The Callanish Standing Stones
Every 18.6 years the moon skims the hills behind a 5,000-year-old stone cross on Lewis, and it may be the reason the stones are there.
Published
Quick Facts
- Location
- Callanish (Calanais), west coast of the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, above Loch Roag
- Built
- Main circle and avenues raised around 2900–2600 BC, in the Neolithic
- Tallest stone
- Central monolith, about 4.7 metres (15 ft) high
- Layout
- A ring of 13 stones with an avenue of 19 to the north and single rows to the south, east and west, forming a Celtic-cross shape
- Stone type
- Lewisian gneiss, among the oldest rock in Britain
- Later addition
- A small chambered cairn built inside the circle, immediately east of the central monolith
- Nearby sites
- A dozen or so other circles and settings in the surrounding hills, usually numbered Callanish II onwards
- Lunar link
- At the major lunar standstill, the moon rolls low along the southern hills, last seen in 2024–25 and due again around 2043
A stone cross older than Stonehenge's giants
Callanish was raised on a ridge above Loch Roag some 5,000 years ago, around the time Stonehenge was still an earthwork ring, before its great sarsens arrived. The design is unusual. A tall central stone stands inside a ring of 13. From the ring, a long avenue of paired stones runs north, with a single line of stones running south and shorter rows pointing east and west. From the air it looks like a Celtic cross laid flat, though it is thousands of years older than Christianity. The tallest stone, a slender slab of banded Lewisian gneiss about 4.7 metres high, is the centrepiece. Its rock is some of the oldest in Britain, and it was dragged only a short distance, for the builders worked with what lay close at hand.
The year the peat came off
For centuries the stones were sunk in a blanket of peat, which had grown up to roughly 1.5 metres deep around their bases. Visitors saw shorter, stumpier pillars than the ones we see today. In 1857 Sir James Matheson, who owned Lewis, ordered the peat cleared. Underneath, the workers uncovered the full height of the stones and a small chambered cairn tucked inside the ring, just east of the central monolith. No human remains were found in it. That discovery shows Callanish was not a single moment of building. The site was used, altered and revered over many centuries.
The moon and the Sleeping Beauty
The most famous theory about Callanish involves the moon. Every 18.6 years the moon reaches an extreme in its cycle, the major lunar standstill, and from Lewis it travels very low in the southern sky. Seen from the stones, it skims the hills on the horizon and appears to sit within the ring. Those southern hills have a name of their own, Cailleach na Mòinteach, 'the old woman of the moors'. Seen from the right angle, the ridge looks like a woman lying on her back, and in recent years she has also been called the Sleeping Beauty. The astronomical idea was explored by researchers including Alexander Thom and, later, Gerald and Margaret Ponting, who spent years studying Callanish. Nobody can prove the builders planned it this way, but the alignment is striking enough that people gather here for each standstill.
Giants who wouldn't convert
Local legend has its own explanation. The stones, it says, were giants who refused to accept Christianity and were turned to stone by St Kieran. It is a good story, and a familiar kind. Across Britain and Ireland, standing stones were later given tales of petrified dancers, giants and sinners. The giants of Callanish simply happen to have a particularly dramatic backdrop of sea loch and moorland. The reality is quieter but more impressive. Neolithic communities who had no metal tools and no wheels raised a monument here that still dominates the landscape.
What to look out for when you visit
Walk the avenue slowly. It narrows towards the circle, so the stones seem to funnel you towards the central monolith. Look closely at the gneiss, where pale and dark bands run through the rock in swirls, and the weathered surface is often patched with lichen. Don't stop at the main site. The other circles and settings around Loch Roag are quieter, and from some of them you can look back and see how the monuments relate to one another and to the hills. Callanish III, on a ridge nearby, is a double ring that is easily reached on foot. Light changes everything here. Early or late in the day, with low sun or Hebridean cloud rolling in, the stones look very different. On a clear night with a moon rising, you might see why people have been coming here for 5,000 years.
Notable people
- Sir James Matheson
- Alexander Thom
- Gerald Ponting
- Margaret Ponting
- St Kieran