Stonehenge a temple restor'd to the British Druids / By William Stukeley, M.D.

  • William Stukeley
Date:
1740
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Stonehenge a temple restor'd to the British Druids / By William Stukeley, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2p clean off, and all the upper edge is very much diminifh’d by time. As Lucre* tius fays, -Mifiui rem quamque videmus, Et quafi longinquo fuere omnia cernimus cevo, Ex oculifque, vetujiatem, Jubducere nojlris. The laft trilitbon, that on the right hand of the entrance into the adytum, has fuffer’d much. The outer upright being the jamb of the entrance, is ftill (landing, the other upright and import; are both fallen forwards into the ady¬ tum, and broke each into three pieces. I fuppofe from digging near it. But from one piece of the import lying loofe, in the middle, between the jambs of the adytum, Mr. Webb in the plan of his ruins of Stonehenge (being his 6th Scheme) forms the remains of his imaginary 6th trilitbon, fuppofing it one of the ftones of the inner or lcffer hexagon, as he calls it. Yet if this fragment was really a Hump of fuch a done, as he would have it, ftill it would not create an hexagonal form of the cell, but (land juft in the middle of the en¬ trance, and block it up in a very abfurd, unfeemly, and incommodious a man¬ ner. And nothing can be more certain, than that there never was fuch a thing in being. That ftone of the trilitbon which is (landing, has a cavity in it which two or three perfons may fit in, worn by the weather. Stonehenge is compos’d of two circles and two ovals, refpedtively concen¬ tric. At the diftance of two cubits inward from the greater oval, defcribe another leffer oval, on which the ftones of the inner oval are to (land: 19 ftones in number, at about the central diftance of 3 cubits. This leffer oval is to be defcrib’d by a firing and the 2 centers, as before. Or by 2 circles from a 10 cubit radius, and the 2 centers ^ and b, as of the other before was fpoken. Mr. IVebb fays, p. 60, “ the ftones of the hexagon within, 2 foot 6 inches in breadth, one “ foot and a half thick and 8 foot high, in form pyramidal.” His two foot and a half is our cubit and half, for the breadth of thefe ftones; being but a third of the breadth of the ftones of the greater oval. And the interval be¬ tween ftone and ftone, the fame. Their height is likewife unequal, as the trilithons, for they rife in height as nearer the upper end of the adytum. Mr. Tab, XV. Webb's 8 foot affign’d, is a good medium meafure, for it is juft 4 cubits and 4 palms, the third part of the height of the medium trilitbon. From the ruins of thofe left, we may well fuppofe, the firft next the entrance and lowed were 4 cubits high; the mod advanc’d height behind the altar might be five cubits, and perhaps more. The ftones are fomewhat of what Mr. Webb calls a pyramidal form, meaning that of an Egyptian obelifk, for they taper a little upwards. They are of a much harder fort than the other ftones, as we lpoke before, in the leffer circle. The founders provided that their leffer bulk (hould be compenfated in folidity. They were brought fomewhere from the weft. Of thefe there are only 6 remaining upright. The (lumps of two are left on the fouth fide by the altar. One lies behind the altar, dug up or thrown down, by the fall of that upright there. One or two were thrown down probably, by the fall of the upright of the firft trilitbon on the right hand. A (lump of another remains by the upright there, ftill (landing. Their exadt meafures either as to height, breadth or thicknefs, cannot well be afcertain’d. For they took fuch as they could find, beftfuiting their fcantlings, but the ftones were better (hap’d and taller, as advancing towards the upper end of the cell.
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