DURRINGTON WALLS HENGE

The second largest henge structure known to exist in Britain or Continental Europe is Durrington Walls Henge in Wiltshire, Southern England, second only to Marden Henge further NNW.

Essentially, Durrington Walls Henge is simply the major component in a landscape series of interrelated sites, including nearby Stonehenge, the recently discovered sites dubbed Bluestonehenge & Woodstonehenge, Woodhenge, Coneybury Henge, as well as other, smaller henge-type structures. Acting as outer markers or distance and angle targets away from these hub centres are the mound complexes, like the sets or groups at Durrington Downs, The Packway, The Lesser Cursus and Cursus, Winterbourne Stoke, Normanton Downs, North Kite and the Lake Barrows, Wilsford, Lake Down, Vespasian's Camp, Larkhill and the King Barrows, etc. These several hundred purpose-built, outlying marker positions are situated from less than half a mile, up to 5 miles out from the main henge sites of the district. In this study we will show the coded mathematical relationships existing between these many outer structures and the centre position of Durrington Walls Henge, which acted as the main hub position for all secondary structures in the district.

The vague outline of Durrington Henge's ditch and outer embankments can be seen in the top section of this picture, with the restored small henge called Woodhenge situated South of its massive counterpart. Many centuries of ploughing have seriously lowered the embankments of Durrington Walls Henge and all but eradicated them in places. Yet another major road was cut through the henge in 1967-68 and a former large diameter wooden-post circle was discovered during the road excavations. Sadly, the vast majority of those post circle positions now sit under the new highway.

But it was not all bad news. The incentive to cut a major arterial route through the giant henge at least forced the archaeological community to do a major investigation, coupled with a vast dig, within Durrington Walls Henge. All of the Neolithic Age post holes of the henge's southern circle, shortly before they disappeared under the roading tarmac, were carefully measured and their exact positions logged for future reference. The site itself was carefully surveyed and precise plans were drawn for the worldwide research community. As the new road stretched further into the henge, yet another, albeit smaller, post circle was found further North. It also was painstakenly assessed by archaeologists, with the positons shortly to disappear under the tarmac carefully photographed, measured, plotted and recorded.

Plan of Durrington Walls, showing positions of trenches excavated in 2004 and 2005 (drawn by Mark Dover from Wainwright with Longworth 1971).

The extensive work undertaken in the late sixties lent impetus to ongoing, periodic digs, which continue to this day. During a period spanning over 40-years many former positions of important structures within the henge have been newly identified and it's now possible to form a picture of the design intent and function of Durrington Walls Henge, as well as its southern appendage site, Woodhenge.

Using Mark Dover's precise plan, which was based upon earlier accrued measurements from Wainwright with Longworth (1971), as well as modern electronic measurement and mapping technologies, a very accurate overlay of the Google Earth landscape can now be done. The circumnavigating ditch of the henge, alone, would have been 16 metres (52.5-feet) wide and 6 metres (20-feet) deep, with an outer ring perimeter wall of compacted, heaped-up chalk 3 metres (10-feet) high that was almost a mile in circumference.

It has long-since been the impression of the research community that Durrington Walls Henge was so utterly dilapidated and obscured by "tillage", as to be mostly beyond a point where it could tell us very much about the intent of its builders. Whereas places like Avebury Henge, 16.5-miles to the NNW retained many original marker obelisks or the holes where obelisks once stood, Durrington's marker components seemed to be irrevocably erased, sufficient to render the site undecipherable in a surveying sense. However, archaeological work of the past four decades has clearly identified many former post structures within and outside the henge and the huge site can still provide us with considerable design layout information, especially concerning the henge's relationship to outlying mounds or lesser henge sites nearby.

Note the following features within the henge itself:

SO, WHY DID ANCIENT PEOPLE BUILD HENGES?

They were built as the primary fulcrum structures within sprawling "open air universities". At these ancient schools the "brightest and the best" of gifted children were taught the astronomical and navigational arts. The concept of a horizontal-top henge wall was for creating an artificial horizon, similar to what one would see from a ship on the vast featureless oceans. Students situated within the henge, primarily at its centre, could become very familiar with the star, planet, sun and moon rise and set positions or cycles, by using the top of the henge embankments as the target region for 360-degree observation onto the ever moving and changing stellar display. This is consistent with what Julius Caesar said concerning the great schools of Britain run by the Druids of his time.

'They do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing, although in all other matters and in their public and private accounts they make use of Greek characters. I believe that they have adopted the practice for two reasons- that they do not wish the rule to become common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writing and so neglect the cultivation of memory; and, in fact, it does usually happen that the assistance of writing tends to relax the diligence of the student and the action of memory...They also lecture on the stars in their motion, the magnitude of the Earth and its divisions, on natural history, on the power and government of God; and instruct the youth in these subjects' (see De Ballo Gallico, VII, 15, 16.).

The late era Druidic schools that Julius Caesar commented about, undoubtedly, had a pedigree back to similar schools maintained during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages*. British historian, Isabel Hill Elder, commenting on the Druidic schools, writes:

'The students at these colleges numbered at times sixty thousand of the youth and young nobility of Britain and Gaul. Caesar comments on the fact that the Gauls sent their youth to Britain to be educated...It required twenty years to master the complete circle of Druidic knowledge. Natural philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, jurisprudence, poetry and oratory were all proposed and taught-natural philosophy and astronomy with severe exactitude' (Elder refers to Strabo I IV, page 197. Caesars Comm. Lib V. Sueotonius, V Calegula. E. Campion, Accounts of Ireland, pg. 18.).

In Caesar's mention of astronomy, mathematics & geometry it will be shown that there was a particular parcel of numbers (the numbers of civilisation) that had to be remembered at all cost and handed down intact to each ensuing generation. This is why such a mammoth effort was put into constructing Durrington Walls Henge and its many appendage structures ... to encode into marked positions and then teach the hard won sciences of navigation at sea (positional plotting using sophisticated mathematical methods), astronomy (cycles, constellation patterns and the bright navigational star positions), the calendar (tracking the daily positions of both the Sun and the Moon against the backdrop of stars) or all of the factorable number systems that described these ancient sciences.

*Footnote: Several graves have been found in the vicinity of Stonehenge, the occupants of which had come from far off countries before dying and receiving dignified interrments close to the Stonehenge monument. The most recent find of this type is "The Boy With The Amber Necklance", who was only about 14-15 years old when he died in Wiltshire, but who had grown up in the Mediterranean circa 1550 BC.
Knowing as we do now that this area around Durrington Walls Henge was a sprawling, open air university, it seems likely that the young man was an apprentice of the navigational and astronomical crafts, sent from his homeland to receive an education in Southern England. In this quest he was, undoubtedly, like the Amesbury Archer from Germany who preceeded him by 1000-years, or the youths from Gaul who attended the great school 1500-years after the boy had died.

'The boy's skeleton was discovered in 2002 at Stonehenge ... By analysing the ratio of two different forms – or isotopes – of oxygen, the professor found that the boy came from a warmer climate and an isotopic comparison of the mineral strontium, which is absorbed by the body from plants, revealed that he was born and grew up in the Mediterranean'.

SO, WHAT WAS THE MEASUREMENT AND ANGLE STANDARD USED TO BUILD DURRINGTON WALLS HENGE?

Just as archaic forms of language survive intact within a nation, so do their most ancient measurement and angle standards. These are often preserved in the precise positioning of markers set out during the Neolithic Age or earlier.

The ancient people of Britain and Continental Europe, just like their predecessors or progeny in other lands, had precise, shared, measurement standards and geometric methodologies that were highly scientific, and vestiges of these standards have survived intact into modern times. From remote antiquity, all of the cousin Caucasoid nations of the Mediterranean and Europe used the same, highly factorable numbers. The selfsame "inch" determined the overall length of any particular nation's foot, cubit, reed or mile, etc., but the lengths could then be subdivided into any increments of regional preference (sevenths, eighths, tenths, elevenths, twelfths, etc., or subdivisions that related to the 'irrational' ratio PHI or the ‘incommensurable’ PI.

2. The ancient systems were based upon the modern day "inch" and "foot" and all varying expressions of ancient "feet" or "cubits", "miles", etc., used by the cousin nations were in very direct ratio to each other. These inter-relating and trading nations were in possession of a singular and universal, shared system of metrology, which incorporated a wide range of highly specialised, factorable numbers to describe such things as the equatorial size of the Earth, principles of navigation at sea or on land, general principles of surveying and astronomical cycle values for maintaining a highly accurate lunisolar calendar.

3. By the time Durrington Walls Henge and Avebury Henge were built, there was one universal standard, using all of the number families for weights, measures and volumes. These values were shared between the cousin Caucasoid nations, ranging from lands of long term possession in Northern India to the Middle East to Continental Europe to the Americas and across the ancient Pacific to New Zealand ... over 5,000-years ago.

• The solar year can be called 365¹/4-days, which is a nice rounded number equating to 8766 hours.
• The lunar year can be called 354³/ 8-days, which is 8505 hours.
• If a calendar is produced that runs for 7 solar years, then that equates to 2556 ³/4-days.
• If the lunar period within that calendar runs for 7¹/5 lunar years (one tenth of 72-years), then that equates to 2551 ¹/2-days.
• If a measurement rule is produced, based upon 5¹/4 feet, then 487 X 5¹/4 = 2556³/4 feet/ days.
• The same measurement rule can be used for the moon and 486 X 5¹/4 = 2551¹/2 feet/ days.
• If an auspicious mistletoe culling ceremony is performed on the 6th day after the calendar commences at the Summer Solstice, then the solar and lunar cycles can end on the same day 7 solar years later.
• If the world is described as 12 X 12 X 12 X 12 X 1¹/5-miles (note: 1¹/5 is a tenth of 12), then that's 24883¹/5-miles...only 18.8 miles short of the true equatorial circumference.
• If one wishes to navigate using a "6&7" series of numbers, those miles can be 5250' each.
• If one wishes to navigate using an "11" series of numbers, those miles can be 5280' each (for a world with a circumference of 24750-miles).