for ancient wisdom in prehistoric Britain. Robin undertakes guided tours to megalithic and Celtic sites for Sky and Landscape and lectures widely on cultural astronomy and astrology at Oxford University and Bath Spa University College, in addition to less formal venues .

Robin has recently been elected a
Research Fellow of The University of Wales, Lampeter

ARTICLE 1

Understanding the Solar Hero Myth

Original research by Robin Heath

(c) 2003 Robin Heath,
(Bluestone Press, Maes yr Awel, Cwm, St Dogmaels, Cardigan, Pembs, SA43 3JF)

To most people, the old myths and legends are quaint reminders of a bygone and superstitious age, and have nothing much to tell us anymore. They are just for the history books or children’s bedtime reading. Yet, for a myth to have survived for thousands of years, one might guess that it holds inherent meanings.

The Greek myths evolved a long time before they were ever written down, and originated in the preliterate cultures pre-2300 BC. The reason Jung, Campbell and other symbolists became so drawn to myths is that they encapsulate human archetypal experiences, and are therefore eternal, renewed by each generation. Mythology has thereby been linked with modern psychology. But is there still more to myth than this?

In this article I will explore that myth as supporting a technical language placed within a popular context. More specifically, I want to reveal the astronomical basis underpinning the myth of the solar hero. We will discover that its origins are prehistoric and stem from the pre-Celtic culture of Britain and Ireland.

Gods in the Sky

To the ancient cultures, the gods resided in the sky. Their myths were originally inseparable from their astronomical observation. Might a myth match an important astronomical truth, is it possible for a precision astronomy and psychology to be referred to within the same myth.’

The myth of the solar hero can be found within many of the ancient civilisations even before the Christian era. The solar hero is the big saviour, often the sacrificial victim, and he has one unique common feature - he ultimately comes back, or is resurrected. Adonis, Tammuz, Bran and even Arthur were classic solar heroes, and the list embraces many cultures, even from South America.

The sun is a role model, hence the ‘solar’ part of the hero, and ‘dies’ every dusk, as the dark night takes over as the sun takes his daily journey into the underworld.. Each golden dawn then brings a renewal. Within their mythology, the ancient Egyptians made much of the Sun in this context, as so too did the ancient Celts, this latter culture obliging us with some useful numerical information.

The very ancient stories of the Tuatha de Danaan in Ireland tell us that the first battle of Mag Tuired was fought by their saviour-hero Lug and thirty-two other leaders. Alongside this, we may also read of the company of thirty-three men, all apparently thirty-two years of age who sit at the tables in the otherworld island castle in Perlesvaus. In the same vein, Nemed, another hero, reached Ireland with only one ship, thirty-three were lost on the way; Cuchulainn slays thirty-three of the Labriads in the Bru battle whilst a late account of the second battle of Mag Tuired names thirty-three leaders of the Fomore, thirty-two plus their highest king.

This material contains a common theme. It bids us to look to the number thirty-three as something relevant to a hero, a saviour. In the analysis of the Welsh White Book of Rhydderch, we may read that, “Both three and eleven were equally symbolic, the multiplicant thirty-three particularly so. It has frequently been used to imply supra-human attributes, regal authority and deification.” So, what’s so special about thirty-three?

Closer to our time the Western world has, for nearly two millenia, chosen to base its own hero myth, and hence its belief system, on the story of Jesus. Here, our solar hero, ‘officially’ born very appropriately at the winter solstice, dies and is resurrected at… thirty-three years of age. This story has much in common with the earlier European oral traditions. We must ask what is a Biblical account of a major hero within a major modern world religion doing drawing attention to the same number thirty-three to which Irish and British solar-heroes were resonating in the Bronze Age?

Our clues are piling up: the solar hero myth itself, a repeated number - thirty-three, and a resurrection after thirty-three years, which we are told took place at Easter. The detective work may begin!

When the oldest stories associated with this myth originated In Western Europe there was a cultural astronomy based on the accurate placement of huge stone monoliths, Stonehenge being perhaps the best known. Time and again these stone circles are shown to relate to significant Sun (and Moon) rising and setting positions against the local horizon, at solstices or equinoxes. At the equinoxes (Easter and St Michaelmas), the gap between successive sunrises (or sets) becomes a maximum, and in Britain occurs more than the sun’s disc apart, an angle of about 0.8 degrees, blatantly obvious to any observer. In just one year, 365 days would be tallied for the length of the year, and not 364 or 366 nor any other number. And there’s a basic accurate solar calendar.

Marking the Resurrection

There’s another twist to this. An equinoctial Sunrise marker, of which many still exist in Britain, will, each year, deliver the sunrise from a slight but noticeably different position on the horizon. Because there are 365 and a quarter days in the year, and not just 365 the Sun, each year, will be displaced by about a quarter of a degree from the marker stone, which is very easy to observe. A marker on the horizon, placed to the east and a good distance from an observer, acts as a rifle barrel and enables these small angular changes to be accurately monitored (Figure 1 left).
During three years of observation, the Sun appears to be slipping ever more away from the original alignment until, at the fourth year, two things happen simultaneously - the Sun rises once more very close to its original position above the marker stone, and the day count - the tally - for the year is found to be 366 and not 365 days. The observer tallies 365+365+365+366, which is 1461 sunrises (days) over the four years (Figure Two). Over a few years of observation the solar year is discovered to be 365.25 days in length, as accurate as our Roman (Gregorian) solar calendar. (For those who think our ancestors couldn’t count there are plenty of examples of prehistoric tallying, as the deep tally marks on Carn Enoch, in West Wales, demonstrate. (ENOCHTALLY photo). Here the tally marks lie within a mile of both a solar and lunar observatory, Parc y Meirw or Field of the Dead.)

Figure 1

During three years of observation, the Sun appears to be slipping ever more away from the original alignment until, at the fourth year, two things happen simultaneously - the Sun rises once more very close to its original position above the marker stone, and the day count - the tally - for the year is found to be 366 and not 365 days. The observer tallies 365+365+365+366, which is 1461 sunrises (days) over the four years (Figure Two). Over a few years of observation the solar year is discovered to be 365.25 days in length, as accurate as our Roman (Gregorian) solar calendar.

(For those who think our ancestors couldn’t count there are plenty of examples of prehistoric tallying, as the deep tally marks on Carn Enoch, in West Wales, demonstrate. (ENOCHTALLY photo). Here the tally marks lie within a mile of both a solar and lunar observatory, Parc y Meirw or Field of the Dead.)

But the eye can detect much more miniscule angular changes than a quarter of a degree. Using this kind of observatory, a couple of minutes of degree is detectable. And here’s where we pick up the solar-hero myth. After thirty-three years, 12,053 days or sunrises, one can observe an exact repeat of the original equinoctial rising behind the marker stone.

Look more closely at the numbers involved. Our modern calendar ‘works’ with 365.25 days for the solar or seasonal year. As a fraction this is 365 and a quarter. The 33-year repeat cycle is based on a solar year which is 365.24242424+ or 365 and eight thirty-thirds in length. The astronomical truth is that the seasonal or solar year is 365.242199 days in length. The 33-year repeat cycle is therefore accurate to within 20 seconds, while our modern imported Roman calendar is, each year, in error by over 11 minutes.

Here is a solution to our repeated use of the number thirty-three. There is enough evidence to link the astronomical phenomenon to the biblical story. This particular resurrection took place at Easter, a festival tagged onto the much older one of the equinox, which then locates the sunrise in question as being exactly due East of the observer. Because the daily change in the sunrise position is at a maximum at the equinoxes, it is the optimum time to take angular readings.

The Sun’s diameter is half a degree. This alignment allows accurate observation of a change in the Sun’s setting angle of less than 5 minutes of degree. The quarter day (=quarter of a degree) is easily seen as an annual shift in the set position on 18^th February.

A Plagiarised Resurrection

Our solar hero, Jesus, rose from the dead after thirty-three years, witnessed at ‘the rising of the sun’ by Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus. Mary was there at the birth - the start of the life-journey. Both women noticed that the large stone blocking the entrance of the tomb holding the body of the crucified hero had been rolled way. The resurrection story concerns itself with a solar hero rising again, at the same place, with the sunrise, at Easter, after thirty-three years. There is a very large stone blocking the tomb - the entrance to the underworld - which rolls away revealing the resurrected form and Jesus’ entrance back into the visible world. We now have a reason why the number thirty-three assumed such importance in folklore and the oral traditions, many of which probably date back to the late stone age. It was the prime long-term solar repeat rising cycle observed at the megalithic solar observatories. The later Jesus story, whatever else it may be for Christians around the world, rides on the back of this astronomical fact, derived from what are now termed ‘Pagan practices’ in megalithic Europe. Ironically these very same practices were stamped out ruthlessly by the later Christian Church, and the astronomical source of the solar hero myth thereby lost.

Modern Consequences of the myth

The number 33 may be found elsewhere, but always in a solar context. Sometimes this is astronomic: the sunspot cycle is 11 years in duration, times three and 33 pops up. Every thirty three years the Leonid meteor shower is brightest, in mid-November. Other times the connection is human and social. There are 33 degrees of initiation in freemasonry, the 33rd degree being the highest. Then there’s also the lonely little game of solitaire, where the aim is to remove 32 marbles, placing the last one in the central 33^rd hole. Solitaire is sol and taire, words well worth looking up in a dictionary. Sol is Sun and Taire, in French, means either to say nothing about or remain silent, to conceal or to leave unsaid, or as tare refers to measurement, weight in English or deficiency (weight or measurement loss) in French. Oral traditions rule!

Megalithic Science revealed

Until 2000, my research and the theories lacked proof. Then, an archaeologist friend of mine, Dr Euan MacKie, sent me his full 1976 survey report of an equinoctial site at Brainport Bay in Argyll, Scotland. At the place where the observer would have stood in 2500 BC, was a standing stone - the backsite. Underneath it, and hidden from view, MacKie and Colonel Peter Gladwin discovered some 33 white smooth quartz pebbles, tightly packed together, suggesting that they were once held in a leather bag. There were 33 of these pebbles and they are now on display in the Kilmartin Museum, Argyll. I asked Dr MacKie “What do you think they were for? Why else would one find 33 stones at this location unless megalithic man was monitoring the 33 year solar cycle?”

Precision astronomy drove the numerical content of the solar hero myth, which clearly dates from before 2500 BC. It’s a very old and very useful calendar myth whose implications are awesome in understanding prehistory.

OPTIONAL Table 1.Important Solar Returns behind a horizon alignment

The Tropical Solar Year is 365.242199 days in. Multiply this by whole numbers (of years) and look for products where the fractional part of the result tends towards zero or one. There are several contenders, shown above. The Daily angular sunrise change along the horizon in Southern Britain at the equinox is about 0.7 degree. This is considerably more than one solar disc diameter (about 0.6 degree).

Final Draft submitted to 10/8/04

Number of Years Number of Days Time Difference from whole number

4 1,460.968796 45 minutes

21 7,670.086179 124 minutes

33 12,052.99257 10.7 minutes (18 seconds of a degree)

62 22,645.01634 23.53 minutes

ARTICLE 2

Stonehenge: What happens when Astronomy and Geometry are denied.

Fed up of watching programmes about Stonehenge that take up to an hour to inform the viewer of all the things Stonehenge isn’t? Would you really like to know something about how this stalemate concerning our National Temple has come about? Well, read on.

In September 1999, A consultation draft was issued by the Stonehenge World Heritage Management Plan, prepared by the renown environmental architect Chris Blandford. 110 pages in length, this draft contains but a single paragraph (2.4.12) of just 9 lines makes an attempt to cover the astronomy of the monument. ‘While theories about the reasons for its construction, the manner of its use and its role as a sacred place abound, these can be but speculation. (my italics). There is no attempt to cover the geometrical design of the monument and nor does the author identify just who suggests that theories on the monument are ‘but speculation.’

This consultation draft represents the official ‘take’ on Stonehenge. It may prove to be a most useful document in flowing visitors in and out of the site, and may prove invaluable in getting traffic disturbance removed, but clearly it ain’t ever going to address the astronomy and geometry of Stonehenge, two facets of the monument that are hardly speculative, for both can and have been objectively measured and calculated by many people, from the father of modern archaeology, Flinders Petrie, to the foremost specialist on Stonehenge, Prof Richard Atkinson. Sir Norman Lochyer determined the accuracy and assessed the midsummer axis in 1901. The monument has been exquisitely accurately surveyed ( for the first time) by Prof Alexander Thom under the watchful eye and cooperative assistance of Atkinson (1973). Something is being avoided one feels, and here’s what it is.

Of all the most remarkable facts to emerge from the distant past is that the astronomers of various civilisations had discovered methods whereby they might define accurate calendars and predict eclipses in advance. Theories differ as to the purposes to which this powerful knowledge was applied, but the background of observation, study and formulation of the techniques required to predict the date, time and the type of eclipse, solar or lunar, was admirably established before 2000 BC. That this information may have been used to control the masses by appearing to be controlled by astronomer-priests is less important here than the fact that the required science was in place and clearly working so early in our recorded history.

To predict eclipses, a great deal of understanding of the celestial motions of the sun, moon and earth is required. Included in this knowledge is the concept of the ecliptic, that invisible line across the sky that the Sun appears to track along, a huge circle encircling the earth which represents the path of the sun during the year. It is also necessary to know the length of the year to high accuracy, and how the moon moves around the earth, the time it takes not only to return to the same place in the sky but also to complete one cycle of its monthly phases. The former is now called the sidereal (star) month, and is 27.32166 days in duration, the latter the lunation cycle, 29.53059 days, the difference being caused by the earth having moved in its orbit during the month such that the required alignment between sun, moon and earth to reform a new moon or a full moon takes an extra 2.09 days each month.

Observation of these motions against the fixed stars of the revolving firmament quickly establishes that the alignment of sun, moon and earth at each new moon, or sun, earth, moon at each full moon, does not produce a solar or lunar eclipse. Only sometimes does a lunar eclipse take place, on average one a year at any given location, and only very rarely is a solar eclipse seen at a given location, owing to the narrow cone of shadow produced by the moon intervening between the sun and the earth. To discover which full or which new moon will produce an eclipse requires a study of the pattern of eclipses over many years. How the ancients undertook such an observational study is unknown, but it evidently represented a high pinnacle of knowledge for many cultures, zenith of astronomical knowledge. What is remarkable is that there is so much evidence left on the ground that can still enable the prediction to be made simply once that observational phase is over and the time periods known. Once the numbers of the sun’s (apparent) orbit of the earth and the moon’s monthly periods is known, simple techniques exist to simplify and shortcut the complications such that almost anyone can make the predictions.

These techniques are covered on Sky and Landscape courses, and the techniques may be identified within some of my books. They are essentially geometrical techniques and some of them may be found at Stonehenge, where the 56 marker Aubrey circle is potentially the oldest known calendar and eclipse predictor. While it is impossible to ever confirm that this 5000 year old construction was ever used for such purposes, the truth remains that it is the most perfect circular device for bringing the motions of the sun and earth down onto the earth, for drawing down the moon and for predicting eclipses, full and new moons and a host of other important calendrical information.

Asked by Cambridge archaeologist and Antiquity Editor Dr Glyn Daniels to assess the new Gerald Hawkins book, Stonehenge Decoded (1965), the most influential astronomer of the post-war period, Professor Fred Hoyle, quickly assessed the Aubrey holes as the basis for an analogue ‘clock/calendar showing the positions of sun, moon and lunar nodes – and hence eclipse prediction. Daniels was not a happy man at this outcome, he was keen to deal Hawkins’ work a death blow in the review. From Hoyle he got more than he bargained for – Hoyle saw immediately how those 56-holes uniquely stitched up the motions of the Sun, Moon and eclipse patterns. No other number would have done it! This device still is capable of working as it may once have been worked. Other circumstantial evidence for the use of the ‘Aubrey device’ supports the hypothesis that it was so used, as Greek sources link the god Typhon with both eclipses and the number 56, and Stonehenge does appear to have been built with much knowledge of the sun and moon built into its various stages. Let’s look at some of these. They are not hard to discover, nor are they astronomically abstruse.

For example, the 19 slender polished bluestones forming the innermost horseshoe may be taken to represent the 19 year Metonic repeat cycle of the sun and moon, a most important calendrical cycle and almost certainly that one referred to by Diodorous in his quotation about the inhabitants of the hyperborean island where a circular (spherical) temple dedicated to Apollo (the sun god) may be found and where the priesthood await the sky’s return every nineteen years.

Further, the sarsen circle at Stonehenge once contained thirty upright stones carefully arranged into a circle upon which a level platform of thirty interlocked lintels was placed. One of the upright stones, number 11 going clockwise from the midsummer axis line along the Avenue, an axis which itself is an indication of astronomical intent, is half the width of the rest, numerically suggesting 29 and a half, the length of the lunation in days. Furthermore, this stone is placed 7/19ths along the perimeter from the axis of the whole monument, and 7/19^th is the disparity or surplus in lunations between 12 lunar months (354.37 days) and the solar year (365.242 days). Any attempt to understand the soli-lunar calendar would have to involve this fraction.

Finally, the four stations stones once defined, according to Aubrey Burl, a ‘near perfect rectangle’ whose short sides aligned to the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset positions while the long sides aligned to the vital standstill position of the moon on the horizon, a position one must know to predict eclipses accurately. Only close to the latitude of Stonehenge can a rectangle be employed to do this, making the location of Stonehenge astronomically significant. This rectangle is dimensioned as a 5:12 ratio, in units of 8 Megalithic yards (MYs). The diagonal thus becomes 13 of the same units, or 104 MY. The 5:12:13 triangle enables an accurate soli-lunar calendar to be constructed simply, and it predicts type and date of eclipses.

So there are plenty of reasons to support a calendrical, and hence astronomic component to Stonehenge’s design. In each case, the geometry of the monument supports the astronomy. No one fully understands the significance that drove the architects and builders, at such vast expense of toil, to construct this mammoth temple to Apollo on Salisbury Plain, but at least some of this can reasonably be attributed to an astronomical function, even to the actual latitude chosen, and how was this discovered, then?

So how is it that the orthodox view of Stonehenge makes so little of any astronomical or geometrical properties of the monument Why is nearly every single program made by the media on Stonehenge leaving its audience numb with boredom. It is almost as if we are told that the monument built itself and has nothing at all to say to us, while ‘experts’ are wheeled in to wax lyrical about religious rites and tribal meetings, and the impressive fact that such large stones were placed so accurately into position (without ever showing how that was done in solid stone, rather than polystyrene replicas). We never find anything out, never pass through the subjective opinions of our experts!

There is never an attempt to answer the really big questions. Like: Why is Stonehenge built where it is? 12 million man-hours spent building a temple on a whimsically decided site – nah!. Why were the bluestones so important to the project - why were these lovely stones lugged from West Wales, surely a question worth a stab at?

Finally, why was Stonehenge built at all? It’s unique, it’s massive and orthodox thinking hasn’t a clue why it was built nor why it is located where it is. Nor what it was for. Our orthodoxy has failed us. Why? Well, that’s another most interesting journey, for another website entry.

Summary

Stonehenge & The Bluestone Site - Key Questions

1. Why was Stonehenge built?

2. Why was it located where it is?

3.Why were the bluestones so important as to engender lugging 80 of them from Preseli to Stonehenge?

In 250 years, Archaeologists have not been able to answer any of these questions. They have been remarkably slow to discover the obvious astronomical and geometrical features built into the monument and into its relationship with the Preseli site.

ASTRONOMY. The Avenue is aligned to M/s sunrise. Heel Stone is called Friar’s Heel in old books and on old plans. There’s a quaint myth concerning a friar planting his hoof-print on the stone. More obviously credible as the origin for the name of this stone, Ffriw yr Haul is Welsh for the ascending of the Sun, pronounced Friar Heel. Sorted!

Station stones are aligned on their shorter side to M/s sunrise, along the longer side to maximum northerly moonset every 18.618 years. The three recently (1965) discovered and horribly named ‘Car Park Post Holes’ sit firmly on the alignment to the most northerly moonset at the major standstill, as seen from Stonehenge.

The 56 Aubrey Holes can be used to make a simple Sun/Moon position recorder and hence a calendar. This same number also allows eclipses to be forecasted in advance. Astronomer Prof Sir Fred Hoyle first spotted this unique numerical relationship in 1964.

The diameter of the sarsen circle to the Aubrey circle (the two main circles at Stonehenge) form the ratio 7/19, the fraction of a lunar cycle left after 12 lunar months and the end of a (solar) year of 365.25 days. This fraction has to be known to understand how to design soli-lunar calendars.

The station stones form a 5:12 rectangle, the basis of a lunation triangle from which calendars and eclipses can be understood. The station stone rectangle is 5:12 in units of 8 Megalithic yards.

The 5:12 rectangle between Stonehenge, Lundy and the Preseli site is exactly 2,500 times larger than the station stone rectangle, and has sides of 100,000 and 240,000 MY

If the Megalithic yard is assumed to represent the lunar month, then precisely one foot represents the over-run between lunar and solar year (354.357 and 365.242 days)

GEOMETRY

A seven-sided star neatly connects the aubrey circle (283 feet) with the later sarsen circle. The inner star arms cross at the mean diameter of the sarsen circle.

The station stone rectangle forms four points of an octagon.

METROLOGY

The inner and outer sarsen ring diameters are 97.32 and 104.27 feet. This is 28 and 30 Royal yards (double Egyptian royal cubits of 1.737 feet) A Royal yard is one six millionth of the polar radius

Stonehenge is exactly one quarter of a degree of latitude from Avebury - 17.28 miles

And so on…a seamless catalogue of interconnecting design rules all integrated to each other.

Speculative? Or proof of a cultural intent that is quite astonishing – a heritage gold for Britain. Instead of being understood a rather badly sited pile of impressively large stones, Stonehenge can become something else – the zenith of neolithic astronomy and stone age culture. And we all look forward to some stonkingly interesting TV doccies about Stonehenge in the future. That should pack the tourists in!