A New Chronology: A chronological exhibition of Depictions and Descriptions for Stone Henge

This page is intended to be shown alongside the page containing a chronological set of depictions for the Giza Pyramids and related objects.

* "Stonehenge: Ancient monument, Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom" (retrieved 2015-10-15, britannica.com) [archive.is/8zBqH] [begin excerpt]: The Stonehenge that is visible today is incomplete, many of its original sarsens and bluestones having been broken up and taken away, probably during Britain’s Roman and medieval periods. The ground within the monument also has been severely disturbed, not only by the removal of the stones but also by digging—to various degrees and ends—since the 16th century, when historian and antiquarian William Camden noted that “ashes and pieces of burnt bone” were found. A large, deep hole was dug within the stone circle in 1620 by George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, who was looking for treasure. A century later Stukeley surveyed Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments, but it was not until 1874–77 that Flinders Petrie made the first accurate plan of the stones. In 1877 Charles Darwin dug two holes in Stonehenge to investigate the earth-moving capabilities of earthworms. The first proper archaeological excavation was conducted in 1901 by William Gowland.
About half of Stonehenge (mostly on its eastern side) was excavated in the 20th century by the archaeologists William Hawley, in 1919–26, and Richard Atkinson, in 1950–78. The results of their work were not fully published until 1995, however, when the chronology of Stonehenge was revised extensively by means of carbon-14 dating. Major investigations in the early 21st century by the research team of the Stonehenge Riverside Project led to further revisions of the context and sequence of Stonehenge. Darvill and Wainwright’s 2008 excavation was smaller but nonetheless important. [end excerpt]
* "Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments Astronomically Considered" (1909, by Norman Lockyer) [archive.is/Ed0T6]

The Giant, Cerne Abbas in 1790 by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm
"The god is a graffito carved on the belly of the chalk,
his savage gesture subdued by the stuff of his creation.
He is taken up like a gaunt white doll by the round hills,
wrapped around by the long pale hair of the fields."
Taken from Jeremy Hooker’s book of poems titled
“Soliloquies of a Chalk Giant”

* "Historia Anglorum" (c.1130, by Henry of Huntingdon, archdeacon in the Diocese of Lincoln) contains the earliest known reference to the Stonehenge site

* "Historia Regium Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain)" (c.1136, by Geoffrey of Monmouth) which the author claimed he translated from "Historia Brittonum" (800s), names the Stonehenge site as the "Chorea Gigantum (the Giant's Chorus)", and is the earliest known description of how the site was built.
The Welsh adaptations of "Historia Regium Britanniae", titled "Brut Y Brenhinedd (Chronicle of the Kings)", name the Stonehenge site as the "Côr y Cewri (the Giant's Circle)".
The book describes how Hengist's Saxon's had murdered 460 unarmed British Nobles at a peace conference, forcing Vortigern to surrender his cities and fortified places in exchange for his life, after which he escapes to Kambria (Wales). The book continues [archive.is/XxJlO] [begin excerpt]: Afterwards, St. Eldad, Bishop of Gloucester, gave Christian burial to the British nobles at the monastery not far from Kaercaradauc, now Salisbury, situated on the mountain of Ambrius, as he thought something ought to be done to perpetuate the memory of that piece of ground, which was honoured with the bodies of so many noble patriots, that died for their country.
Masons and carpenters were summonsed to construct a lasting monument to those great men, but they refused to take on the task lacking confidence in their own skills to manufacture a fitting edifice. Tremounus, archbishop of the City of Legions, went to the king Aurelius, and said, “If any one living is able to execute your commands, Merlin, the prophet of Vortigern, is the man.”
"If you are desirous," said Merlin, "to honour the burying-place of these men with an ever-lasting monument, send for the Giant's Dance, which is in Killaraus, a mountain in Ireland. For there is a structure of stones there, which none of this age could raise, without a profound knowledge of the mechanical arts. They are stones of a vast magnitude and wonderful quality; and if they can be placed here, as they are there, round this spot of ground, they will stand for ever."
Utherpendragon, brother to the king, was despatched to Ireland with fifteen thousand men. After defeating Gillomanius and his vast army the Britons made for mount Killaraus and arrived at the structure of stones. Merlin challenged them to take down the stones. They set up their engines, cables, ropes and ladders in an attempt to remove the Giant's Dance but all to no purpose. Merlin laughed at their vain efforts, and then began his own contrivances and took down the stones, and gave directions for carrying them to the ships, and placing them therein. This done, they set sail again, to return to Britain; where they arrived with a fair gale, and repaired to the burying-place with the stones. Merlin set up the stones brought over from Ireland, about the sepulchre, placing them in the same manner as they had been in the mount Killaraus.
After forming a confederacy with Pascentius, the son of Vortigern, and the Saxons, Gillomanius came for the Giant's Dance and landed at the city of Menevia (St Davids, Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales). Uther went forward into Kambria to engage with the confederate forces of Gillomanius while Aurelius lay sick in Winchester. One of the Saxons, named Eopa, disguised as a monk, went to Winchester and promised to restore the king to health if he would take of his potions. The king duly obliged but the potions secretly conveyed a poisonous mixture and after falling asleep he died shortly after. He was buried within the Giant's Dance, near the convent of Ambrius.8 On his death Uther's body was also taken to the convent of Ambrius, where they buried him within the Giant's Dance close to Aurelius Ambrosius.
The one and only occasion when Geoffrey refers to the stone circle by the name of Stonehenge is when he states that Constantine was buried: “......by the side of Utherpendragon within the circle of stones, called Stonehenge in the English language, which had been built with such wonderful skill, not far from Salisbury”
[end excerpt]
[archive.is/4C2IT] [begin excerpt]: Geoffrey appear to have knowledge of the stones of the Giant's Dance being foreign to Salisbury Plain eight hundred years before Herbert Thomas announced the provenance of the bluestones was in Preseli south-west Wales in 1923, 20 but it also seems a remarkable coincidence that Geoffrey should have 460 British Nobles buried around the Giant's Dance when Stonehenge is surrounded by that number of barrows. Significantly, he reserves royal burials within the circle, shortly after the arrival of the Giant's Dance, for the British kings Aurelius, Uther and Constantine, when recent archaeological research has identified the earliest burials at Stonehenge, corresponding with the arrival of the bluestones, to an elite group of priest kings. [end excerpt]

The "Giant's Chorus":
* "Acoustic archaeology: The secret sounds of Stonehenge" (2010-08-27, newscientist.com) [archive.fo/W6Rai]
* "Stonehenge bluestones had acoustic properties, study shows" (2014-03-03, bbc.com) [archive.fo/9rP7u]
* "Old-School Mix Tape: New App Lets You Hear the Lost Music of Stonehenge; It’s hard to find musical taste more underground than this. A new app allows visitors to Stonehenge to hear the site’s acoustic manipulations dating back as far as 10,000 years ago" (2017-04-13, sputniknews.com) [archive.fo/gXbQz]

* "That year Merlin, not by force but by art, brought and erected the giants' round from Ireland, at Stonehenge near Amesbury". - Douai manuscript "Scala Mundi" (1440)

* "Roman de Brut" (1480), Wace's Norman verse edition for "Historia Regium Britanniae", contains the following illumination depicting Merlin as a giant, full image at [archive.is/Ns8ER]:

It was the illustrious King Henry VIII who assigned John Leland in 1533 and 1545 to amass details of British antiquities. Leland’s journeys and accounting provided the first truly viable recordation of British Neolithic monuments

Edmund Bolton (1575-1633) a friend of Camden who brought his friend and patron, the Duke of Buckingham, to dig a hole in the center of Stonehenge (1620) and then argued that Stonehenge was too crude to be Roman in origin. The earliest surviving depiction of Stonehenge was a water color by Lucas de Heere, c. 1575, as well as an anonymous sketch/engraving known as the ‘RF Print,’ dated 1575 (but not published until 1789).

* "Britannia Sive Florentissimorum Regnorum, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, Et Insularum Adiacentium Ex Intima Antiquitate Chronograpphica Descriptio", titled in English as "Britain, or a chorographicall description of the most flourishing kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Ilands adioyning, out of the depth of antiqvitie : beavtified with mappes of the severall Shires of England" (by Kip William Camden; Published 1610 by Jmpensis Georgii Bishop & Ioannis Norton, Londini), with 9 engraved plates and a folding map of Great Britain and a map of Anglo Saxon England, with a separate paginated section on Ireland with a title page and map.
Credited with being the first mass-produced depiction of Stonehenge.
More from (swaen.com) [archive.is/bHMDx] [begin excerpt]: In preparing his great work William Camden (1551-1623) Clarenceux Knight at Arms (a senior Herald at the College of Arms) preferred to travel around the country researching the documents, artifacts and sites for himself rather than depend on received wisdom from earlier authorities. He described his aim as being to "restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britaine to its antiquity". [end excerpt]
In the book, Kip William Camden also wrote that [begin excerpt] Leland’s opinion that the British one, Choir gaure, should not be translated Chorea Gigantum, a Choir of Giants, but Chorea nobilis, a noble Choir; or else that gaure is put for vaure, which makes it Chorea magna, a great Choir, is probable enough. [end excerpt]
Selection of pages [archive.is/PLujO] [archive.is/Op6eL] [archive.is/5QCmc] [archive.is/HfWXx][archive.is/b6Aqm] [archive.is/ghes8] [archive.is/xgxIA] [archive.is/OG3P1] [archive.is/1vI2H] [archive.is/DXIEJ] [archive.is/yrGwU] [archive.is/cY0ak] [archive.is/WJCRd] [archive.is/0UgTZ] [archive.is/y1ncw] [archive.is/3R0Fl] [archive.is/LxjkQ] [archive.is/1tXzB] [archive.is/ufg02] [archive.is/VXVrM].
- Stonehenge (frontspiece page) [archive.is/H98aB], another frontspiece which is colorized and which shows Stonehenge rebuilt [archive.is/CEOSj] [archive.is/XH5zP] in contrast to the original shown here:

- Stonehenge (pg. 252) [archive.is/iFhyS] and another edition's page with caption details translated into English [archive.is/5EhOl]:

* "Wilshire" map (by Iohn Speed ; published by Jodocus Hondius caelavit, 1610).
Full image at [http://is.gd/ViGldt], closeup of map caption [archive.is/bP1QB].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Speed]: “John Speed (1552–1629) was born at Farndon, Cheshire, and went into his father’s tailoring business where he worked until he was about 50. While working in London, his knowledge of history led him into learned circles and he joined the Society of Antiquaries where his interests came to the attention of Sir Fulke Greville, who subsequently made Speed an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to research. As a reward for his earlier efforts, Queen Elizabeth granted him the use of a room in the Custom House. It was with the encouragement of William Camden that he began his Historie of Great Britaine, which was published in 1611. Although Speed probably had access to historical sources that are now lost to us he certainly used the work of Saxton and Norden, his work as a historian is considered mediocre and secondary in importance to his map-making, of which his most important contribution is probably his town plans, many of which provide the first visual record of the British towns they depict.”
* "Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine" (1611, by John Speed) [archive.is/D10ah]

King James, of King James Bible fame, visited the site and concluded that it was impossible to mathematically count the stones twice and come up with the same number.
The King commissioned the peculiar name of Inigo Jones, the Surveyor General of the King’s Works, to – in neoclassical fashion – come up with an architectural plan of the monument.
The plan was left unfinished until three years after his passing when in 1652 Jones’ co-worker, John Webb, published his conclusions in The Most Notable Antiquity of Great Britain.
Inigo was severely prejudiced by his Greco-Roman orientation and superimposed a Classical Vitruvian (a Latin architect and engineer who wrote a voluminous set of 10 encyclopedic-style books called De Architectura) mold over Stonehenge.
In keeping with this Greco-Roman interpretation of proportion and geometry in structure, Inigo proposed a Stonehenge ground plan that resembled an outdoor Roman theater dedicated to Roman divinities like Coelus – god of the heavens and sky.

John Aubrey’s field studies of Stonehenge in 1663
Aubrey discounted all previous interpretations and catapulted Stonehenge into a truly prehistoric time frame – at least amongst ancient Celtic priests or Druids

Aylett Sammes (1636-79) attributed the monument to ancient Phoenicians.

1695 the new editor of Camden’s Britannia, Edmund Gibson, summarized all the theories as to who erected Stonehenge and why – rejecting Phoenician, Roman or Danish origins and, in particular, any Christian association for martyred Christian kings and the like absent any crosses on the monument.

* "A Temple Restor'd to the British Druids" (1740, by William Stukeley) [archive.is/MqPb1]: “the old Britons or Welsh call Stonehenge choir gaur, which some interpret chorea gigantum, the giants dance: I judge, more rightly chorus magnus, the great choir, round church, or temple.”

Also see "Itinerarium Curiosum" (1725, by William Stukeley) for a travel guide on stone monuments within Great Britain.

Stukeley discovered, for example, the 1,800-foot Avenue leading up to Stonehenge. He and his buddy, Sir Isaac Newton, BOTH were convinced (as I am most assuredly convinced) that embedded within the ancient world abides a body of uncorrupted knowledge (viz., Prisca Sapientia) which proliferated throughout antiquity; ipso facto many of these ancient sites express esoteric “lost truths” and should be viewed as “ancient gates” – as “signs and wonders” designed to be excised, unsealed, disclosed, deciphered from ancient texts and iconography.

A Group of Barrows upon Overton hill by William Stukeley

A Dr. John Smith (an inoculator against smallpox) – somewhat of a successor of Stukeley – contended in his 1771 CHOIR GAUR; The Grand Orrery of The Ancient Druids, that it was “an Astronomical Temple.”

On 3 January 1797, the westernmost trilithon thundered to the earth

Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) in his Ancient History of Wiltshire (1812) said of Stonehenge:
“It is a melancholy consideration that at a period when the sciences are progressively advancing, and when newly discovered manuscripts … throw a light on the ancient records of our country … that the history of so celebrated a monument as Stonehenge, should still remain veiled in obscurity.”

In the early 1800s William Cunningham commenced fieldwork on Stonehenge – excavations wherein some 465 barrows were opened. Investigated and refilled so as to keep the environment pristine. Notwithstanding, by the end of nearly ten years of such excavations he proclaimed: “After the result of ten years experience and constant research, we are obliged to confess our total ignorance as to the authors of these sepulchral memorials: we have evidence of the very high antiquity of our Wiltshire barrows, but none respecting the tribes to whom they appertained, that can rest on a solid foundation.”

Constable visited Stonehenge in 1820 where he made a sketch that was eventually worked up into this famous watercolour for his last exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1836. It carries the caption: “The mysterious monument… standing remote on a bare and boundless heath, as much unconnected with the events of the past as it is with the uses of the present, carries you back beyond all historical records into the obscurity of a totally unknown period’.

A Sir Edmund Antrobus bought the Stonehenge estate in 1824 and prohibited excavation at Stonehenge until his death in 1898 – digging was strictly prohibited.

Coursing at Stonehenge in 1865

* Images from the book "Stonehenge, Turusachan and Cromlechs" (1867, by Colonel James), made during an Ordnance Survey under the supervision of Colonel Sir Henry James. He wrote: "The structure, when complete, consisted of an outer circle of thirty large stones, upon which thirty other large stones were laid horizontally so as to form a perfect continuous circle. This circle is 100 feet in diameter within the stones. Only seventeen of the thirty upright stones of the outer circle are now standing, and only six of the thirty lintels are now in their places. Stonehenge was built on Salisbury Plain during three phases of construction between c. 3200 and c.1600 BC. Its design incorporates astronomical alignments and it was first used as a temple to the moon, only later transformed into a temple to the sun. An entrance causeway runs from the north-east and originally marked the most northerly rising of the midwinter full moon. It was later widened so that another megalith placed at its edge, the Heel Stone, became a marker for the summer solstice."