Before the Pyramids: Cracking Archaeology's Greatest Mystery Read online

  The presence of Sirius, as seen from Thornborough, might perhaps have represented one of the most compelling reasons for creating these massive structures.

  The presence of Sirius each day at the southeastern portal of the henges gave us some of our most important clues as we went on to discover that the apparent association between the three henges of Thornborough and Orion’s Belt was definitely no coincidence.

  Chapter 6

  •

  SEARCHING FOR SIRIUS

  Locating Sirius

  There are literally millions of stars to be seen in the night sky, and tens of thousands that could be called bright and distinctive. No wonder then that our ancestors found it so easy to create imaginary pictures, the better to remember different parts of the sky. By the simple law of averages there are hundreds of instances in which three stars seem to stand in a row, as seen from a human perspective. We were well aware of this fact as we first read of usually conservative archaeologists making the suggestion that the three super-henges at Thornborough could be meant to represent the three stars of Orion’s Belt, because even if the henges were meant to be stars at all, why this particular trio?

  The stars that make up Orion’s Belt are Delta Orionis, Zeta Orionis and Epsilon Orionis – better known as Mintaka, Alnitak and Alnilam. They are all extremely bright and are grouped away from other bright stars, which makes their line pattern all the more obvious. To the Greeks they represented the belt or girdle of the giant hunter Orion, whose constellation is one of the largest to be seen in the night sky. In the northern hemisphere it is best seen in the winter months.

  As the Earth wobbles on its axis (precession) and as the galaxy slowly turns about its centre, the view of the stars as seen from the Earth gradually changes. These alterations are so small that they have barely impinged on humanity’s view of the sky across millennia but, even despite this, Orion’s Belt is one of the longest-lived parts of any constellation. It has been visible in its present pattern for the last 1.5 million years and is likely to remain that way for another 2 million years. All ancient cultures must have known Orion’s Belt and many used it as a navigational aid.

  What was it that convinced those who had looked closely at the Thornborough henges that they might have been intended to represent the three stars of Orion’s Belt? As it turned out there were a number of reasons, not least of which was the unique shape of the pattern they form on the landscape.

  Figure 9 (see page 61) shows the three Thornborough henges as they appear from the air. We had measured them very carefully, both from an aerial view using satellite technology, and on the ground with long measuring tapes. All our measurements were taken to and from the henge centres. We knew that the distance between the northern henge (henge A) and the centre henge (henge B) was slightly different to the distance between the centre henge (henge B) and the southern henge (henge C). The first distance was 366 Megalithic Rods and the second was 360 Megalithic Rods (a difference of something under 2 per cent). When we very carefully measured the distance between the three stars of Orion’s Belt it seemed as though the relative gaps between Mintaka and Alnitak and Alnitak and Alnilam had about the same ratio as the distances between the henges.

  We then used a photograph of Orion’s Belt, much enlarged, which we placed proportionally over the aerial view of the henges. We did nothing to distort the image, merely manipulating its overall size until the three stars stood over the henges. The result can be seen in figure 9 (see page 61). Somewhat to our surprise, not only were the gaps between the stars almost identical to the gaps between the henges in a proportional sense, but the dogleg also seemed almost perfect.

  As we were concluding the manuscript for this book we were discussing the problem of the apparent accuracy of the henges as a copy of Orion’s Belt and the improbability of these ancient people being able to achieve such engineering precision. It was agreed that Alan should break off our writing schedule to give it one last check. His email to Chris the next day conveys his excitement:

  I’ve just done something I’ve never done before. I took the actual stars of Orion’s Belt (well at least a picture of them) and I blew it up massively in order to get the exact relative distances between them. I then drew lines on the art program from the middle of star A to the middle of star B, and from the middle of star B to the middle of Star C. I then blew up these lines proportionally until the longest of them (AB) measured 366 cm on the drawing program. When I did this I could see that the shorter of the lines (BC) was just a tiny bit under 360 cm.

  I now carried out the same experiment with the henges, from a Google Earth image. This time I took the image into the drawing program and built circles around each of the henges so that I could tell ‘exactly’ where the centre was in each case (so there was no guesswork at all involved). I drew lines as I had done with the stars and then increased the lines proportionally until the longer line AB was 366 cm long on the drawing program. I then noted that the shorter line BC was exactly (not nearly, not very nearly but quite exactly) a tiny bit under 360 cm. Result. The Thornborough henges are not a good copy of Orion’s Belt, they are not even a very good copy of Orion’s Belt. They are an exact, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely exact copy of Orion’s Belt.

  I would say that this result is impossible, but I’ve done the whole thing three separate times and it works out the same every time.

  There can be no doubt that these Stone Age astronomers where incredibly skilled – and no doubt that these henges are indeed a copy of Orion’s Belt.

  We have long been convinced about the Orion’s Belt theory but we still wanted to know if there was more evidence to be found. This was forthcoming as a result of our previous experience in recreating the night sky as it had appeared thousands of years ago.

  Using very accurate and powerful astronomical computer programs we are able to achieve something that only a few decades ago would have been either impossible or else extremely time consuming. In a moment we can look at exactly what our ancient ancestors saw when they viewed the night sky on any date, at any period right back to 4000 BC. It did not take us long to arrive at two major conclusions regarding the way the henges at Thornborough had been placed on the landscape.

  The henges run from roughly northwest to southeast, and have their entrances aligned with the line of the henges themselves. In other words, it would have been possible to walk from the centre of henge A to the centre of henge C without having to climb over a bank top. As we have said, the alignment of the B and C henges pointed directly to the mount on which Lincoln Cathedral now stands, but there was more to this particular direction. The point where the Sun rose at its most southerly extreme, on the day of the winter solstice, in 3500 BC was also where Sirius rose ahead of it. As Sirius reached around 4° it stood over the centre of the avenue between the henges, like a guiding light – and a few hours later the Sun did the same thing.

  If Orion’s Belt is a famous group of stars, Sirius is even more famous. This is partly because it is the brightest star in our skies and has been so for as long as human beings have walked the Earth. The importance of Sirius in a mythological sense cannot be underestimated and it appears in the folktales, and even the religion, of almost all ancient civilizations. It was of the greatest relevance to the ancient Egyptians and to the people of Mesopotamia, and was doubtless just as important to the henge builders of ancient Britain.

  If we look at figure 12 we can see how, in the night sky, a direct line taken across Orion’s Belt to the south will lead to Sirius – indeed, Sirius has often been located using this technique – together with other parts of the night sky that were, historically, considered important for ritual reasons or for navigation.

  So far so good, but the presence of both the midwinter Sun and rising Sirius immediately led us to realize something that had been puzzling for years; how did our ancient ancestors reconcile the differences between days marked out by the Sun and days as perceived by the stars – because they are distinct
ly different.

  For most of us today, time is a simple matter of consulting a wrist-watch or our diaries. The new day begins at midnight and the next year is simply when the clocks strike 12 at midnight on 31 December. In reality these are arbitrary approximations – albeit very useful ones.

  Figure 12. Orion’s Belt lining up towards Sirius

  Time recording is based on astronomical observation of the movements of the Earth, and is torturously complicated. Days actually vary in length slightly, but a mean solar day is taken as having 24 hours of 60 minutes, split again into 60 seconds – giving a total of 86,400 seconds to the day. However, if we watch any star such as Sirius, it will return to the same point in the sky in 86,164 seconds (236 less than the solar day). This is called a sidereal day. It occurs because the stars are actually stationary and their apparent movement is due to the Earth’s rotation on its axis. The solar day is longer because it also takes into account the planet’s movement around the Sun, which makes one turn of the Earth seem to take longer.

  In one orbit of the Sun (a year), all those 236-seconds difference between the sidereal and mean solar days add up to exactly one extra day. So there are 365 sunrises in a year but 366 star rises.

  It is clear that the Neolithic astronomers of Britain fully understood this difference. If we take the gap in any one of the Thornborough henges in the southeast and view it, day-by-day across a year, from the centre of the henge, this is what we would notice. For the Sun to rise to the same point over the gap in the henge on two successive occasions would take 365 days. Meanwhile the star Sirius would have risen 366 times before returning to the same point.

  Figure 13. The spin of the Earth

  This apparently mysterious state of affairs would, no doubt, have fascinated these early astronomers and, in any case, their virtual obsession for the number 366 had shown us long ago that they were quite conversant with a year made up of sidereal days – which has no modern name but which we call a ‘star year’. The importance of this realization cannot be understated, and once again the super-henges had served to confirm our predictions regarding the methods and knowledge of the ancient British astronomers.

  A Sirius Henge

  However, the presence of Sirius appearing in the southeastern gap at the winter solstice seemed to confirm that the three henges might well have been constructed as a faithful reproduction of Orion’s Belt. After all, Orion’s Belt in the sky points directly to Sirius and the three giant henges served the same purpose for earth-bound observers – which it had clearly been intended to do.

  A rather tenuous possibility occurred to us almost immediately we had discovered the Sirius alignment with the henges. If those creating the super-henges had seen fit to reproduce Orion’s Belt on the Earth, might they not have also recreated Sirius as well? We knew there were other super-henges in the locality, some of which we had already identified and measured, but was there one in the place where Sirius should be (relative to the Thornborough henges) if it had been translated to the ground?

  With a little effort we answered the question to both our surprise and our delight. There was indeed a henge to be found directly in line with the southeastern entrances of the Thornborough henges. We had missed this particular henge before because it has been almost totally destroyed by many centuries of ploughing, though it can still be seen as parch marks in the soil when conditions are right. It seems to have once been a henge on the same proportions of those at Thornborough and it is near a place called ‘Cana Barn’.

  We measured the distance between the southern ‘Orion’s Belt’ henge and the Cana Barn henge to see if there was an interesting integer in Megalithic Seconds of arc. We were temporally mystified to discover that the distance from the centre of Thornborough henge C to the centre of the Cana Barn henge was almost exactly 10,000 m – as close as it was possible to measure this gap was 10 km. At first we dismissed this as being a rather incredible coincidence, until we remembered that there was 1,500 m between the centres of the two outer Thornborough henges.

  It was highly unlikely that two key dimensions could be in metres by random chance – yet how could these Stone Age henge builders have possibly used metres to lay out their henges?

  It was very strange, but far from impossible because metres are far more ancient that most people believe.

  Careful measurement of the distance between the third star in Orion’s Belt (Alnilam) and Sirius, as they appear in the sky, gave us the probable distance on the ground between Thornborough henge C and a hypothetical Sirius henge. As best as we could estimate a scale on the ground, the distance between Thornborough C and a Sirius henge should have been a little over 11 km. The actual distance between Thornborough C and Cana Barn henge being 10,000 m suggested to us that its positioning was of ritual importance.

  We also noticed on the sky maps that, although the stars of Orion’s Belt point more or less in the direction of Sirius, the ‘arrow’ is not exactly in line. When we transposed both Orion’s Belt and Sirius onto an aerial map of Thornborough and Cana Barn, we realized that, although the distance between Thornborough C and Cana Barn was not exactly proportionate with the stars, the offset alignment of the Cana Barn henge was in tune with the star pattern. In other words, there seemed no real doubt that Cana Barn super-henge was part of the same complex as Thornborough, and had been a definite – and quite startling – attempt to place Sirius on the landscape.

  As we have already recounted, thanks to the intervention of Edmund Sixsmith we were able to visit the site of the Cana Barn henge. And it was here that our thoughts drifted towards the Giza Plateau. Could the ancient Egyptians have copied this Orion’s Belt layout when they built the pyramids some 800 years after Thornborough? And could the Giza pyramids have a counterpart to Cana Barn henge?

  Neolithic Science and Technology

  Although archaeologists have suggested that the Thornborough henges could well be a representation of Orion’s Belt, what they have not done is to make any suggestion as to how the arrangement came to be so incredibly accurate. In the night sky the three stars cover a distance roughly equivalent to a human fist held at arm’s length. The slight difference in distance between Mintaka and Alnitak, as opposed to the gap between Alnitak and Alnilam is barely visible with the naked eye and, even if it were perceptible, how on earth could anyone using naked-eye astronomy get these relative gaps correct when recreating the stars on the ground at such a grand scale?

  It appears that archaeologists have not considered how anyone with Stone Age technology could have mapped out such a huge, yet accurate, representation of Orion’s Belt on the ground. Perhaps they imagine that the builders made an artist’s impression of the star pattern and then scaled it up. Perhaps the astronomers looked up at the sky and then held up a big piece of slate with a scribe putting chalk marks to represent the stars.

  The relative position of the outer two stars would be easy to mark out – because they could not be wrong. It is only the positioning of the middle star that matters, with its offset to one side and the slight off-centre gap between the outer stars. One can image the scene as the man with the chalk followed orders to place the third dot. ‘Left a bit, down a bit. No not that much. Now right a little – yes that’s it … I think.’

  Having created a scale drawing that satisfied the astronomers as a good representation of the stars, they would then have to scale it up. Assuming they had a large piece of slate that allowed them to draw the outer two stars say, 1 m apart, they would have to scale it up 1,500 times to get the distance we find at Thornborough. Given that a metre representation would have to be split 504.132 mm and 495.868 mm to copy the stars – it would be utterly impossible to get anything near an accurate result across 1.5 km of land.

  However, we do know the method they used.

  Using sight alone this simply is not tenable, and if anyone stops to think about the situation for a while they are surely going to arrive at the conclusion that either the Stone Age astronomers had access
to accurate optical measuring devices, or that they used some other technology to achieve such stunning accuracy. The first of these suggestions is certainly not within the realms of what we know of the period, and it turns out that the answer to this puzzle once again confirms our previous suggestions about the use of pendulums.

  As we have already said, these devices are the oldest machines known to mankind. We have experimented with many potential techniques, and we believe that these henges were specifically designed to incorporate as much ‘magic’ as possible – which meant building in all kinds of layers of astronomical values.

  They must have taken a variety of data into account before they started. It is known that there were originally earthworks called cursuses (see page 79) on the site before they built the first henges that slightly predate the ones we see today. The cursuses were probably used to conduct the measuring of the heavens required for the task. As we have said, the outer star can be in any position they wanted and only the middle henge mattered. They therefore needed to understand the relative distance between the stars.

  There were two separate ways this could have been achieved, and it is likely that those planning Thornborough used both methods to check and double-check their results. The first method would have found them not at Thornborough but at its companion henge in the south at Dorchester-on-Thames. Since the henge there is a single structure, it is likely that it was built before the more grandiose Thornborough array. Around 3500 BC we envisage that an astronomer-priest, holding a pendulum with a length of a half Megalithic Yard stood at the centre of the henge, looking to the east and waiting for Orion’s Belt to start its climb over the bank top. When the first star appeared above the bank, at 3° to 4° altitude relative to the true horizon behind the banks, he or she would start the pendulum swinging. By the time the third star appeared the pendulum would have beat 1,452 times. Translating the pendulum string length to actual linear measurements would have produced 1,452 half Megalithic Yards, which when halved makes 726 full Megalithic Yards. So those carrying out the experiment must have suspected that according to the will of the gods the two outer henges had to be 726 ‘somethings’ apart.1