Stonehenge builders scooped Pythagoras
Creators of ancient stone circles ‘used philosopher’s theorem … 2,000 years before he was born’
THE builders of Britain’s ancient stone circles such as Stonehenge used Pythagoras’s theorem 2,000 years before the Greek philosopher was born, experts have claimed.
A new book, Megalith, has re-examined the geometry of Neolithic monuments and concluded they were constructed by sophisticated astronomers who understood lunar, solar and eclipse cycles and built huge stone calendars using complex geometry.
One contributor, Robin Heath, a megalithic expert, has even claimed that a great Pythagorean triangle in the British landscape links Stonehenge, the site from which the Preseli bluestones were cut in Wales, and Lundy Island, an important prehistoric site.
Pythagoras’s discovery – that the sum of the areas of two squares on the sides of two triangles will add up to the area of a square on the hypotenuse – has been used for millennia to help builders attain perfect right-angles.
The book, published today to coincide with the summer solstice, shows how within one of Stonehenge’s earliest incarnations, dating from 2,750BC, there lies a rectangle of four sarsen stones which, when split in half diagonally forms a perfect Pythagorean 5:12:13 triangle. The eight lines that radiate from the rectangle and triangles align perfectly to important dates in the Neolithic calendar, such as the summer and winter solstices and spring and autumn equinoxes. They also mark Imbolc, the ancient date for the beginning of spring on Feb 1, Beltane, or May Day, Lammas, the start of the wheat harvest and Samhain (Oct 31) when cattle were brought down from summer pastures and slaughtered
John Martineau, the book’s editor, said: “People often think of our ancestors as rough cavemen but they were also sophisticated astronomers. They were applying Pythagorean geometry over 2,000 years before Pythagoras was born. We think these people didn’t have scientific minds but first and foremost they were astronomers and cosmologists. They were studying long and difficult to understand cycles and they knew about these when they started planning sites like Stonehenge.”
Pythagorean triangles have also been found at Avebury, the inner ring of the Druid temple in Inverness, Castlerigg in Keswick, Cumbria, Barbrook in Derbyshire, Borrowston Rig on the Scottish borders, and Daviot ‘B’ in Aberdeenshire. Consequently many stone “circles” were not fully circular but have geometry derived from Pythagorean triangles often in whole numbers of megalithic yards (2.72ft), which were probably laid out using ropes and pegs. The huge stones of Stonehenge were once surrounded by 56 wooden posts or stones, which could be used for predicting eclipses as well as showing the position of the Sun and the Moon and the lunar phases. And the bluestone horseshoe in the centre is thought to contain 19 stones to represent the 19-year metonic cycle of the Sun and Moon. “These days it’s seen as hippy dippy or New Age,” added Mr Heath, “but actually it’s a colossal omission to the history of science that we don’t see these monuments for what they are.
“People see the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge as howling barbarians, when they were very learned and it has been forgotten.” Megalith is published by Wooden Books.