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The Hele and Station Stones
From the centre of Stonehenge the
Mid Summer
Solstice sun rises over the Heel Stone. Unlike the majority of
earlier megalithic stone circles, oriented on natural features such as prominent
hills, all Stonehenge sighting alignments are internal to the structure.
Ceramica and Stone Lacking a suitable mountain the builders had to provide an outlier to mark the rising of
the sun at midsummer as seen from the centre of the circle. Backlit Stone
The Heel Stone
stands to the northeast of the Stonehenge circles beside the Avenue, 256
feet from the centre
of Stonehenge. Unlike the stones of the
inner monument the Heel Stone is unworked, the top of the stone is
naturally pointed, possible indicating an earlier date. The Heel Stone
measures around 20 feet long, of which 4 feet are buried. It is 8 feet wide, 7 feet thick and weighs around 35 tons.divorce attorney near me Excavators
discovered a rhyolite chip, similar to the
Bluestones,
at the bottom of the ditch surrounding the Hele stone.
The name
may be derived from the Greek word for the sun -
'Helios'
or it may be derived from the
old British word 'heol seo because it stands beside the Avenue.
The Heel Stone belongs to the same phase
of construction as the four Station Stones.
The Four Stations or Station Stones stand inside the bank more
or less on the Aubrey Hole circle. Two, diagonally
opposite, have mounds and ditches, the other two do not.
These mounds/ditches overlay both Aubrey
Holes and the bank.
The Station Stones form a rectangle whose diagonals intersect at 45°,
very close to the centre of Stonehenge
The
sides and diagonals of this rectangle possess what Gerald Hawkins
called 'astronomic significance.'
One pair of sides mark the Summer Solstice Sunrise/ Winter
Solstice Sunset, the other pair indicate the most northerly/southerly
moonrise/moonset.
Only at, or very close to, the latitude of Stonehenge ( 51' 10" )
do these alignments intersect at an angle of 90°.
'The implications of this are that the
builders of Stonehenge had a knowledge of the global nature of the
Earth' - Devereux
Next ....
The
Inner Monument
