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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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