RESEARCH NOTE

Submitted: 23rd July, 2022

Accepted: 11th October, 2022

Stonehenge:
An Integrated Lunar-Solar Calendar
with Shadow-Casting Stones at the
Two Solstices
Terence Meaden
St Peter’s College, University of Oxford, UK
terencemeaden01@gmail.com

Abstract: This paper argues that the positions of select stones at Stonehenge reveal a lunar
calendar which is integrated with a solar calendar, and that this was intentionally included in the
design of the monument. In particular, the analysis shows that Stone 11, which is half the size of
the others, is pivotal in both the lunar and solar timelines. Further, it is argued that this stone also
marked the midwinter sunrise, its shadow making contact with Bluestone 40 similar to the way
in which the Heel Stone indicates midsummer sunrise by its shadow falling upon the Altar Stone.

Keywords: lunar-solar calendar; orientations; skyscape; Stonehenge; summer solstice; winter

solstice

Introduction
Timothy Darvill (2022, 319–335) has recently summarised the work of previous investiga-
tions about the idea that one of the functions of Stonehenge was to serve as a solar
calendar, and he offered a particular interpretation of his own. However, despite acknowl-
edging that the monument might also express a lunar calendar, his paper does not indi-
cate a solution to the problem of how both calendars could simultaneously be present.
He comments that “a system based on the cycles of the moon is feasible but reconciling
the observable pattern of lunar months of 29 or 30 solar days with the [365-day] solar
year […] has posed a challenge for agrarian societies across time and space”. A few years
earlier he had written (Darvill 2016, 89, 96) that “the Sarsen Circle may have embodied a
time-reckoning system based on the lunar month”, referring to Hawkins (1964).

JSA 9.1 (2023) 86–92 ISSN (print) 2055-348X

https://doi.org/10.1558/jsa.26598 ISSN (online) 2055-3498
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The present paper contributes to the debate by proposing an alternative to Darvill’s

interpretation as to how the outer ring of sarsen stones was used as a solar calendar, while at
the same time demonstrating the presence of an interdependent lunar calendar. It explains
how the sarsen stage of Stonehenge was designed with calendrical intentions, in which the
upright stones of the outer circle were used for counting the days of the lunar cycles as well
as the days of the solar cycles when counting clockwise from the Stonehenge axis.
Darvill (2022, 327) argues that “each of the 30 uprights” of the outside circle “represents
a solar day within a repeating 30-day month”. Because this implies a solar year of 360 days,
he includes the five inner trilithons (whose paired verticals are numbered 51 to 60) to arrive
at a day count of 365. Additionally, he notes that an intercalary leap day was needed every
four years to match the average solar year of 365.25 days and suggests that the four station
stones, 91 to 94, could have served as supportive mnemonic aids to correct for the quarter-
day change that accumulates annually until a whole-day correction becomes appropriate.
Darvill further notes that Stone 21 is particularly narrow, and suggests that because
Stone 11 is narrow too this indicates that a kind of 10-day period or “decan” prevailed
– which is possible. However, Stone 11 (Figure 1) is in fact half the size in height and
width of the others. Darvill suggests that its current height is because the upper half has
“been broken off” (Darvill 2022, 322). Abbott and Anderson-Whymark (2012, 38) similarly
suggest that “the top of the stone is broken”, as if it perhaps this happened accidentally
at some time after the age of Stonehenge, but, because they used laser scanners to

FIGURE 1. The shaped sarsen stone at the left is Stone 10, which is one of 29 uprights of the same height.
The other stone is the short Stone 11 which is half size in height and width (photograph by the author an
hour after sunrise on 31st August, 1996).

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88 Terence Meaden

study the surfaces closely, they also report that Stone 11 had been dressed to its present
shape on all sides. Thus, the top surface looks deliberately rounded rather than broken
or snapped, and the height being half that of the others rather than some other random
fraction is suggestive too.
It is here argued that the size and placement of Stone 11 are significant operationally
and symbolically. Its location at the eleventh position of the outer circle clockwise from
the northeast axis was in relation to the solar calendar, while its size denoted a half-day in
the course of every lunar month. Moreover, it is shown that before Stonehenge became
badly damaged, Stone 11 cast a shadow upon Bluestone 40 at the winter solstice sunrise
as a purposeful planned feature.

How the Dual Calendar may Have Worked

The axis of Stonehenge (Figure 2) is taken as the straight line starting from the midpoint
of the recumbent Altar Stone, bisecting the gaps between the upright Stones 15 and 16 in
the southwest and next between Stones 30 and 1 in the northeast, and then going past

FIGURE 2. Plan showing the axis to the midsummer sunrise past the Heel Stone and the positions of Stones
15, 16, 30, 1 and 11 in the outer ring. The Altar Stone is shown black in the middle of the monument
(redrawn after Cleal et al. 1995).

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the Heel Stone along the middle of the avenue to the rising point of the Sun at the Bronze
Age summer solstice at c. 2550 BC.
In using Stonehenge as a calendar, a portable-size marker of wood or stone could
have served as a moveable indicator that was shifted daily to the next monolith by a
responsible functionary whose task it was to proceed clockwise round the outer ring,
much as suggested by Hawkins (1964). At every cycle, upon reaching Stone 11, the
half-size megalith would be alternately included and excluded from the counting of the
lunar-cycle days as the year progressed, with the marker reaching Stone 30 for the twelfth
time after 354 days (based on a lunar month of 29.5 days). To complete the solar-calendar
year, the appointee then would continue the count for another eleven days, thus arriving
at Stone 11 and marking the 365 days since observations began.

Shadow-Casting at the Solstices

The most spectacular of known examples of stone-to-stone shadow union at stone circles
is the one at Stonehenge in the week of the summer solstice, centred on 21st June when
the shadow-caster is the Heel Stone. The author has watched these occurrences many
times in midsummer week, most recently on 14th June, 2021 (Figure 3).
The vision is a moving drama for spectators, as the shadow of the Heel Stone
penetrates the monument and arrives at the recumbent Altar Stone for its annual reunion
(Figure 4). Pritchard (2016) has written similarly about prearranged stone pairs in south-
west Wales, when union by shadow takes place on particular dates including solstices.

FIGURE 3. Author’s photograph at 05.04 BST on 14th June, 2021. The shadow of the top of the Heel Stone
is partly in the axial gap between Stones 1 and 30. The optimum situation occurs with clear skies at the
solstice on 21st June.

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90 Terence Meaden

FIGURE 4. Plan of the interior of Stonehenge in its present damaged condition. The Altar Stone and Stone
11 are shown in red, and Bluestone 40 is in black. The shadows cast by the Heel Stone and Stone 11 are
shown in green.

The round-topped Stone 11 could similarly have functioned purposefully in the week
of the winter solstice. The photograph in Figure 5 was taken shortly after sunrise on 27th
December, 2014. The shadow of Stone 11 partly covers the damaged, out-of-position,
Bluestones 36, 37 and 39. Damaged Bluestone 38 lies flat, below Stone 14. However, if
these bluestones were upright in their original positions, the shadow cast by Stone 11
would miss them and arrive at the suggested target of Bluestone 40.
Bluestone 40 lies sunken in the ground, partly covered by turf (Figure 6). Its full shape
and dimensions are unknown, but the visible flatness is such as to suggest it may differ
from the well-known undamaged upright bluestones, and be more like the flat-sided
Altar Stone. It is a volcanic tuff rock known as rhyolitic ignimbrite, different from the other
bluestones, just as the minerality of the Altar Stone is different too. Both Stone 40 and the
Altar Stone have the potential to sparkle when freshly rubbed clean and sunlit, because

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FIGURE 5. Author’s photograph of 27th December, 2014, showing the shadow cast by Stone 11 soon after
sunrise. It crosses fallen, out-of-position, stones as it reaches to where Bluestone 40 lies flat.

FIGURE 6. Part of the broad flat surface of Bluestone 40 is visible in this author’s photograph, taken 14th
April, 2013.

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of the nature of their mineral surfaces. As such, it may purposefully have been laid flat
where it is now, recumbent like the Altar Stone.
It is further notable that Timothy Daw (2015) explained that there are several features
planned into the sarsen structure that align with the midwinter sunrise. These include the
original orientation of Stones 55 and 56 of the Great Trilithon. Darvill (2022, 326) refers
to this, writing that “Daw has argued that the positioning of the south-western trilithon
incorporates a closely related secondary solstitial axis based on the skyline positions of
the rising midwinter sun to the south-east and the setting midsummer sun to the north-
west”. Stone 11 is highly important, and if Bluestone 40 was special too, then their union
by shadow at the winter solstice looks to be a deliberately arranged winter solstice event.

Conclusions
It has been explained how the outer circle of stones at Stonehenge served both for
counting the 29.5-day lunar cycle or months and the 365-day solar cycle. For this to work
for both calendars coactively and interdependently, one stone needed to be distinctive
in some way, and in order to complete the solar year, this same stone had to be located
at the eleventh position counting clockwise from the axis that bisects the gap between
Stone 30 and Stone 1. It was this practical device, involving a half-size stone to visualise a
half-value in the lunar cycle, that enabled the lunar and solar calendars to be integrated
intelligently at the time when the monument was planned. The present paper also
demonstrates how Stone 11 could have held an additional participative role at the time
of the winter solstice in a manner that imitated the role of the Heel Stone in midsummer.

References
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Heritage Report Series 32-2012. London: English Heritage [online]. Accessed July 2022, https://histori-
cengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/32-2012
Cleal, R. M. J., K. E. Walker and R. Montague, 1995. Stonehenge in its Landscape: Twentieth Century Excavations.
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Darvill, T., 2016. “Houses of the Holy: Architecture and Meaning in the Structure of Stonehenge, Wiltshire,
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Darvill, T., 2022. “Keeping Time at Stonehenge”. Antiquity 96 (386): 319–335. https://doi.org/10.15184/
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Pritchard, O., 2016. “Shadows, Stones and Solstices”. Journal of Skyscape Archaeology 2 (2): 145–164. https://
doi.org/10.1558/jsa.29787

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