Hidden Monuments Under Stonehenge Revealed by High-Tech Mapping

Hidden Monuments Under Stonehenge Revealed by High-Tech Mapping
Underground images show a large complex of monuments and buildings used in rituals dating back thousands of years.
By Roff Smith, for National Geographic

PUBLISHED September 13, 2014







Built more than 4,000 years ago, Stonehenge is still giving up its secrets, with a new underground map revealing a set of monuments below the structure that had never been seen before.


Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic Creative


An astonishing complex of ancient monuments, buildings, and barrows has lain hidden and unsuspected beneath the Stonehenge area for thousands of years. Scientists discovered the site using sophisticated techniques to see underground, announcing the finds this week.
Among the discoveries announced Wednesday are 17 ritual monuments, including the remains of a massive "house of the dead," hundreds of burial mounds, and evidence of a possible processional route around Stonehenge itself.
There's also evidence of a nearby mile-long "superhenge" at Durrington Walls that was once flanked by as many as 60 gigantic stone or timber columns, some of which may still lie under the soil.
The discoveries result from the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project, a four-year effort to create a high-resolution, 3-D underground map of the landscape surrounding Stonehenge.
The project team, led by researchers from the U.K.'s University of Birmingham and Austria's Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, mapped the area down to a depth of about ten feet (three meters) using ground-penetrating radar, high-resolution magnetometers, and other state-of-the-art remote-sensing equipment.
In all, nearly 3,000 acres have been excavated virtually, making this the largest and most ambitious project of its kind ever undertaken anywhere in the world.
"Nobody had any idea this was here," says lead scientist Vince Gaffney, professor of landscape archaeology at the University of Birmingham. "Instead of a monument in isolation, we find that Stonehenge was part of a rich monumental landscape."
Profound Find
Many of the 17 newly discovered monuments appear to be shrine-like structures. The small circular constructions, contemporaneous with Stonehenge's busiest period, are placed around the main stone ring and form a sort of Neolithic analogue to the Via Dolorosa, held to be the path Jesus walked to crucifixion, Gaffney suggests.
"What we could be witnessing here is the birth of the idea of ceremonial procession, or a liturgy," he says.
For centuries, the enigmatic stone circle, built over 4,000 years ago on England's Salisbury Plain, has awed and intrigued visitors. (See "Stonehenge Revealed: Why Stones Were a Special Place.")
"Stonehenge is where archaeology got its start," says Nicola Snashall, an archaeologist from England's National Trust, which looks after the monument.
"Antiquarians like John Aubrey and Inigo Jones began digging here in the 17th century to try to unlock its secrets—some of the world's very first archaeological excavations."
With no written records to fall back on, the mysterious stone structure has spawned countless theories involving Celts, Druids, Romans, and even the King Arthur legend. Its original shape has been a matter of great debate, including whether it was built as a semicircle, as seen today, or a full circle of stones.
This past summer, a chance dry spell revealed patches in the soil that marked where stones once stood. But nobody suspected the incredible wealth of ruins that lay hidden beneath the soil.
Deep Views
High-tech remote sensing and underground mapping is changing not only what is known about Stonehenge, but also the way archaeology is done.
In Orkney, a group of islands in northern Scotland, such a survey revealed a vast, sophisticated and entirely unsuspected Neolithic temple complex that predates Stonehenge by over 500 years. Archaeologists suggest the site may even have influenced the building of Stonehenge. (Read "Before Stonehenge" in National Geographic magazine.)
"Technology is opening doors for archaeology we could only dream about 15 years ago," says Gaffney, who compared the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project with a 3-D underground mapping project he undertook at the ancient British-Roman settlement of Wroxeter in the late 1990s.
"Back then, it took us four years to map 78 hectares, with about 2.5 million data points," he recalls. "With this latest survey at Stonehenge, we were doing that much in a week, [finding] new types of monument that had never been seen by archaeologists.
"All of this information has been placed within a single digital map, which will guide how Stonehenge and its landscape are studied in the future."


Thanks to: http://news.nationalgeographic.com

Stonehenge; Ba humbug,

This beast is bad news!
A part of the Nibirurian implant system built by the Annunaki known as Marduk to usurp the Micheal Mary Ley line in Southern England. Think ancient HAARP technology; photo-sonic pulse technology that can harness brain wave patterns by psychotronic technology. The soil asunder has been penetrated with Nibirurian crystaline; think silicon chips that can be used as a 2 way radio device from battlestar Nibiru.

During the Arthurian period there was an effort made to dislodge this S.O.B. from the cue site the Isle of Man, the end result was an attack on southern England that torched everything along that grid line for miles on either side (562AD). The Death and destruction was so vast that nothing grew for 20 years. The true history of this period was wiped clean by the invading Saxon's who capitalized on the free real estate which could be captured with little or no resistance. There are some clues found within the works of Taliesin (Merlin), and the Anglo Saxon chronicles.

The invading Saxon army was to large to defeat, and after 10 years of wars the Arthurian Welch built ships and headed for the promise land "America" where we find the legends of his surviving brother prince Madoc and the Madoc/ Mandan Indians who were being interviewed extensively by the Welch President Jefferson through his Lewis & Clark expidition which revealed secrets that got many of this crew killed.

Arthur and our brother Kay both died during the Indian wars (574AD) (see; Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha). Arthurs body was returned to Britain by Taliesin and buried in Wales. His sword Excalibur was not buried with him. This was no ordinary sword, but was created and used as a star gate tool to replace the lost staff in the Arc Box gate tool set (X-calibrate) until the original Staff tool was relocated. Both are now safe within the Arc Box and were never located by Jefferson. The reason Arthur was claimed to be the only one who could wield the sword was do to its frequency which like the Staff would make others pass out. The sword & the stone fairy tales were created by the Saxons who sought to conceal the truth about star-gates. But their was a central Core stone  within Wales, central to their zodiac monuments which held a stone with a cleft to receive the sword. The sword was placed there within the altar during special occasions like solstices and grid work. Many would place objects upon the alter to charge them with higher frequency, which was also popular for military weapons and amulets. Much prayers and chanting and dancing accompanied these rituals. These were not to be confused with Druid fertility rites. The Round Table had to do with the celestial zodiac, its prognostication and willful intervention. Round Tables regard the cycle of the rounds; Epochs and synchronistic high points for expanding potential through awareness of critical cycles within human development for the capitalization of such.

Just another period of war against the nefarious foe who seek to keep you in bondage, but by and large a very sad and bloody period and nothing romantic, only heartbreak back then. So many children of light died during that period, sacrificed upon the alter of humanity. The sorrow runs deeper than the wickedness of that stony henge, and as tears now begin to stream I must cut this short.

Val