Stonehenge: Solar calendar or not?
Figure 8A from T. Darvill (2022), "Keeping time at Stonehenge", Antiquity 96, 319-335. Last year, Timothy Darvill's paper made the headlines: Stonehenge could have been used as a solar calendar. It seemed to make a lot of sense. After all, solsticial alignments and calendars go together, like cheese and biscuits, and Stonehenge is famous for its solsticial alignments. Indeed, Darvill suggested the calendar was kept in time by observing the summer sunrise or winter solstice (or both). This is the way it was supposed to work; If we consider only the large megaliths of the 'Stage 2' construction, circa 2620-2480 BCE, then... 1. There are apparently 30 upright stone megaliths in the outer Sarsen ring. Although many are missing now. there is archaeological evidence for all of them. These can obviously be used to count the days of each 30-day month. 2. Do this 12 times and you get 360 days. 3. The final 5 'epagomenal' days can be counted with the trilithon hor...
