Callanish Stones under a starry night sky on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides

The Callanish Stones: Theories of Age and Origin

The Callanish Stones: Theories of Age and Origin

The Calanais (Callanish) Stones on the west side of the Isle of Lewis are, without doubt, the Hebrides' main visitor attraction. And for good reason. Many locals, in conversation with inquisitive visitors, will say "Ah, they're older than Stonehenge, you know," often with a wry smile. I asked Claude AI to describe the stones, and it came back with the title "Stones on the Ridge" and the following text:

"On a low ridge above Loch Roag, on the west side of Lewis, a ring of tall grey stones has stood for nearly five thousand years. Long lines of smaller stones run out from it to the east, west and south, with a longer avenue reaching north, so that from above the whole site looks something like a Celtic cross. Nothing else in Britain is laid out quite this way."

Those who raised the stones left no writing or artwork, so researchers are left with digging, dating and one or two guesstimates! Careful archaeological analysis, not to mention a number of folk stories that are less open to careful analysis, have produced a variety of answers to the two big questions. First, how old are the stones? Second, why were they put there?

How Old?

Excavations in 1980 and 1981 claimed to have settled the first question. The archaeologists dated the original circle to between 2900 and 2600 BC. Yes, older than Stonehenge! The tallest stone, at the centre, stands 4.8 metres high.

Another interesting finding from the early eighties is that the rows of stones leading away from the main ring were probably added later, around the time a timber structure was built inside the circle. In the same period, a small chambered tomb was built inside the circle, tucked against the central stone. A burial outside the chamber has been dated to between 2150 and 1750 BC, and it is believed the site was used for ritual activity for up to 2,000 years!

A Druid Temple?

Martin Martin, a native of neighbouring Skye, toured the islands around 1700. He wrote that locals told him the stones had been a place of Druid worship in heathen times. John Toland, an Irish writer, expanded on this theory in his history of the Druids, describing the site as a sun temple. He went further, interpreting the twelve stones in the circle as the signs of the zodiac.

Remarkably, the Druid theory stuck well into Victorian times. However, there is a problem with it: the Callanish Stones pre-date the Druids by more than 2,000 years! Although the Druid theory has been discarded, the idea that the stones were built to watch the sky has not gone away.

Giants, False Men and the Shining One

Long before the experts arrived, islanders had their own explanations. In Gaelic the stones were named Fir Bhrèige, the false men. Nobody knows exactly why, though some believe it is because the stones look like a crowd of people standing on the hill.

One legend says each stone was once a giant, turned to stone as punishment for refusing to build a church. Another tells of a white cow that rose from the sea during a famine and let the island's women milk her at the stones, until a witch came with a pierced pail and milked her dry.

The most haunting tale is of the Shining One, who walks the length of the avenue at sunrise on midsummer morning, announced by the call of the cuckoo. Nobody knows how old that story is, but it ties the stones to the sky and the turning of the year, which is exactly where modern research has ended up.

The Moon and the Sleeping Beauty

Today, the most widely held theory is that the Callanish Stones were built to track the moon. Every 18.6 years, the moon reaches a "major standstill", when its rising and setting points swing furthest apart. At these times, seen from the stones, the moon rolls very low along the southern horizon.

That horizon is unusual. The hills to the south look like a woman lying on her back, known in Gaelic as Cailleach na Mòinteach, the Old Woman of the Moors, or in English as the Sleeping Beauty. In the late 1970s, local researchers Margaret Curtis and Gerald Ponting surveyed the horizons and worked out where the sun and moon would rise and set. In 1980 they suggested that, at a major standstill, the moon appears to rise out of the Sleeping Beauty and then sets among the stones when seen from the northern end of the avenue.

Amazingly, this theory drew many people to Callanish for the most recent standstill in 2024 and 2025. The next one will not come until around 2043! The theory sparks plenty of debate online, and I have linked some of it below the article.

Why Here, and Why at All?

The builders were not isolated. People had farmed this part of Lewis since around 3700 BC, and the style of the site links it to the great circles of Orkney and beyond, so ideas were travelling long distances by sea.

The ridge can be seen from land and sea for miles, and the land around it is crowded with smaller circles. It looks like a place where a whole community gathered over many generations, perhaps to mark the seasons, honour the dead and watch the sky.

We will probably never know exactly what the builders believed. But stand among the stones at sundown, or under a clear sky full of stars, and it is easy to see why people kept coming back for two thousand years, and still do.

Scott Davidson has photographed the stones in both of those moments. Callanish Stones at Sundown catches the last light on the circle, while Callanish and the Cosmos shows them under the night sky. Both are available as museum-quality art prints, and the Cosmos image is also on a hoodie and mugs.

Photographed on location on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.

Sources

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