Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments Astronomically ConsideredLockyer, Norman, Sir
History
Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments Astronomically Considered
Lockyer, Norman, Sir
Druids and Druidism; Great Britain -- Antiquities; Stonehenge (England); Sun worship; Temples
If the observer be on the equator, the movements of the stars will
appear to be as indicated in this diagram (Fig. 3)--that is, all the
stars will rise and set, and each star will be, in turn, twelve hours
above the horizon, and the same time below it. But if we consider the
position of an observer in a middle latitude, say at Stonehenge, we find
that some stars will always be above the horizon, some always
below--that is, they will neither rise nor set. All other stars will
both rise and set, but some of them will be above the horizon for a long
time and below for a short time, whereas others will be a very short
time above the horizon and a long time below it, each star completing a
circle in a day (Fig. 4).
Wherever we are upon the earth we always imagine that we are on the top
of it. The idea held by all the early peoples was that the surface of
the earth near them was an extended plain: they imagined that the land
that they knew and just the surrounding lands were really in the centre
of the extended plain. Plato, for instance, was content to think the
Mediterranean and Greece upon the top of a cube, and Anaximander placed
the same region at the top of a cylinder.
By the use of a terrestrial globe we can best study the conditions of
observation at the poles of the earth, the equator and some place in
middle latitude. The wooden horizon of the globe is parallel to the
horizon of a place at the top of the globe, which horizon we can
represent by a wafer. By inclining the axis of the globe and watching
the movement of the wafer as the globe is turned round, we can get a
very concrete idea of the different relations of the observer’s horizon
to the apparent paths of the stars in different latitudes.
We have next to deal with the astronomical relations of the horizon of
any place, in connection with the observation of the sun and stars at
the times of rising or setting, when of course they are on or near the
horizon; and in order to bring this matter nearer to the ancient
monuments, we will study this question for both Thebes and Stonehenge.
We may take the latitude of Thebes as 25°, Stonehenge as 51°, and we
will begin with Thebes.
To consider an observer on the Nile at Thebes and to adjust things
properly we must rectify a celestial globe to the latitude of 25° N.,
or, in other words, incline the axis of the globe at that angle to the
wooden horizon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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