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Found in Guardian unlimited
[b]The vagina monoliths: Stonehenge was ancient sex symbol
Stone circle is exciting gynaecologists, reports Science Editor Robin McKie
Sunday July 6, 2003
The ObserverStonehenge has dominated the Wiltshire landscape for more than 4,000 years and is one of the world’s most important heritage sites, but its purpose has remained a mystery.
Some researchers have claimed the stone circles were used as a giant computer; others that Stonehenge was an observatory for studying stars and predicting the seasons; and a few have even argued that its rings acted as a docking pad for alien spaceships.Now a University of British Columbia researcher who has investigated the great prehistoric monument for several years has announced he has uncovered its true meaning: it is a giant fertility symbol, constructed in the shape of the female sexual organ.
‘There was a concept in Neolithic times of a great goddess or Earth Mother,’ says Anthony Perks, a gynaecologist who decided to investigate the idea that the circles could have symbolic anatomical links. ‘Stonehenge could represent the opening by which the Earth Mother gave birth to the plants and animals on which ancient people so depended.’
According to Perks’s analysis, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine , the critical events in the lives of the builders of Stonehenge - who began their work around 3,000 BC - were births and deaths in their families and community. But there is no evidence of any burials near Stonehenge, Perks adds. ‘There is little sign of death; there are no tombs, because Stonehenge was a place of life and birth, not death, a place that looked to the future.’
Evidence that the monument was dominated by ideas about creation and regeneration has been overlooked until now, says Perks.
Take the inner circle, which consists of pairs of massive capped rock pillars, one of which is rough and the other carefully smoothed. ‘To a biologist, the smooth and rougher stones arranged in pairs, united by heavy lintels, suggest that male and female, father and mother, joined together,’ he states.
Even more convincing, says Perks, is the similarity between Stonehenge seen from above and the anatomy of the female sexual organ. His article includes a map of the former, which is compared, point by point, with a detailed diagram of the latter. Of these features, the most important concern the central empty area that is enclosed by the monument’s inner circle of giant bluestones.
‘This central area is empty because it represents the opening to the world, the birth canal,’ says Perks. Stonehenge was therefore constructed to honour the Earth Mother for ‘giving both life and livelihood’.
As to Stonehenge’s alignment with various astronomical events such as the rising of mid-winter and mid-summer sun - discovered by astronomers many years ago - these fit with notions of an Earth Mother partnered with a Sun Father, says Perks. Stonehenge celebrated their association, a place where people celebrated the Sun’s closest approach to Earth in summer, while in winter they prayed for the pair to reunite.
It is intriguing theory, though it has failed to impress experts. David Miles, chief archaeologist for English Heritage, which owns the site, said Perks’s theory, although interesting, was essentially untestable. ‘You can come up with just about any idea to explain a structure like Stonehenge if you stare at it for long enough. And if Stonehenge was built so that it looked like a female sexual organ when viewed from above, how were people supposed to see that? As far as we have been able to tell, they didn’t have hot-air balloons in prehistoric times.’
In fact, scientists have shown that Stonehenge was not built in one single act of construction, but was put together over a period of more than 1,500 years in a series of successive modifications and improvements. Nor was it built by the druids, the people most often associated with the site. In fact, many more ancient tribes and societies - individuals attempting to make their impact on the landscape of England - were responsible.
‘The archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes once said that every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves,’ added Miles. ‘For example, in the 1960s, at the dawn of the computing era, researchers argued that you could use Stonehenge as a giant calculating machine.’ Later, in the more mystical New Age, it was argued that the monument was really a spaceport for aliens, while, in the Middle Ages, it was said Stonehenge was built by giants. ‘By those standards, this latest idea seems to say something quite odd about the twentyfirst century.’
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