By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent
Archaeologists
have discovered a mysterious 4,700-year-old temple that is the
largest Stone Age structure ever found in Western Europe. More
than a half a mile across and covering 85 acres, the site in mid-Wales
is 30 times the size of Stonehenge.
A six-year
research programme has revealed that the vast, egg-shaped religious
complex consisted of 1,400 obelisks, each towering up to 23ft
into the air. Made of oak, they were arranged as an oval with
a perimeter of one-and-a-half miles. At its western end, archaeologists
have discovered the site of the temple's main entrance –
flanked by 6ft diameter timbers that may have stood 30ft tall.
Despite its
vast size, the site is baffling archaeologists. They are certain
that it had a religious function – but what was being worshipped
or venerated remains a mystery.
The focal
point appears to have been a natural spring – and possibly
some sort of shrine. The complex may have been built on such a
grand scale to include a second possible shrine 500 yards north-west
of the spring and an area of further ritual activity about 200
yards to the north-east. The main entrance is oriented towards
sunset on the summer solstice – the point at which the sun
disappears after the longest day of the year.
Detailed examination
has revealed that the enclosed area was kept clear for almost
3,000 years. Outside the oval, archaeologists have found a normal
level of flint and other prehistoric finds. Inside there have
been almost no finds at all.
"They
must have kept it extraordinarily clean," said Dr Alex Gibson,
an archaeologist who has spent much of the past six years investigating
the site for Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust. It remained untouched
by normal – secular – human activity from its construction
in 2700BC, through the late Neolithic and the whole of both the
Bronze Age and the Iron Age, which ended after the Roman invasion
of AD43.
The absence
of debris of human activity from the earlier parts of the Neolithic
era suggest the area may have been taboo for even longer –
possibly from 4000BC.
After the
arrangement of 1,400 oak obelisks was constructed – just
before the time that most of Stonehenge was built – it is
likely that ordinary people were not just barred from the site,
as they probably had been for generations, but were also prevented
from seeing inside it. Archaeologists believe planks were used
to close the gaps between the obelisks for at least the bottom
third of their height.
The temple
was almost certainly kept exclusively for the use of the priesthood
– probably shamans whose function was to maintain spiritual
contact with ancestors and deities.
However, when
the Roman invaders arrived, its very sanctity seems to have made
it a target. For, in common with many other native British sacred
sites – including Stonehenge – the place appears to
have been deliberately violated. The Romans seem to have chosen
to insult local sensibilities by building first a marching camp
on one part of the site and then a permanent fort on another.
The site –
at Hindwell, three miles east of New Radnor in Powys – is
being seen as one of the most important in Europe. "We were
bowled over by the sheer scale of the structure – and the
fact that it appears to have remained sacred for thousands of
years," Dr Gibson said.
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