Pytheas the Greek in the fourth century BC was the first literate explorer to reach England and visit Stonehenge which he identified as a Temple to the Sun. From his description of the priesthood, we can tell that the monument was still in use. He recounts how it had been visited in what he called ‘ancient times’ by holy men from Greece bearing gifts. This could allude to the early Mycenaean era, likely recorded at Stonehenge by the carving of a Mycenaean dagger. Temples typically accommodate one or more idols to divinities in their inner sanctum. Stonehenge has two. One is a significant, hitherto unrecognised, carved phallic icon, now fallen and overlooked, which used to stand axially near the middle of the monument. The other is the female-symbolic recumbent Altar Stone which is united by shadow with the external Heel Stone at sunrise in midsummer week. Also discussed is the integrated lunar-solar calendar planned into the stones of the sarsen circle. Pytheas’ onward journey included the Cornish tin mines, St Michael’s Mount, Scotland, Shetland, Arctic packed sea-ice, and the amber coasts of Denmark.

Prof. Terence Meaden, M.A (Oxon) M.Sc.(Oxon) D.Phil. (Oxon), is a physicist, meteorologist and archaeologist with doctoral degrees in physics and a MSc in archaeology from Oxford University. He has made significant contributions to archaeology and his books include Stonehenge: The Secret of the Solstice, Secret of the Avebury Stones and Stonehenge, Avebury and Drombeg Stone Circles Deciphered.

Filmed at the Megalithomania Conference, Glastonbury, May 2024. http://www.megalithomania.co.uk

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