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"In my younger days I have visited Stonehenge by starlight, and found, on applying my sight from the top of the 6-foot pillars of the inner oval and looking at the high trilithons, I could mark the places of the planets and the stars in the heavens, so as to measure distances by the corners and angles of them.... "Dr.
Within this circle, and leaving a space about nine feet wide between, was another circle of thirty or forty unhewn stones about four to seven feet high. Within this, again, was the grandest part of the structure a great ellipse formed of five triplets of stones or trilithons, each composed of two uprights and one placed crosswise.
This view seems to be disproved by the excavations of 1901, which made it clear that the trilithons were erected before and not after the blue-stones.
Here, again, no excavations have been carried out, and we do not even know what was the purpose of these structures. It is, however, probable that these trilithons were not, like the dolmens, tombs, but served some religious purpose, possibly connected with the worship of the menhirs. In the Jaulân, where the rock consists of a slabby type of basalt, there are many dolmens of fine appearance.
Several of the blocks show a design of spirals in relief, while on others there are the usual pit-markings. Another bears a figure of a fish or serpent. At the foot of one of the trilithons was found a baetyl 51 inches in height, now in the museum at Valletta. That these three buildings were sanctuaries of some kind seems almost certain from their form and arrangement.
When these were in position the recumbent block could easily be placed across the two and, all the trilithons being complete, the earth could be dug away, leaving the stones standing. Professor Gowland, however, does not favour this view in the light of his recent discoveries and is inclined to credit the builders with a greater knowledge of simple engineering.
Within the horseshoe and close up to it stand the famous blue-stones, now twelve in number, but originally perhaps more. These stones are not so high as the trilithons, the tallest reaching only 7-1/2 feet. They are nearly all of porphyritic diabase.
If the land were subdivided in the manner the labourer is instructed would be so advantageous, comparatively few of the plots would be near towns. Some of the new 'farmers' would find themselves in the centre of Salisbury Plain, with the stern trilithons of Stonehenge looking down upon their efforts.
The early aspect of Stonehenge was far more elaborate than as we see it to-day, and the avenues that led to the inner circles and the smaller and outer rings have to a large extent disappeared. The stones are enclosed in a circular earthwork 300 feet across. The outer circle of trilithons, 100 feet in diameter, is composed of monoliths of sandstone originally four feet apart and thirty in number.
On the top end of each upright of the trilithons is an accurately cut tenon which dovetails into two mortices cut one at each end of the lower surface of the horizontal block. Each upright of the outer circle had a double tenon, and the lintels, besides being morticed to take these tenons, were also dovetailed each into its two neighbours.
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