The World of Stonehenge

 by Samuel Lewis

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to visit the ‘World of Stonehenge’ at the British Museum. The aim of the exhibition was to explore the stories of the people who used the monument and to bring to focus its cultural history. Covering the period between 4000 and 1000 BC, the collection contained early hunting and farming tools used by the wider Stonehenge community, as well as artifacts dedicated to the monument such as ceremonial garments, weapons and plates. The exhibition showed not only objects used in rituals, such as inscribed stones and skulls, but also the tools used to make them. In this way the focus was not only on Stonehenge itself, but on the ever changing communities around it, creating a more compelling story of how it was used and cherished by generations and how this evolved over time. By zooming even further out, to local and even global events happening at the time, the exhibition provides the full context necessary to understand the importance of Stonehenge. Because it’s scope was so large, and the number of artifacts across the 3000 years it covered was so vast, I have decided to focus on the two main objects that most interested me. Both were found in mainland Europe and shed light on the wider world of Stonehenge. 

(image by Samuel Lewis)

Easily the most opulent of the objects found in the exhibition is the Avanton Gold hat, thought to date from 1500 BC in Western France. It is an impressive 90cm tall, and embellished with intricate ring designs in its entirely gold surface. At first glance the hat is quite comical, looking like a traffic cone or elongated wizard hat, but the closer you look at it the more you appreciate the detail of the engraving. Each hat is made from just a single gold ingot, and hammered into a paper thin layer, and while the techniques used to shape the gold were primitive, they proved very effective. Once the gold was successfully hammered, the hat was finely decorated using small bone and wood punches. It was a very skilful and elaborate process, requiring much dexterity and precision from the goldsmiths, and in some areas the thickness of the gold is less than a millimetre. It’s therefore thought that the hat would have only been used for the most important of rituals, worn by the most prestigious in the community, but further analysis shows that this was not their only purpose. Detailed study of this hat, and other similar hats, show that these hats were more than just ornamental garments for wearing, but also cosmological calendars.

 At the centre of Neolithic life was the Sun, and this was no different for the community of Stonehenge, as the hats, much like Stonehenge itself, were closely tied with the solar and lunar calendars. The sun dictated the Neolithic peoples entire lives, most notably their crops, and the Summer and Winter Solstices were highly revered in their society, so much so Stonehenge itself was precisely designed to align with the sunrise at summer solstice, and the sunset at winter solstice. The Avanton gold hat too has been theorised to convert between the lunar and solar calendars, using its many rings, and acting as some kind of calculator. The importance of the sun is also reflected in the repetition of the sun motif across it, such as the sunburst design at its tip.

 

(image by Samuel Lewis)

 Another object dedicated to the sun is the Nebra Sky Disc, the earliest known depiction of cosmic phenomena, and one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century. The 31cm disc dates from 1600 BC in Germany, and just like Stonehenge, it too marks precisely the Summer and Winter solstices. While much older megaliths and earthworks such Stonehenge had already been used to mark the solstices, the disc is the first of its kind to present the Neolithic people’s knowledge in a tangible, portable and visual object. On the disc are two arcs, the Full Moon, the Crescent Moon, 32 stars, and what is presumed to be the Aurora Borealis. The two arcs span an angle of exactly 82°, which is equal to the angle between summer and winter solstice sunrise at the latitude of Stonehenge. This angle is also identical to the angle used in the Stonehenge structure itself, the axis of its centre stones marking the position of the rising and setting solstice suns. The disc also details the Pleiades star constellation, which was of extreme importance to agriculture at the time. The exact time of sowing and harvesting could be inferred through certain constellations such as this, which was crucial to farmers. Another purpose was, once again, the harmonisation of the lunar and solar calendars. When converting between the two, using a converter such as the aforementioned gold hat, a disparity of about a month appeared across each 3 year period. To bring the two calendars into harmony, a rule is needed, where if no new moon appears next to the Pleiades in spring, but instead a crescent moon, a leap month should be added every third year. This is precisely what the arrangement of the celestial bodies on the disc seems to show, expressing an immensely complex astronomical and calendrical principle on a single disc.

In conclusion, the ‘World of Stonehenge’ was an insightful window into not just the lives of the people who used Stonehenge, but also Neolithic life in Europe as a whole, delving into a time period often forgotten.