CHAPTER XIII
STENNESS (Lat. 597 N.)
I WROTE a good deal in Nature (
footnote 123:1 ) on sun and star
temples in 1891, and Mr. Lewis the next
year expressed the opinion that the
British stone monuments, or some of
them, were sun and star temples.
Mr. Magnus Spence, of Deerness, in
Orkney, published a pamphlet, "Standing
Stones and Maeshowe of Stenness," (
footnote 123:2 ) in 1894; it is a
reprint of an article in the Scottish
Review, October, 1893, showing that the
stones were set up for solar worship.
Mr. Cursiter, F.S.A., of Kirkwall, in a
letter to me dated March 15, 1894, a
letter suggested by my "Dawn of
Astronomy," which appeared in that year,
and in which the articles which had been
published in Nature in 1891, had been
expanded, directed my attention to the
pamphlet.
I began the consideration of the
Stenness circles and alignments in 1901,
but other pressing calls on my time then
caused me to break. off the inquiry.
Quite recently it occurred: to me that a
complete study of the Stenness circles
might throw light on the question of an
earlier
Stonehenge, so I have gone over the old
papers, plotting the results on the
Ordnance map.
FIG. 38.—Maeshowe,
in the foreground, and the Stones of
Stenness. From “Notice of Runic
Inscriptions,” by James Farrer, M.P.
(1862).
Now that the inquiry is as complete as I
can make it without spending some time
in Orkney with a theodolite, I will
begin my reference to other circles
besides Stonehenge by stating the
conclusions at which I have arrived with
regard to the stones of Stenness.
In the first place I may state that
although many of the alignments to which
Mr. Spence refers in his pamphlet on
Maeshowe prove to be very different from
those he supposed and drew on the map
which accompanies his paper, the main
point of his contention is amply
confirmed.
I give a copy of the Ordnance map
showing the true orientation of these
and of other sight-lines I have made
out.
The alignments on which Mr. Spence
chiefly depended were two, one running
from the stone circle past the entrance
of Maeshowe to the place of sunrise at
Hallowe’en (November 1), another from
the same circle by the Barnhouse
standing stone to the mid-winter sunrise
at the solstice.
Although the map gives these
sight-lines, I shall show that they had
not the use Mr. Spence attributes to
them; but still observations of the sun
were provided for on the days in
question, and the circles and
outstanding stones were undoubtedly set
up to guide astronomical observations
relating to the different times of the
year. Of course, as I have shown
elsewhere; such, astronomical
observations were always associated with
religious celebrations of one kind or
another, as the astronomer and the
priest were one.
FIG. 39.—Copy of
Ordinance Map showing chief sight-lines
from the stones of Stenness.
I shall not refer to all
the sight-lines indicated, but deal only
with those which I have without local
knowledge been able to test and justify
by means of the 25-inch Ordnance map.
Not only does calculation prove the
worship of the May and June years, but I
think the facts now before us really go
to show that in Orkney the May year was
the first established, and that the
solstitial (June) year, came afterwards,
and this was one of the chief questions
I had in view.
I will begin with, the May year. I have
already shown, p. 22, that the half-way
time between an equinox and a solstice
is when the sun's centre has a
declination approximately 16° 20´ N. or
S. In Orkney, with the latitude of 59°,
assuming a sea horizon, the approximate
amplitude of sunrise or sunset is 33°
6´; the corresponding azimuth being 56°
54´.
Now the most interesting and best
defined line near this azimuth on the
Ordnance map is the one stretching S.E.
from the centre of the Stenness circle
to the Barnstone, with an azimuth of 57°
15´. The line contains between the two
points I have named another stone, the
Watchstone, 18½ feet high, in the
precise alignment; and from the
statements made and measures given it is
to be inferred that a still more famous
and perforated stone, the "Stone of
Odin," demolished seventy years since,
was also in the same line within the
extremities named.
If we may accept this we learn something
about perforated stones, and can
understand most of the folk lore
associated with them, and few have more
connected with them than the one at
Stenness. I suggest that the
perforation, which was in this case 5
feet from the ground, was used by the
astronomer; priest to view the sunrise
in November over the Barnhouse stone in
one direction, and the sunset in May
over the circle in the other. I hope to
be able to return to this question
subsequently.
There is another echo of this
fundamental line; that joining the Ring
of Bookan and the Stones of Via has the
same azimuth and doubtless served the
same purpose for the May year.
But this line, giving us the May sunset
and November sunrise, not the December
solstitial sunrise as Mr. Spence shows
it, is not the only orientation
connected with the May year at the
stones of Stenness. The November sunset
is provided for by a sight-line from the
circle to a stone across the Loch of
Stenness with an azimuth of S. 53° 30´
W.
To apply the table, given on p. 120, to
the solstitial risings and settings at
Stenness, and the sight-lines which I
have plotted on the map, it will be seen
that the table shows us that the lines
marked
S. 41° 0´ E.
N. 41° 16´ E.
S. 36° 30´ W.
are solstitial lines; to get exact
agreement with the table the heights of
the hills must be found and allowed for.
I have roughly determined this height
from the 1-inch map in the case of the
Barnstone-Maeshowe .alignment. On the
N.E. horizon are the Burrien Hills, four
miles away, 600 feet high at the sunrise
place, gradually ascending to the E.
vertical angle = 1° 36´ 30?. The near
alignment is on and over the centre of
Maeshowe. Colonel Johnston, the
Director-General of the Ordnance Survey,
has informed me that the true azimuth of
this bearing is N. 41° 16´ E., and in
all probability it represents the place
of sunrise as seen from the Barnstone
when Maeshowe was erected. What is most
required in Orkney now is that some one
with a good 6-inch theodolite should
observe the sun's place of rising and
the angular height of the hills at the
next summer solstice in order to
determine the date of the erection of
Maeshowe. Mr. Spence and others made an
attempt to determine this value with a
sextant in 1899, but not from the
Barnstone.
In the absence of this observation we
may use the diagram given on p. 121.
With the height of hill previously given
the sun should rise according to
calculation at about the azimuth N. 41
50´ E.
The difference between the new and old
azimuth then, on the assumption that az.
N. 41° 16´ E. really represents an
observation over Maeshowe, gives us the
difference of date.
Treating these figures then as we have
done in the case of Stonehenge in.
Chapter VII, the result is as follows.
The Barnhouse-Maeshowe line was
established about 700 B.C., when the
obliquity had in value of 23° 48´
according to Stockwell's tables. (Fig.
40.)
I confess the late date does not
surprise me. The masonry of Maeshowe
differs widely from that of other
similar structures in that the sides of
the gallery and chamber, instead of
being composed of upright stones, are
built in regular courses.
I do not believe that the Maeshowe
structure was built to observe a winter
sunrise twenty days from the solstice,
nor can I think it was set up at
midsummer by someone who had only dealt
with a high sun and a sea horizon, and
imagined that the sunrise and sunset
points were exactly opposite to each
other. It was a priest's house, and the
alignment of the passage to the
Barnstone was for the exchange of
signals, probably by lights in Maeshowe
itself.
FIG. 40.—Variation
of the Obliquity of the Ecliptic, 100
A.D.-4000 B.C.
(Stockwell's Values.)
The Ordnance maps give no indication of
stones, &c., by which the direction of
the midsummer setting or the midwinter
rising and setting might have been
indicated from either the Maeshowe or
the Barnstone.
To sum up the solar alignments from the
circle.
We have the May sunrise marked by the
top of Burrien Hill, from 600 to 700
feet high, Az. 59° 30´.
We have the November sunset marked by a
standing stone on the other side of the
Loch of Stenness, Az. 53° 30´.
June rising, Line from Barn stone over
Maeshowe tumulus.
December rising, tumulus (Az. 41°) on
Ward Bill. December setting, tumulus
Onston 36° 30'.
It is not. a little remarkable that the
summer solstice rising and the winter
solstice rising and setting seem to
leave been provided for at the Stenness
circle by alignment on the centres of
tumuli, two of them, across the Loch,
one the Onston tumulus to the S.W. (Az.
36° 30´), the other tumulus being on
Ward Hill to the S.E., Az. 41° (rough
measurement).
If the Maeshowe tumulus was a structure
erected at the time I have suggested to
use the Barnstone for the summer
solstice rising; then these two other
tumuli, to deal with the winter solstice
at Stenness circle, may have been built
at the same time. All these provided for
a new cult.
There are also tumuli near the line
(which cannot be exactly determined
because the heights of the hills are
unknown) of the summer solstice setting;
none was required for the sunrise at
this date, as the line passes over the
highest point of Hindera fiold, a
natural tumulus more than 500 feet high,
and on that account a triangulation
station.
Another argument in favour of the tumuli
being additions to the original design
is that the place of the November
setting from the Stenness circle is
marked, not by a tumulus, but by a
standing stone. As this stone, near
Deepdale, and the tumulus at Onston are
only about 1200 yards apart, the
suggestion may be made that under
certain unknown conditions and possibly
in later times tumuli in some cases
replaced stones as collimation marks.
With regard to the clock-star, it is to
be feared that the stones in the N.E.
quadrant as viewed from the circle which
might have given us a clue have been
removed. As the latitude of Stenness is
N. 59°, some star with a less
declination than N. 31° would have been
chosen, assuming that the sky-line
towards the N. point is not very high.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
123:1 See especially Nature, July 2,
1891, p. 201.
123:2 Gardner: Paisley and London.
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