British historian and art critic Julian Spaulding, former director of several of the UK's leading museums, has put forward a new theory about the purpose of Stonehenge - an ancient stone structure in Wiltshire, one of the most famous and mysterious archaeological sites on the planet.
According to his version, the preserved stone piles served as a support for a huge wooden platform, which has long been lost. Hundreds of believers gathered on this platform to ascend higher to heaven and perform religious rites.
“This is a completely new theory that has never been advanced before,” Spaulding told The Guardian. - All interpretations to date are erroneous. We looked at Stonehenge the wrong way: from the ground level, as is customary in the 20th century. But we never thought about how and what the ancient people thought."
Spaulding believes that previous historians, who considered Stonehenge to be a Druid sanctuary, a huge astronomical calendar, a cemetery or a healing center, were mistaken because they looked at the structure from the bottom up, and not from another angle.
As proof, he cites examples from ancient civilizations around the world: in different parts of the Earth - in China, Peru, Turkey, people built sacred monuments high, and often they also had a circular structure, which is associated with the movement of celestial bodies.
“In ancient times, no spiritual rituals were performed on earth. The Pharaoh of Egypt and the Emperor of China were always carried by air, just like the Pope. It was believed that the feet of holy people should not touch the ground. We surveyed Stonehenge, tied to ground level."
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According to Spaulding, like all sacred altars of the past, Stonehenge was built in such a way as to perform rites further from the earth and closer to heaven. “It would be unimaginably offensive to immortal beings to arrange divine ceremonies on insignificant soil, as if they themselves were thrown into dust and dung,” explains Julian.
He calls Stonehenge "the ancient Mecca on stilts." The scientist outlined his version in the book Realization: From Seeing to Understanding ("Realization: from contemplation to understanding the origins of art"). However, Spaulding's colleagues and Stonehenge researchers with many years of experience took this theory with a great deal of skepticism, seeing no evidence.
