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To: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk |
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Dear Sir/Madam, In response to the article, “Stonehenge druids mark wrong solstice” and the accompanying editorial: I would have been very surprised if the archaeological evidence at Stonehenge did not speak for our ancestors (if you're a native) having celebrated the Winter rather than the Summer solstice (or sunturn, as I call it). All you need do it try putting yourself in their position, 4000 odd years ago. Their lives were governed by and absolutely dependent upon the seasons (in a way that modern “civilisation” has made us largely oblivious to), yet they had no explanation for why they changed the way they did, why the days got longer and warmer, then shorter and colder, then longer and warmer again, in a never-ending cycle – or so they must have hoped. What they did manage to do, after long and careful observations, that today only astronomers undertake, was to establish a relationship with the passage of the Sun across the sky (the size and height of the arc it made) and the points of its rising and setting on the eastern and western horizons. These points (when not obscured by cloud) can be seen to move backwards and forwards along the horizons during the course of the year (which they define). After reaching its most northerly point, it seems to stop for a moment (thus “solstice”), before turning back (thus “sunturn”, which I prefer) and travelling south, until at its most southerly point it stops and turns again. From this perspective it is obvious to me that it was the Winter sunturn (the Sunturn) they would have celebrated, since this was the one they desperately needed to occur, with the days getting shorter and shorter (and colder). They didn't have Kepler's (or Newton's or Einstein's) laws of planetary motion to rely on, like we do. So they prayed to their God or gods to turn the Sun around and bring back Summer. When the Sun turned (and it generally took a few days for them to be sure that it had, so the celebrations would have taken place about the 25 or 26 of December, according to our calendar; strange coincidence that - or perhaps not) they celebrated. And how! Their very lives depended on it (so do ours, of course, but like so many things, we take it for granted and don't appreciate it anymore). As for the Summer sunturn, what that meant was that the days would now start getting shorter again (and eventually colder). Hardly a cause for celebration, I would have thought. Which sunturn (solstice) would you have celebrated if you had lived in Britain 4000 years ago? You might like to read “Why the Sunturn” on my homepage at www.spaceship-earth.org
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