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Stonehenge as an Astronomical Instrument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

A. P. Trotter
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The astronomical controversy about Stonehenge may perhaps be approached from an impartial view of one who is neither an archaeologist nor an astronomer, who offers no new or original observations, and proposes to examine facts rather than to discuss theories.

Sir Norman Lockyer was one of those who held that many Egyptian and Greek buildings were set so that they faced certain points on the horizon at which the sun or some bright star arose. But the buildings do not face these directions exactly, and the suggestion is that the discrepancies are due to a well recognized astronomical principle—that the points of rising and setting gradually move on the horizon; and the rate of motion being known, the date of the building may be ascertained.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 1927 , pp. 42 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1927

References

1 Stone, E.H. , The Stones of Stonehenge, (1924), p. 130.Google Scholar

2 Op. cit. p. 131.Google Scholar

3 [The date, or dates, of Stonehenge cannot yet be determined with precision; but, in the opinion of some, 2000 B.C. is too early.—ED.]