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| Cahokia Woodhedge, North America at sunrise. Commons wikipedia, artist conception |
WOODHENGE?
Greetings my friends! And how do you do this week? We have had a bit of a cold snap, not bad and I am enjoying it thoroughly before the hot weather starts. Happy Mother’s day to all you hard working mothers. This is a tradition here in America where we take one day out of the year to celebrate and honor motherhood. What a beautiful thing to do.
Speaking of beautiful things, did you know that there
actually is a woodhenge, several actually:
In Britain, there are three sites, Woodhenge, the Southern Circle, and the Durrington Walls henge. All of theses sites were originally pits in the ground that archeologists thought the large stone had somehow fallen over and become buried. Upon looking closer they found timber remnants inside the pits and were able to date the henges this way.
Woodhenge is a timber circle monument two miles northeast of the famous Stonehenge. It is thought to be a neolithic site that may have spanned into Britain’s early Bronze Age. According to the secular timescale it dated between 2470 and 2000 BC (about the same time Stonehenge is thought to be
constructed). Unfortunately in the middle of the concentric oval rings (the outmost being about 141 by 131 feet) the bones of a buried child in the crouched position was discovered. The remains are thought to be a human sacrifice. So the site is believe to be both a calendar as they line up with the solstices and equinoxes as well as a religious or ceremonial location. Today the holes hold short concrete posts, but the original construction held 163 wooden and five stone posts buried to six and a half feet and standing about twenty-five feet above ground.
The wooden posts are thought to have weighed up to five tons and are arranged is a pattern similar to Stonehenge.
The two other hedges are only two hundred and thirty feet north of Woodhenge with similar structure and purpose.
But the Woodhenges don’t end here. Travel all the way to North America’s Cahokia Mounds in Illinois and you will find a Woodhenge west of Monk’s mound which is the largest manmade earthen mound in North America. “The placement of the posts mark the summer and winter solstices (21 of June, 21 December) and the spring and autumn equinoxes (21 March, 22 September). In short, the posts are a calendar, similar to the stone equivalent on the British Isles. The first woodhenge to be discovered at this site was 410 feet in diameter and contained 28 posts. Later four more circles
were discovered…The posts were made originally of red cedar which was considered sacred to the natives. Red ochre has also been found which suggests the possible remains of red paint on the original posts.”1
Just one more thing. Not to be outdone by the wood, there is
one more group of Stonehenges I would like to share. They are located in Turkey and Syria and all have similar T-shaped megaliths. The most prominent its called Göbekil Tepe which is Turkish for Potbelly Hill. The tell has a height of 15 m (49 ft) and is about 300 m (980 ft) in diameter…The tell includes two phases of use believed to be of a social or ritual nature dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE (secular timescale). During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive T-shaped stone pillars were erected – the
world's oldest known megaliths. More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6 m (20 ft) and weighs up to 10 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. In the second phase, belonging to the PPNB, the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime. The site was abandoned after the PPNB. Younger structures date to classical times. The details of the structure's function remain a mystery.”2 (emphsis the author’s).
What I would like you to ponder on, is the location and times
dated (though they all have been dated utilizing the secular time-scale you can still see which ones are older vs. younger.) It is stunning that the very oldest, these megaliths mentioned above located in Turkey and Syria, are the closest to Mount Ararat. Then spread out from there in both time and geography. Hmmm almost like the dispersal of mankind after the language split at the Tower of Babel. Even though these different language groups developed their own cultures, it is evident by the megaliths that the knowledge of how to construct not only these stone and wooden structures but also the building of ziggurats went with them. Intelligent people with advanced knowledge. It is staggering how the physical evidence supports the Bible, even that which was written about the very ancient times of our ancestors.
God bless and take care!
Willow Dressel
References:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3736185/Stonehenge-II-WOOD-Vast-4-500-year-old-timber-circle-built-commemorate-builders-famous-neighbour.html
1http://scienceviews.com/indian/woodhenge.html
Turkey Stonehenge, By Teomancimit - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17377542
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