Crucial new light on Stonehenge and ‘solar temple’ ritual
About 2,300 years ago, the scientific adventurer Pytheas of Massalia was on an ambitious and perilous exploration of the European north-west when, on a hike across southern England, he came across Stonehenge and realised it was a ‘Temple to the Sun’.
According to a fascinating new book which shows the adventures of the Ancient Greek explorer, geographer and astronomer in an invaluable new perspective, the consequences of Pytheas’ arrival at Stonehenge in about 325BC are far-reaching because, as a learned Greek and the first person to write about the monument, he understood its purpose.
And in How Pytheas the Greek Discovered Iron-Age Britain, Stonehenge and Thule (New Generation Publishing, May, 2024), Dr Terence Meaden, an academic physicist and archaeologist, announces a remarkable discovery he has made which is key to the role of Stonehenge as a solar temple built for prehistoric fertility rituals.
The travels of Pytheas, from the Greek colony of Massalia, modern-day Marseilles, were ‘a sensational exploit on sea and land’, purposeful, exciting and audacious, Dr Meaden says: ‘Pytheas is justly ranked as one of the world’s boldest pioneering and Promethean explorers.’ No other well-educated adventurer would visit Britain until Julius Caesar with his expeditionary forces in 55BC and 54BC, and…
