Equinoxes and Solstices date back to times of ancient civilizations. The people living in these civilizations had no clocks which meant no way of telling time, so these cultures looked to the sun for answers. Over time people observed the sun slightly change its rising and setting points each day, eventually the sun would reach its northernmost point and that day is known as the summer solstice. Likewise, the sun will reach its southernmost point causing the winter solstice.

As well as solstices, equinoxes are also important to ancient cultures. The equinoxes occur when Earth’s axis is neither tilted towards or away from the sun causing the amount of darkness and lightness during a day to be nearly even. There are two times a year when night and day are distributed almost equally, the spring and fall equinox. The spring equinox typically falls during sometime in March and the fall equinox lands in September. The most recent equinox, this year, was during the fall on September 22, which is also important to ancient cultures. In general the fall equinox marks the time to harvest fruits, hope for abundance, but also express gratitude for the hard work during the season. Equinoxes also carry significance in Greek mythology when the fall equinox marks Persephone’s return to the Underworld.

While the importance of solstices and equinoxes to different cultures are expressed through their beliefs and stories, they can also be expressed through monuments. Stonehenge is one of the most well known ancient structures that aligns with the movements of the sun. During the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, a person standing on the solstice axis of Stonehenge could see the first rays of the sun over the heel stone. The heel stone is a stone outside of the stone circle to the northeast and it marks where the sun rises during mid summer. During mid winter the sun sets between two of the tallest stones in Stonehenge. Archaeologists believe Stonehenge was built to mostly honor the winter solstice because they found many remains of slaughtered pigs around 9 months old near Stonehenge, which led archaeologists to believe that the slaughter of these pigs were for a celebration. Another reason the winter solstice is believed to be more important to the people during that time is because Stonehenge has a horseshoe-like structure of stones around the mid winter axis.

Although the solstices and equinoxes may seem like just another typical day to most people, they hold great significance by marking seasonal changes and new beginnings in many cultures.