Yeah, I think it's out there, but not always accessible. It could be that there's more UFO activity in 'Nordic' areas, drawn to the juice of the power centres, but that's just speculation.
I remember hearing one account of high strangeness from Malidoma Some, an African tribal elder and author from the Dagara. Quote starts at 13:52.
When he was younger, he was taken by five of his elders to the old initiation cave. One of them spoke in an unknown language, and a hatch opened up in the ceiling of the cave, a small man popped out, asking why he had been called. Malidoma recounts feeling like his body was being hit with an electric wave. He looked into the realm behind the hatch, and saw lines of miniaturized pyramids that were arranged to seem 'very inviting'. He interpreted all this in a positive way, concluding that he had seen the ancestral power inherent in Africans, and it was a major part of his life's mission to bring Africans into contact with this power. He advocates people giving over their bodies to 'the ancestors' so that they can be used as instruments in this world. He has a major focus on ritual. It all seems pretty sketchy to me, even if it's presented in very glowing terms.
UFOs or 'star people' have long been a favourite topic of conversation amongst Native Americans, too. The Hopi have a prophecy about disclosure, actually. Quote starts at 2:37:15:
The 'two-hearted ones' (the Hopi term for PTB and psychopaths) will make one last major push for control, by two different kind of disclosure - the first is that they will reveal that the earth will be destroyed in a cosmic catastrophe. The second is that they will reveal that they have a relationship with other-dimensional creatures (which we're beginning to see now). Put these two together, and the only way to survive is to go through the star gate with the beings who arrive, following them to this other dimension. One thing of note is the promise of extended lifespans. The Hopi warn that it's a trap - don't go with them, and stay with mother earth. The promised extended lifespan will be spent in slavery. So there is some resonance with the whole 'they plan to rule you in 4D' info given by the C's.
The Hopi are an interesting case, not just for their prophecies, but also their creation story or mythic history, which includes living underground during the last great catastrophes. They say that 'Ant People' took care of them down there.
The Hopi Indians have lived on the high desert of northern Arizona for thousands of years.
www.ancient-origins.net
So there's some bizarre stuff going on here linking catastrophes, underground civilizations, kiva culture, ant-people, the Anunaki, Orion, etc. Anyways, for some cultures - particularly those who have managed to hold onto some of their old stories in the face of modernization - I think we can say that some form of disclosure has probably been an ongoing event for hundreds if not thousand of years.
At any rate, there's the English language bias that means we don't get reports from other languages/countries. But I think there's also a cultural or cosmological issue. There might be a lot of data out there, but Western media apparatus that we (woefully) rely on for news has the good ol' materialist bias, too. So we also don't get reports from other worldviews - even if they are presented in English.
I appreciate that I have already posted one response to your post above but I would like to add another, particularly focusing on the Hopi's use of the "kiva", which is a part subterranean, large enclosed circular area reserved for spiritual rites. In essence, I would like to draw comparisons between the Hopi (whose ancestors were known as the
Anasazi, a Navajo word meaning "
enemy of my ancestors," although the Hopi prefer to call them the
Hisatsinom, or "Old Ones") and the Megalithic builders of
Stonehenge in England and
Göbekli Tepe in modern day Turkey, all of whom built circular stone structures.
First I would like to provide a link to an informative article dealing with the
Hopi Legend of Shambhala - see:
Alien Races And Descriptions - 4
Where you quoted the C's on the Native Americans being fooled by the Greys (Star People) about abductions:
Q: Which brings up the subject of Native Americans. A big part of what is being taught by them at the present time is that the aliens, the Grays, and assorted others, are good guys - the "star people" coming here to teach us and to help us advance! They claim that it is a "good" thing to have contacts, abductions, and so on and on.
A: No. Corrupted message. Some early contacts were with benevolent STO beings.
, it seems the benevolent aliens the Hopi may have been in contact with were the the Pleiadians or the Chuhukon, meaning those who cling together (perhaps a reference to the unity of being at 6th density). They even considered themselves direct descendants of the Pleiadians. This reflects the beliefs of other Native American tribes as well:
- The Navajos named the Pleiades the Sparkling Suns or the Delyahey, the home of the Black God.
- The Iroquois pray to them for happiness.
- The Cree came to have come to earth from the stars in spirit form first and then became flesh and blood.
- Early Dakota stories speak of the Tiyami home of the ancestors as being the Pleiades. Astronomy tells us that the Pleiades rise with the sun in May and that when you die your spirit returns south to the seven sisters.
- They believe that Mythic Mountain is actually the home of the Kachinas. This mountain top is a sacred one. Being
the home of the kachina spirits it is the place where all of the large mythic beings they honor in their rituals land.
"We come as clouds to bless the Hopi people" is a quote passed from generation to generation."
Hopi/Anasazi
Many of the mysteries of the Anasazi have been solved in the last 20 years. Archaeologists are fascinated by what they’ve been discovering about what has been the biggest puzzle of all: How did an entire civilization and culture just suddenly vanish from the face of the planet about 650 years ago?
Before serious study was given to the disappearance of the Anasazi, this central mystery had fueled a whole raft of theories, especially among New Age and UFO groups: The Anasazi had been lifted off in space ships; they had discovered portals into other dimensions of space and time; or they had mastered nodal energy centers that are scattered around the whole region. (A few hundred miles away, in Sedona, Arizona, you can help the local economy by taking a Jeep tour to conveniently located nodal points just outside of town!)
However, piece by careful piece, a more sobering explanation and history of the Anasazi has emerged over the years as follows, according to most experts:
The ancestors of the Anasazi came to Angel Canyon at least 10,000 years ago. A thousand years ago, they had become a peaceful farming society that could turn its attention to studying the stars, building observatories, creating beautiful art, and spreading their culture across the Southwest.
The Anasazi culture built its capital city at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Society soon became centralized as political/religious leaders asserted themselves and took control, building roads to outlying colonies and trade routes to other civilizations, in particular the Toltecs of Mexico.
Then, about 800 years ago, the economy began to collapse. The land had been overworked and when a drought set in, the leaders at Chaco Canyon became more tyrannical. The small, still-peaceful communities like those at Angel Canyon found themselves suddenly victims of the ruling classes. They moved their homes into caves high in the cliff walls and prepared to defend themselves.
To add to the woes of the Anasazi, there is evidence of bands of roaming Toltec outlaws invading their small communities, terrorizing the people, then murdering them and - one of the most shocking recent discoveries - eating them.
Rather than fighting back, the Anasazi people responded with a mass exodus. Over a period of just a few years, around 1350, they just walked away from the troubles that had beset them. They abandoned their ancestral lands and migrated south, eventually building a new culture and religion that we know as the Hopi.
Chaco Canyon
As mentioned above, the Hopi's Anasazi ancestors (who may be linked with the Aztecs in Mexico) are especially linked with the stone structures at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. According to the C's, this seemed to be a spiritual centre for those of rare talents or unusual abilities built, like Stonehenge, by Atlantean descendants:
Session dated 4 July 2009:
Q: (L) Okay, enough on that. Next? (A**) I was gonna ask about Chaco Canyon. What was it built for?
A: Gathering place for those of unusual abilities.
Q: (A***) Did anybody actually live there?
A: More like a "conference centre."
Q: (A**) So what happened to the people that used it?
A: Change of cosmic environment followed by earthly difficulties such as famine, climate etc.
Q: (J) What kind of things did those people with unusual abilities do when they gathered together?
A: Well, levitate, for one; direct manifestation for another; and "travel". [
Cf. this with the Ancient Britons dancing at Stonehenge with the god Phoebus Apollo and levitating.]
Q: (Allen) So, could they travel from one spot on the planet to another?
A: Yes.
Q: (A*l) Could they teleport?
A: Yes.
Q: (J) Teleport... These weren't your average human beings then. (laughter)
A: No not exactly, but it wasn't the same environment you currently enjoy either.
Q: (A**) Where did these people come from?
A: Remnant Atlanteans. Descendants for the word sticklers.
Q: (L) I think that's because once, somebody made a big deal out of them saying "remnants of Atlantis" and they meant descendants. (A*l) Do they mean that if our environment wasn't so polluted that we could have super powers? (L) They said "cosmic environment".
A: Gravity is different now.
Q: (A*l) What happened to gravity? How'd it change?
A: Travels of the solar system through space. You are heading for another such change soon.
History of the Anasazi or Pueblo People
Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States
National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Alburquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the most important pre-Columban cultural and historical areas in the United States.
Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon was a major centre of culture for the Ancestral Puebloans. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings ever built in North America until the 19th century. Evidence of archaeoastronomy at Chaco has been proposed, with the "Sun Dagger" petroglyph at
Fajada Butte a popular example (see more below). Many Chacoan buildings may have been
aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction. The Chacoans built their complexes along a 9-mile (14 km) stretch of canyon floor, with the walls of some structures aligned cardinally and others
aligned with the 18.6-year cycle of minimum and maximum moonrise and moonset (
Cf. this with Stonehenge where the legend was that the god, Phoebus Apollo, danced there every nineteen (18.6 to be precise) years otherwise known as the Metonic Cycle, i.e., the Moon’s 19 year cycle where it returns to exactly the same place (at the same longitude and against the same constellation) in the sky with the same phase.. When Laura asked the C's what this related to, the C's said it was "Symbolic. Tides, moon eclipses, that sort of thing. Think of Wiccans entubed on the information superhighway!")
.
Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a fifty-year drought commencing in 1130.
Although the article I quoted from above suggests that the ancestors of the Anasazi came to
Angel Canyon at least 10,000 years ago, archaeologists seem to have only traced the culture back to 900 BC, with an Archaic people who lived at Atlatl Cave and like sites. They left little evidence of their presence in Chaco Canyon. By AD 490, their descendants, of the
Late Basketmaker II Era, farmed lands around Shabik'eshchee Village and other pit-house settlements at Chaco.
A small population of
Basketmakers remained in the Chaco Canyon area. The broad arc of their cultural elaboration culminated around 800, during the
Pueblo I Era, when they were building crescent-shaped stone complexes, each comprising four to five residential suites abutting subterranean
kivas, large enclosed areas reserved for rites. Such structures characterize the
Early Pueblo People. By 850, the Ancient Pueblo population—the "
Anasazi", from a
Ute term adopted by the Navajo denoting the "ancient ones" or "enemy ancestors"—had rapidly expanded: groups resided in larger, more densely populated pueblos. Strong evidence attests to a canyon-wide turquoise processing and trading industry dating from the 10th century. Around then, the first section of
Pueblo Bonito was built: a curved row of 50 rooms near its present north wall. Archaeogenomic analysis of the mitochondria of nine skeletons from high-status graves in Pueblo Bonito determined that members of an elite matriline were interred here for approximately 330 years between 800 and 1130, suggesting continuity with the matrilineal succession practices of many Pueblo nations today.
The cohesive Chacoan system began unravelling around 1140 AD, perhaps triggered by an extreme fifty-year drought that began in 1130 AD; chronic climatic instability, including a series of severe droughts, again struck the region between 1250 and 1450 AD. Poor water management led to arroyo cutting; deforestation was extensive and economically devastating: timber for construction had to be hauled instead from outlying mountain ranges such as the
Chuska Mountains, which are more than 50 miles (80 km) to the west. Outlying communities began to depopulate and, by the end of the century, the buildings in the central canyon had been neatly sealed and abandoned.
Some scholars suggest that violence and warfare, perhaps involving cannibalism, impelled the evacuations. Hints of such include dismembered bodies—dating from Chacoan times—found at two sites within the central canyon. Yet Chacoan complexes showed little evidence of being defended or defensively sited high on cliff faces or atop mesas. Only several minor sites at Chaco have evidence of the large-scale burning that would suggest enemy raids. Archaeological and cultural evidence leads scientists to believe people from this region migrated south, east, and west into the valleys and drainages of the
Little Colorado River, the
Rio Puerco, and the
Rio Grande.
Kivas
Ceremonial structures known as
kivas were built in proportion to the number of rooms in a pueblo. One small
kiva was built for roughly every 29 rooms. Nine complexes each hosted an oversized great kiva, each up to 63 feet (19 m) in diameter.
"T"-shaped doorways [
Think here of the T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe as well] and stone lintels marked all Chacoan kivas.
Chaco's smaller
kivas numbered around 100, each hosting rituals for 50–100 worshipers; the 15 much larger "great kivas" each held up to 400.
The Sun Dagger and Alignments
Two whorl-shaped etchings near the top of
Fajada Butte compose the "Sun Dagger" petroglyph, tucked behind the eponymous rock panels of the "Three-Slab Site". They are symbolically focal.
This 11th century pictograph at Chaco Canyon shown above may depict the
supernova of AD 1054. This supernova and the Moon were in this configuration when the supernova was near its brightest. An imprint of a hand at the top signifies that this is a sacred place.
Some parties have advanced the theory that at least 12 of the 14 principal Chacoan complexes were sited and aligned in coordination, and that each was oriented along axes that mirrored the passing of the Sun and Moon at visually pivotal times. The first great house known to evince fastidious proportioning and alignment was Casa Rinconada: the twinned "T"-shaped portals of its 10-metre (33 ft) radius great
kiva were north–south collinear, and axes joining opposing windows passed within 10 centimetres (4 in) of its centre. The great houses of Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl were found by the "Solstice Project" and the
U.S. National Geodetic Survey to be sited along a precisely east–west line, an axis that captures the passage of the equinox sun. The lines perpendicularly bisecting their principal walls are aligned north–south, implying a possible intent to mirror the equinox midday. Pueblo Alto and Tsin Kletsin are also north–south aligned. These two axes form an inverted cross when viewed from above; its northbound reach is extended another 35 miles (56 km) past Pueblo Alto by the ramrod-straight
Great North Road, a pilgrimage route that modern-day Pueblo Indians believe to be an allusion to myths surrounding their arrival from the distant north.
Reasons for the alignments have been offered:
“As these people would view the heavens ... there was an order of things up there. What you had here ... contrasted to that. Some years it was too dry, too hot ... too windy, too cold. If there was a way to transfer the orderly nature of the cosmos down onto what seems to be chaos that exists here, then you begin to then integrate at this place both heaven and earth. And this would be ... the centre place.”
— Phillip Tuwaletstiwa, U.S. National Geodetic Survey, The Mystery of Chaco Canyon.
This seems to be a clear example of the ‘
as above, so below’ Hermetic principle being applied. Moreover, just as Stonehenge was aligned to the constellation of Orion, Chaco Canyon was deliberately aligned to the
Pleiades star cluster, more commonly known as the Seven Sisters.
Originally, the kivas would have been covered over by wooden roofs and would be a wooden and stone equivalents of today's 'sweat lodges' found in Native American tents or tepees, which are used for shamanic experiences, no doubt as their Chacoan ancestors once did in the kivas at Chaco Canyon.
The same is likely true of the circular stone structures found at Göbekli Tepe - see Michael B-C's thread
THE ONCE AND FUTURE SKY GOD? – From Göbekli Tepe to The Zodiac – and Beyond… for more on this at THE ONCE AND FUTURE SKY GOD? – From Göbekli Tepe to The Zodiac – and Beyond…
These may even have served a similar purpose to the kivas at Chaco Canyon where spiritual ceremonies were concerned linked with what the C's said about Stonehenge -
Symbolic. Tides, moon eclipses, that sort of thing. Think of Wiccans entubed on the information superhighway!.
Göbekli Tepe seen from above.
But what of that other huge circular Megalithic structure known as Stonehenge which at first site may seem to have little to do with Chaco Canyon or Göbekli Tepe. That is because we are only seeing it today as a ruin. Indeed, Laura pointed out the present crude appearance of Stonehenge to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the C's said the following in response:
Q: Obviously the Great Pyramid is a marvel of engineering - and Stonehenge is as well - yet the two structures are so dissimilar. The Pyramid presents such a finished and sharp and elegant appearance, and Stonehenge might give a person - of course that is based on how it appears today - a more primitive presentation.
A: Was not originally.
So what could Stonehenge have looked like once? Some idea may be gleaned from the following two articles.
New discovery around Stonehenge
Stonehenge Articles
Scientists recreate prehistoric acoustics of Stonehenge
Sounds produced inside circle would have been less audible to anybody outside, research finds
David Keys.
Scientists have succeeded in recreating the soundscape of the inner sanctum of
Stonehenge.
It’s the first time that the acoustics of the world’s most famous prehistoric temple have been accurately experienced for up to 2,000 years.
The main phase of the monument was built in around 2,500BC. Its major period of use lasted until at least 1,600BC. However, it’s likely that some form of ritual or other activity continued there, perhaps intermittently, for at least another one and a half millennia. Then, at some stage, half of the great temple was destroyed (today only around 50 per cent of the larger stones survive).
As a result of that partial demolition, the original acoustics were destroyed.
But now, scientists have succeeded in accurately recreating the monument’s original soundscape.
The new research – carried out by acoustics engineers from the University of Salford in Greater Manchester – has
revealed that the 20-40 tonne stones acted as a giant amplifier, which increased the decibel count of various sounds potentially produced in the monument’s inner sanctum by between 10 and 20 per cent (up to 10 decibels), compared to a more open environment.
However, the research also
demonstrated that any sounds produced inside the temple would have been much less audible to anybody outside the circle, despite the monument almost certainly not having a roof.
The findings therefore suggest that any sounds generated by activities carried out inside the circle were not intended to be shared with the wider community. This reinforces theories suggesting that the potential religious activities conducted inside Stonehenge were reserved for an elite of practitioners, rather than for a wider communal congregation.
Archaeologists don’t know whether the practices carried out inside Stonehenge involved any form of music or chanting or any other form of speech. But drums and wind instruments were used in western Europe, while Stonehenge was in use.
The findings from the new acoustic research suggests that deeper-sounding instruments like drums and lurs (giant ancient bronze horns) would have been particularly effective in producing strong reverberations and therefore greater amplification within the monument.
The Salford research has so far concentrated on how the acoustics of Stonehenge would have affected the human voice.
To recreate the ancient temple’s soundscape, scientists, led by Professor Trevor Cox, made a 1:12 scale model of what Stonehenge would originally have looked like before half its stones were removed.
That model – based on archaeological evidence – was then tested acoustically in Salford University’s sound laboratory, using the same acoustic testing techniques normally employed by sound engineers on scale-model prototypes of modern concert halls and opera houses.
Because the model Stonehenge was one-twelfth the size of the original, the sounds used in the test had to be twelve times normal frequency (ie extending into the ultrasonic range).
Salford University’s acoustic scale model of Stonehenge is 2.5m in diameter – and was 3D printed from a CAD (computer-aided design) software model supplied by Historic England which has archaeological responsibility for the monument. Using the CAD model, the scientists were even able to recreate the precise surface topography of each of the stones, thus ensuring a much more accurate replication of the original temple’s acoustic environment.
“Constructing and testing the model was very time consuming, a labour of love, but it has given the most accurate insight into the prehistoric acoustics to date. With so many stones missing or displaced, the modern acoustics of Stonehenge are very different to that in prehistory,” said Professor Cox.
The new acoustics research has been announced less than a month after archaeologists for the first time
identified the source of the prehistoric temple’s giant stones.
Sep 3, 2020
More on acoustic properties of Stonehenge in this
Stonehenge’s Stones Can Sing
Acoustics...
A BBC sound engineer saw the model on display in Bristol. He did not know what it was for, but exclaimed "This is the best building for sound and acoustics I've ever seen. The shape of the roof would be perfect to reflect sound. Stand in the middle of Stonehenge and speak, and the sound will be amplified by the
conical shape of the roof."
The bluestones ‘sing’ when they are hit, resonating with an apparently unique twang that does not appear to reach the same pitch or musical note as other stones which merely ‘thud’.
This seems to reflect exactly what the C's said here:
A: Stonehenge used to resonate with tonal rill, teaching the otherwise unteachable with wisdoms entered psychically through crown chakra transceiving system.
[Note: the word "rill" is new to me. Webster defines it as a small stream or a little brook; to flow in or like a rill.]
Q: Was Stonehenge ever complete, with all the stones there? This author suggests that it was never completed because there are missing stones...
A: Of course.
Some previous theories surrounding Stonehenge’s sonic qualities – the way the stone circle would have captured and reverberated sound – had been rather dismissed by the experts concentrating on astronomy and landscape, but the new study appears to reinforce the importance of sound, and the sonic qualities of the stones themselves.
“We found it was a noteworthy soundscape, with a significant percentage of the actual rocks making metallic sounds like bells, gongs, tin drums, etc, when tapped with small, handheld ‘hammerstones’,” said Paul Devereux, the study’s co-leader, a research associate at the college and an expert in archaeo-acoustics.
And an interesting idea on it having a roof
Why would Stonehenge NOT have a roof ?
************************************************
Stonehenge - the rock venue! Architect's concept that the famous stones were simply the base for a vast Neolithic temple is brought to life by mesmerising models.
- Landscape architect Sarah Ewbank believes Stonehenge once had thatched roof
- Sarah believes iconic Salisbury monument was an all-pose Neolithic temple
- After making models, the architect believes it had a large oval hall overlooked by galleries in which the crowds might have gathered to hear the speakers below.
By
David Leafe for the Daily Mail
Published: 22:00, 2 July 2021 | Updated: 22:19, 2 July 2021
One of the biggest mysteries surrounding Stonehenge is how any of it is still standing, given the predations of souvenir-hunters and vandals including the great 17th-century architect Sir Christopher Wren.
He paid many visits to the ancient monument on Salisbury Plain and his surname can still be seen carved on one of its stones.
The Victorians were even more destructive, renting chisels to visitors so they could take great chunks of Stonehenge home, and over the centuries, farmers purloined stones for building their barns.
Perhaps they might all have had more respect for the monument, now a Unesco World Heritage site, had they heard the extraordinary theory being put forward in a new book by 62-year-old landscape architect Sarah Ewbank.
She would have us believe that the Stonehenge we see today r
epresents the ruins of a majestic building which once had a spectacular thatched roof.
Landscape architect Sarah Ewbank believes Stonehenge (pictured) once had thatched roof
As mind-boggling as contemplating an upright Tower of Pisa or a Day-Glo Taj Mahal, this may seem as barking as other ideas expounded about Stonehenge over the centuries: that its layout was based on the female private parts, or that it was a site of human sacrifice or a landing pad for aliens.
But Sarah is deadly serious, and she backs up her arguments with the rather ferocious electric saw she keeps in the garage of her pretty Cotswolds cottage near Lechlade, Gloucestershire.
The feisty grandmother does not use this to intimidate those who disagree with her — although she is rather frustrated with the academics who have repeatedly refused to engage with her idea that Stonehenge was a Neolithic version of the Royal Albert Hall.
No, the saw is used to fashion ever-more detailed models of how she thinks Stonehenge might have looked. Each has taken about two months to complete and they have got bigger each time.
While three earlier models have been banished to the attic, version four is currently taking pride of place in the dining room.
Sarah points out that Stonehenge has a total diameter — some 30 metres — which is almost exactly the same as Shakespeare’s Globe (pictured), a very similarly thatched building
Built on a scale of 1:33, it is surprisingly persuasive. The moment you see the familiar stone slabs as the supports for an upper storey you think ‘Ah, yes, of course it was a building. What else could it have been?’
As to what kind of building, Sarah thinks it was an all-purpose Neolithic temple with a large oval hall overlooked by galleries in which crowds might have gathered to hear speakers below.
She points out that the total diameter — some 30 metres — is almost exactly the same as Shakespeare’s Globe, a similarly thatched building in which, several millennia later, the human voice could carry to every audience member.
‘It is unquestionably the right size for an enclosed public venue,’ she says, speculating that the scenes at Stonehenge might have been as boisterous as in Elizabethan times.
‘Maybe there was feasting in the galleries, with dancing and musicians playing below, or perhaps ceremonies took place to welcome in the solstices. It all sounds rather splendid.’
It does indeed, and Sarah contends that archaeologists have under-estimated our Neolithic and Bronze Age forebears who built Stonehenge over centuries, years starting around 5,000 BC.
Building blocks: the basic structure which can be deduced from what is left to this day.
Layers upon layers: architect Sarah Ewbank's theory has an inner wall and doorway.
A giant roof: Sarah believes the monument took the shape of an all purpose Neolithic temple.
‘They have assumed they were rough, tough, types who had advanced little from grunting cavemen and were hardy enough to worship outdoors.
But we know that the Bronze Age was sophisticated enough to have goldsmiths making absolutely stunning jewellery and they knew how to make copper alloys like bronze.
‘It seems obvious to me that they would have wanted to mark the winter solstice inside, under a roof, not outside in the freezing cold.’
It has taken five years for Sarah to develop her theory with the support of Crispin Scott, a 65-year-old retired Army officer who is her partner of 14 years.
They are both divorced, with five grown-up children between them, and Sarah has fitted in her research around her work and their shared hobby of bell-ringing.
‘Initially, Cris couldn’t understand why I was doing it. But as I got more into it, he realised that I was on to something,’ she says.
It has taken five years for Sarah to develop her theory with the support of Crispin Scott, a 65-year-old retired Army officer who is her partner of 14 years. Pictured: One of Sarah's model
Sarah has been in architecture for more than 40 years and has been involved in consultancy and planning for everything from historic estates to Oxford colleges. Pictured: Sarah's model
Her interest was first sparked when she saw a TV documentary about new excavations at Stonehenge. ‘I wondered: “Why keep digging down instead of looking up?”
'I could see its slabs were of a suitable size to be support piers for a roof and wondered if their layout held clues that would reveal its shape.’
Designing landscapes for more than 40 years, she’s been involved in consultancy and planning for everything from historic estates to Oxford colleges. But this task involved throwing her brain into reverse.
Instead of creating a design from scratch, she was trying to deduce what a design might have been from the four concentric formations of stones which make up Stonehenge: an outer and an inner circle, a horseshoe and an oval.
None is complete, and indications of where the missing stones once stood have been identified by archaeological investigations.
These suggest that the outer ring consisted of 30 pillars of grey sarsen stone, each about four metres high, somehow transported from quarries on the Marlborough Downs, about 20 miles away.
Sarah points to other famous historic buildings — most notably the Parthenon in Athens — whose roofs are supported by similar columns. ‘It’s a common building form,’ she explains.
It’s believed that these pillars were all originally capped by horizontally placed stones known as lintels.
Where these are missing it’s possible to see two knobs on top of each pillar which would have slotted into two corresponding holes in the bottom of the lintels.
Since gravity alone would have been enough to hold the lintels in place, Sarah argues that the knobs and sockets would not have been necessary unless they were supporting something.
‘Their existence suggests that the sarsens’ uprights and lintels were engineered as if to take the load of a roof,’ she says.
While the sarsen stones would have formed an outer colonnade, a wraparound walkway covered by the roof but open to the elements, Sarah believes it’s logical that the hall would have had a wall to give protection from the weather.
A sketch showing how Sarah Ewbank, from Gloucestershire, imagines Stonehenge looked.
According to her, the remains of the doorways within that wall can be seen in Stonehenge’s inner circle, made up of smaller bluestones transported from the Preseli mountains in Wales, some 150 miles away
Before metal hinges were available, doors were jointed onto pivoting vertical poles that turned when the door was open or shut.
One of the bluestone uprights contains a vertical groove into which such a pole would have fitted perfectly, while the two bluestone lintels remaining contain holes which Sarah thinks may have been used to secure a wooden board containing sockets for the door-poles.
Moving towards the centre of Stonehenge, the next formation is a horseshoe of four trilithons — sets of two stones capped by a lintel — with another taller trilithon at the end.
Sarah suggests that all were supports for a central wooden framework spanning the centre of the oval hall, with rafters radiating downwards to the outer circle of sarsen stones to support the roof’s lower slopes.
In her view, Stonehenge’s builders would have known exactly how to build the central wooden cradle she posits as holding up the roof because it resembles a large upturned boat.
Her final challenge was to find a purpose for the oval of bluestones at the centre of Stonehenge. She concludes that these supported columns held up the balcony.
While her fourth model shows this being reached via a spiral staircase, she admits that this is pure guesswork.
But she is more confident that our Neolithic predecessors were capable of high-quality carpentry using oaks from the woodlands which covered about a third of Great Britain.
All this begs a question. If Stonehenge really was a building, then how on earth did they go about constructing it?
Using her experiences of shifting weighty objects with very limited resources, Sarah imagines an ingenious arrangement for raising Stonehenge’s wooden trusses, the largest of which she estimates as weighing 20 tonnes.
This involves building a high platform on which each truss could be laid flat, with one end butting the top of the lintel before being hoisted upright with ropes.
So what do the experts make of all this? Over the years, Sarah has asked but received no real replies.
‘I would like to sit down and have a sensible conversation with them, but it seems anything challenging the view of a broad consensus of current archaeologists is routinely rejected,’ she says,.
But English Heritage is unlikely to be entering such discussions any time soon. ‘The idea of a roof on Stonehenge wouldn’t make any sense,’ says the monument’s curator, Heather Sebire.
‘Part of the point of the place is the majesty of the stones, so why would you put a roof on them? The bottom line is that there isn’t any evidence for it.’
This doesn’t sit well with Sarah. ‘Just because something hasn’t survived, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist,’ she says, and her book certainly makes a plausible case that the roof on Stonehenge did exist.
One thing is certain. Given the huge distances over which the stones had to be transported by land, the construction of Stonehenge was an astonishing technical accomplishment — with or without a roof.
Stonehenge — Temple Cipher Roof, by Sarah Ewbank, £24.95 including delivery, from stonehengeroof.uk
Architect's concept that Stonehenge rocks were base for Neolithic temple brought to life in models
Conclusion
Although Chaco Canyon and the Hopi may be separated from Göbekli Tepe by over 10,000 years, I hope you would agree with me that there is still a remarkable similarity in the circular structures, which may well have been used for very similar purposes, If the recreation of Stonehenge by Sarah Ewbank shown above is accurate, again there would seem to be a certain similarity in design and function of all three structures, at least where astronomic observation is concerned. However, the C’s also said that the builders of Stonehenge worshipped “Spirits, stars, energy”, which may have reflected similar beliefs held by the dwellers of Chaco Canyon and perhaps those at Göbekli Tepe.