TORONTO, Canada (Reuters) July 8 2003 -- Stonehenge is a massive female fertility symbol, according to Canadian researchers who think they have finally solved the mystery of the ancient monument in southern England. In the arrangement of the stones, the researchers say they have spotted the original design: female genitalia. The theory is laid out in a paper entitled
"Stonehenge: a view from medicine" in an issue of Britain's Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. "To the builders of the henge, the most critical events in life were birth and death," Anthony Perks, a retired professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia, wrote in the paper, published earlier this year. He noted there was no evidence of tombs built by the original builders. "Of birth, we could expect little evidence. However, evidence may be there but so large as to be overlooked." National Geographic image above by Joe McNally/Sygma
7 comments:
I think, given the symbols that accompany these monuments, that describing them as a womb is perfectly appropriate. There's evidence the early Celts believed in a sort of metempsychosis that involved these tombs.
Thank you Jennifer. Only now I learn you are not about About.com, but transmogrified into http://symboldictionary.net/ - congratulations - and I will change my links to you.
Stereotypes are worn out and exhausted archetypes. To interpret Stonehenge by this stereotype does little honor to the complexity of the image. What little time I had with Stonehenge myself felt like a moment, amidst the bustle of so many tourists: if there is a feminine there, it was buried at the time beneath the hurry of the experiencing cameras, photographers, and viewpoints. Stonehenge would take more time. There is an important relationship between Stonehenge and solar measurement of time (solations), at least in current popular myth. That too is a cliche, another worn archetype. But what remains is whether one actually has a relationship to Stonehenge phenomenologically, in time: does one dream of Stonehenge? If so that is what counts.
Of course one could say that the feminine is not the feminine. Anima differs. To interpret the world in terms of sexual energy is to cathect the numen onto sexuality. But the numen exists separately as well. Nevertheless interpretations are made in order for the unconscious to correct the matter. How close to this symbol of unknowing does one want to be? -Concepts and conceiving are generally an unconscious affair. Yet we all have our pre-conceptions. What is certain is that touching this image, one has to see if there is a meaningful piece that can be drawn from "letting go of one's concepts."
What is born is born also of conscious choice. We pick up our conceptions, and judge by them, and know that a part of the unknown is sacrificed in that very instant, as it must be.
I note my own animus here, and wonder: "that is what counts," and "[sacrifice of the unknown] must be," speak of the moralistic doctrines of the "ueber-ich," or "super-ego." What can be said is of the importance of finding and refining one's judgements: iterating differences, and articulating ...something... about a mystery as beautiful as Stonehenge. Thank you for bringing this to the fore.
Transmigration: metempsychosis: suggests that the effort was being made to keep "the wheel" (hyle, flux, the anima) turning. We so often see the image of Stonehenge as somehow set, but here the very heavens and all the souls are wheeling overhead.
But I have always wondered on the "psychosis" of "metempsychosis." This would be akin to no less than the fierce chill wind that psyche leaps upon in her myth. Acceptance of one's own insanity or psychosis would be an act of kindness. It agrees with the world that the gist of one's actions might be wrong to the very core. And that is a difficult deflation to deal with.
It's so typical that the Reuters article calls this a female fertility symbol. People often do that when faced with images and/or symbols of the Goddess. We get Fertility Idols, Fertility Charms, Fertility Statues etc.
OK, I grant that one function of the female and male genital systems is for keeping the species going, but in humans there's only a small window of opportunity - a few days per month. In other words, fertility is less important, in our species, than sexuality.
It seems to me, if this new theory about Stonehenge is valid at all, that one should rather call it a megalithic Temple of the Vulva.
Thank you Rufucius. I have long been curious as to the reason for the shift in motivation (deviation), during the last couple thousand years, from building temples to the Vulva to the building of temples and related infrastructures devoted to worship of the invisible sky deities (if monastic, then by separated groups of men and women). One would think that an equal or greater amount of energy and resources would still be available to create (continue) your Temple of the Vulva with its visible and "within reach" hierodules of both sexes. What happened?
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