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Stukeley studied the stone circles at Avebury and he saw the pattern of a serpent in the landscape. An illustration drawn by Stukeley for his book on Avebury shows this. John Aubrey’s most important contribution to the study of British antiquities was his Monumenta Britannica that includes a plan of Stonehenge. In 1648 near Avebury in Wiltshire he recorded the site of a great prehistoric temple about the village. In the following century, Stukeley was to develop the claim that Avebury was as an ancient cult centre of the Druids |
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Stonehenge
Stonehenge on a 14th century manuscript John
Aubrey in the 17th century, recorded his opinion in his manuscript
“Monumenta Britannica”, that Stonehenge was a temple of the Druids'.
This paved the way for a further theory that Stonehenge was designed as a
temple-observatory where early astronomers could watch and record the
movements of the sun and moon. Caesar and other Roman writers state that
the Druids practiced astronomy.
the site is orientated towards the point of sunrise. at midsummer. This feature had been
recorded by Stukeley in 1740.
Stonehenge 1867 - one of the first photographs
Stonehenge 1901 |
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One of the earliest megalithic illustrations Sainte Genevieve with her flock in a stone circle was painted in the late 16th century.
16th Century This
picture is in Church of Saint-Merri in Paris and is one of the earliest of
megalithic illustrations. The 5th century shepherdess, Sainte
Genevieve, was the patron saint of Paris She lived outside the city, at
Nanterre, where relics of a stone circle still survived at the beginning
of this century. Sainte Genevieve saved Paris from Attila's Huns by the
power of her prayers, and the circle which she frequented was said to have
a similar power over the River Seine, holding back the water in times of
flood.
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