Avebury Henge: The Barber Surgeon Stone #9 Was Re-Erected Backwards

As proven in the next and subsequent postings, Avebury Stone #9, known popularly as the "Barber Stone" or "Barber Surgeon Stone" has been re-erected backwards.

The megalith had fatally fallen upon a man in the 14th century but was only re-erected in 1938. As we shall prove, the correct henge-outward side was set facing henge-inward, and the correct henge-inward side was set facing henge outward. The sides are also thus 180° false in terms of the direction they face, which as we shall see, is important.

How can we prove that? We can.

We began our decipherment of the Avebury Henge Stones in August. See our decipherment of Avebury Stone #10, the most important megalith at Avebury for understanding the "culture" of the henge.

We at that time issued a challenge to archaeological and related communities, a challenge that has gone unanswered. We now thus present our full decipherment of the Avebury Henge stones in this and forthcoming postings.

The finder of what turned out to be a "modern" skeleton under Avebury Stone #9 was Alexander Keiller, an archaeologist to whom, however, great respect and honor must be given for his restoration and conservation of the Avebury site in his lifetime. He more than anyone can surely be regarded as the modern "guardian angel" of Avebury, who in his day resurrected much of what could be resurrected, and without whom the present Avebury site presence would surely have been impossible.


However, even Keiller apparently destroyed some of Avebury, e.g. at least parts of the northwest bank, by using explosives to clear out tree stumps, etc., but his comprehensive restorations far outweigh any errors that he made.

Keiller can also not be faulted that he re-erected Avebury Stone #9 backwards. How was he to have known which side faced henge-outward and which side henge-inward? The stones have original "sockets" still found in the chalk underground, so in many cases the proper placement of the megaliths is quite clear, but this socket may have been ambiguous, permitting the stone to be erected either way.

Well, there is a sure way to know which way is right. And we reveal that shortly, not just for Avebury Stone #9 but for all the outer henge stones.

Because the skeleton is dated to the early 14th century, it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with a correct understanding of the Avebury stones, except that it proves that the stone was re-erected, and, as we show, falsely.

The National Trust features the skeleton story currently at its Avebury Stone Circles and Henge page, writing in that connection about Avebury as being allegedly "pagan stones". "Pagan stones" they are not. That will be seen when we examine Avebury Stone #9 in detail.

We "trust" that such a misleading "pagan" label will soon be deleted by the National Trust and that the archaeological community will start viewing these megaliths as the wonders of the ancient world that they are, created by ancient mankind as marvelous examples of ancient technology.

People sadly seem to prefer emoting unproven subjective mainstream assumptions rather than to do the first thing that true science requires here, which is to LOOK at the STONES themselves and to EXAMINE THEM in detail.

We have thus chosen Stone #9 intentionally because it is a stone that many have heard of because of its "circus-like" skeleton aspect, so that there is  little excuse among the academic professions for not having examined that stone "scientifically". The stone is not obscure. There have been many opportunities, but no one has done the close examination required.

We on the other hand have now examined Avebury Stone #9 in a bit more detail than has done previously.

We might mention here that we just finished reading Steve Marshall, Exploring Avebury: The Essential Guide, a book that was just recently published (September 2016) by The History Press (www.thehistorypress.co.uk). The reader can thus presume that we understand most of everything in that book and are aware of what is known and what is not known. Indeed, we use the stone numbering employed there for the inner circle stones, which was otherwise not available anywhere online, nor did our other books have it.

It is informative in reading Marshall's quite beautiful book to see how much information is actually "known" about the broader "archaeotech" environment of the Avebury stones, and yet, it is equally amazing to see how very little is understood by the archaeological and related communities about the true function of the stones themselves -- a deficit which we are now in the process of correcting, especially via Avebury Henge Stone #9.

In spite of its excellent photos and great informative value, Marshall's book shows the reader tiny photographs of ONE side of each henge stone only (pp. 66-68), plus only a few larger photos of the stones in their Avebury Henge quadrants. This presentation is disappointing. The STONES themselves are most important, not all the marginal things published by the archaeologists. We hope in the book's next edition for great improvement on that score.

We shall in coming postings show large photographs of every "face" and "side" of every stone -- and such a comprehensive view of each stone is the key to understanding all the stones. Everything counts!

Having already done Avebury Henge Stone #10, we continue now with Avebury Stone #9, which we shall prove to be set in place backwards viz. reversed as regards its original correct position, and of course, there is more, much more.