Druidical Temples of the County of Wilts
Description
of the County of Wilts
The Druidical Temples
of Wiltshire
by
Edward Duke
Stone temples are found in all parts of the world, whether inhabited by Celt or Goth, for at a later period all the early inhabitants of the globe seem to have been classed under these two appellatives.
I shall not make any attempt to trace their limits, as it is unnecessary for the purposes of this dissertation; and I fear, that in the attempt I should lead myself and readers into a labyrinth, from whence we should find it difficult to emerge. These stone temples are usually circular, and in every instance devoid of a roof. They were, in my opinion, ancient Temples of the Sun; they well accord with the shape of his disc, and the regularly encircling stones not inaptly represent his rays, and how well do these stone temples correspond with the previous quotation from Caesar, as, from their inmost recesses, these pristine idolaters could view the open sky, and there behold the wandering Sun by day, and Planets by night, whom, from their apparent powers of voluntary locomotion, they accustomed themselves to hail with paeans of joy and praise, and to regard as their tutelary deities.
13 point font
**************
Excerpt:
The Sun even to this present day is the prime object of adoration with the inhabitants of Mexico and Peru.
How well can I image to myself the rude inhabitants of the surrounding villages at stated seasons issuing forth from their fragile huts, wending their way to the Temple of the Sun, and there lifting up their hands and eyes in useless supplication to him, whom they could see ; by whose aid they supposed themselves to be openly assisted; there raising their voices with the ardent, but vain imagination, that he whom they saw through their roofless temple in the sky above, could hear, and would duly attend to their clamorous request! In concluding these brief and imperfect remarks on the origin and progress of idolatry, I know not that I can take a fitter occasion for laying before my readers the full scope of the hypothesis, which will be attempted to be developed in this work.
My hypothesis then is as follows: that our ingenious ancestors portrayed on the Wiltshire Downs, a, Planetarium or stationary Orrery, if this anachronism maybe allowed me, located on a meridional line, extending north and south, the length of sixteen miles; that the planetary temples thus located, seven in number, will, if put into motion, be supposed to revolve around Silbury Hill as the centre of this grand astronomical scheme; that thus Saturn, the extreme planet to the south, would in his orbit describe a circle with a diameter of thirty-two miles; that four of these planetary temples were constructed of stone, those of Venus, the Sun, the Moon, and Saturn; and the remaining three of earth, those of Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter, resembling the "Hill Altars" of Holy Scripture; that the Moon is represented as the satellite of the Sun, and, passing round him in an epicycle, is thus supposed to make her monthly revolution, while the Sun himself pursues his annual course in the first and nearest concentric orbit, and is thus successively surrounded by those also of the planets, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; that these planetary temples were all located at due distances from each other; that the relative proportions of those distances correspond with those of the present received system; and that, in three instances, the sites of these temples bear in their names at this day plain and indubitable record of their primitive dedication.
Now, further, as to the four temples constructed of stone, I shall be able to shew that they consisted of a certain definite number of stones, and by an analysis of their details I shall shew, that these details are resolvable into every known astronomical cycle of antiquity, whilst the other appendages attached to, but not forming component parts of three of such temples, are resolvable only into numerical cycles; and that these planetary temples taken synthetically, and as a whole, were intended to represent the magnus annus, the great year of Plato, the cycle of cycles, (well known before the days of Plato, but he, being esteemed the Solomon of his age, this most celebrated of all cycles took its name from him), when the planets, some revolving faster, some slower in their several courses, would all simultaneously arrive at the several points from whence they originally started, and that then the old world would end, and a new world spring into being.
Such was, in my humble opinion, the grand astronomical scheme, that was originally portrayed on the face of this most interesting of all counties, the county of Wilts, to develop which at large is the task I have set myself, and now propose to enter on.
220 pages - 7 x 8½ softcover
