Lost City Found Near Stonehinge

Lost city found at Stonehenge
By Chris Hooper


Could Stonehenge be the site of the lost city of Apollo? DB2685


A RENOWNED archaeologist, who shot to national prominence last year
with his amazing discovery of Stonehenge's lost alter stone by a
roadside in Berwick St James, now claims to have found the famed lost
city of Apollo in the land around Stonehenge.


Dennis Price, who is an expert on the history of Stonehenge and who
used to work with Wessex Archaeology, believes the lost city of Apollo
is located at King's Barrow Ridge, overlooking Stonehenge.


The lost city is believed by many to be mythical but, after working
with language experts at Exeter University, Mr Price is convinced the
city exists and that it is right here on the outskirts of Salisbury.


The team painstakingly deciphered the works of an ancient Greek
mariner named Pytheas of Massilia.


Mr Price explained that Pytheas was known to have visited Britain in
around 325 BC and in his chronicles he wrote of the lost city of
Apollo and a site similar to Stonehenge.


He said: "There is a passage that apparently refers to Stonehenge
which has long fascinated people, but there is also a repeated
reference made to a city sacred to Apollo which has gone completely
unremarked upon."


It was this which first intrigued Mr Price and led him to look a
little harder at Pytheas' text. And this deeper investigation allowed
him to find the exact location of the city.


He said: "Just a mile or so to the east of Stonehenge is a gigantic
prehistoric earthwork called Vespasian's Camp, named in later years by
William Camden, after the same Vespasian who subjugated the south west
of England during the Roman invasion of Britain in 43AD.


"It is invariably described as an Iron Age hill fort, yet excavations
there have shown the existence of far earlier Neolithic pits, while
there still exist the remains of early Bronze Age funeral barrows,
showing the site was in use while nearby Stonehenge was being
constructed.


"Vespasian's Camp lies at the bottom of a slope occupied further up by
what is known as the King's Barrow Ridge, overlooking Stonehenge,
while this is further divided into the New King Barrow and Old King
Barrow.


"Vespasian's Camp cannot be seen from Stonehenge, but it lies to the
east of the ruins, in the direction of the rising sun. As Apollo had
largely become thought of as a Sun god by the time Pytheas was
writing, it is an obvious connection.


"Given the huge scale of the earthworks at Vespasian's Camp, it is not
unthinkable that Pytheas may have thought of Troy, another city sacred
to or beloved of Apollo, as some later versions of the stories of this
place speak of Apollo building the walls there along with Poseidon.


"We cannot know precisely how Pytheas came to equate the sanctuary,
the temple and the city with Apollo, but it is not unthinkable that
some future excavation at Stonehenge might provide evidence of this."


For more on this discovery see www.eternalidol.com.

Lost City Found Near Stonehinge