STONEHENGE

Choice of Site by Astronomy

Astronomical Uniqueness of Stonehenge

Gerald S. Hawkins in Stonehenge Decoded, Doubleday, 1965,
writes that "Newham and Charriere ... have both commented ... that the latitude of Stonehenge is practically optimum for sun-moon rectangular alignment.... [I]n the northern hemisphere there is only one latitude for which, at their extreme declinations, the sun and moon azimuths are separated by 90 degrees.
Stonehenge is within a few miles of that latitude."

As Hawkins notes, the replica of Stonehenge at Maryhill, Klickitat County, Washington, USA, is at the wrong latitude 5 degrees too far south, and hence the luni-solar alignments do not work properly.
That is what happens when well-meaning people do not properly understand the astronomy of the megaliths.

Astronomical Seriousness of Stonehenge

Stonehenge was thus not just erected by chance as some kind of a "religious" object as erroneously thought by mainstream scholars ignorant of ancient astronomy, but was located pursuant to strict astronomical considerations.
This is why the ancients transported giant stones over hundreds of miles from the quarries to this location, rather than to build their astronomical clock in situ. THEY knew what they were doing.

Purpose of Stonehenge in Historical Writings

Diodorus Sicilus (1st century BC) writes in Book II, Loeb Library translation, concerning the  "Hyperboreans" and
their royal kings and priests, the "Boreades" (Brits), as follows:

"And there is also on the island both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo [the SUN] and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is SPHERICAL in shape....

They say also that the moon, as viewed from this island, appears to be but a little distance from the earth and to have upon it prominences, like those of the earth, which are visible to the eye.

The account is also given that the god visits the island every nineteen years, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished; and for this reason the nineteen-year period is called by the Greeks the 'year of Meton'.

At the the time of this appearance of the god he both plays on the cithara
and dances continuously the night through from the vernal equinox
until the rising of the Pleiades...."

The purpose of Stonehenge is thus quite clear from ancient writings
as well as from modern computer studies of alignments, ala Hawkins.
It was an astronomical instrument in the Stone Age era.

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