Everyone knows about the stack rocks of Stonehenge in South West England , but on the country ’s east coast , there ’s another prehistoric monument that ’s no less fascinating . have sex as Seahenge , a researcher has re - investigated why the cryptical structure was built over 4,000 years ago .
Seahenge , also known as Holme I , was only discovered in 1998 when shift sands break the repository along a beach in the Greenwich Village of Holme - next - the - Sea , north Norfolk . It consisted of 55 half - split oak trunks fix in an ellipse embodiment measuring 7 by 6 metre ( 23 by 20 feet ) . In the heart , a big upturned oak tree stump had been placed in a pit .
Just 100 meters ( 328 understructure ) away , another standardized structure was found , known as Holme II . The Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ring institute at both anatomical structure suggest they were built at the same sentence around 2049 BCE – a few hundred years afterthe iconic sarsen stoneswere identify atStonehengearound 250 kilometers ( 155 miles ) away .
Holme I on display at the British Museum as part of their World of Stonehenge exhibition.Image credit:-JvL-/Flickr(CC BY 2.0 DEED)
It has antecedently been hint that the dual structure were create to mark off the death of a prominent individual , such as a warrior or a local captain , while others have ponder they were used forsky burials , where the consistency of the dead would be invest inside to be pecked and carried off by carrion - eating birds .
In a new subject area , Dr David Nance from the University of Aberdeen puts forward another theory using a combination of climatic and environmental information , astronomic and biologic evidence , and regional folklore .
He argues that Holme I was build during a piercingly cold climatical period , perhaps for rituals intended to summon the return of warm weather condition .
“ Dating of the Seahenge timbers showed they were felled in the spring , and it was considered most probable that these timbers were align with sunup on the summer solstice , ” Dr Nance , a researcher at the University of Aberdeen ’s Department of Geography and Environment , said in astatement .
“ We have it off that the period in which they were build 4,000 years ago was a prolonged period of decrease atmospheric temperatures and life-threatening winters and late springs placing these early coastal societies under tenseness , ” he total .
While both monuments were build to ward off this existential threat , he believe they had slightly different roles . Holme I , he argues , was designed to resemble the boo " coop " delineate in folklore , intended to keep an callow cuckoo tattle and thusprolong the summer .
“ Summer solstice was the particular date when agree to folklore the goof , symbolising fertility , traditionally stopped singing , reelect to the Otherworld and the summer went with it , ” Dr Nance add .
“ The monument ’s form appears to imitate two supposed winter home of the fathead remembered in folklore : a vacuous tree or ‘ the bowers of the Otherworld ’ symbolise by the upturned oak - stump at its centre . This rite is remembered in the ‘ myth of the pent goof ’ where an immature cuckoo was placed into a thorn bush and the bird was ‘ walled - in ’ to strain the summer but it always flew by , ” he explain .
Meanwhile , Holmes II was created as aburial mound . fairy charge to grounds that shows “ sacred B. B. King ” of Iron Age Ireland and Britain were sacrifice if misfortune fell on the community in an attempt to appease the goddess of Venus . Against the background of abrasive winters and backbreaking times , the local king offered himself to the god and was laid to rest here , Nance proposes .
“ Evidence evoke that they were ceremonially - sacrificed every eight yr at Samhain ( now Halloween ) coincident with the eight - year cycle of Venus . The fixtures in Holme II that were thought to hold a coffin , are orientated towards sunrise on Samhain in 2049 when Venus was still visible , ” he notice .
The new study is publish inGeoJournal .
