Stonehenge

Stonehenge is older than the Pyramids and is quite a magical site that served as a burial site in prehistoric times. It is oneof thousands of stone circles in the British Isles although it is probably the best known. It shows us a lot about the culture of the world at the time - changing from hunters and gatherers to settling down and starting to farm and raise crops. People actually had the time to build this monument now they weren't constantly looking for food for survival.  It became a memorial to the dead. 

The area where it was built is in the middle of a clearing among the forest and he valley of the area where they hunted woolly mammoths. Nowadays, a major highway runs right next to it which seems crazy that just driving by you will see this amazing marvel. They believe the area was chosen because of the hot springs in the area (like what we will find in Bath). Sheep graze around the area making it seem so idyllic and peaceful. 

Stonehenge was started in 3,050 BC when the circular ditch was begun and dug out of the chalky earth. It was grassed over with a barrier and the white chalk would have gleamed for miles. Archaeologists can tell when it was built using carbon dating of the tools used: their hands, the shoulder blades of cattle, and the antlers of deers. 

There's a pathway going into the circle called the avenue which is a processional route into the circle that lines up exactly with the sunrise in the midsummer solstice. There are 56 "Aubrey" holes about 2 feet wide and they are just inside the perimeter of the ditch. These holes had cremated remains at the bottom of them. Filled in and painted now, they are named for the man who discovered them in the 17th century working for the king to study Stonehenge. He was the first to suggest it was built by the Druids but he was incorrect because of the dates. 

In 2600 BC the stone started to arrive from Wales, which Corinna says was a center of healing and psychics at the time. The blue stones arrived first, the smallest weighing abut 4 tons. They come from the mountains of South Wales - a lengthy distance but close to the water, so they floated them down the river in rafts to get to the henge. The blue stones were probably mounted in a circle or two within the ditch but over the years they have been moved several times to accommodate arrival of the Sarsen stones (sandstone). They started to arrive around 2300 BC and they are up to 50 tons. To move them took 200 people to pull one stone using ropes made from vegetation or animal skins and rolled over tree trunks. This was a source of employment too as it took 200 more people to look after the rollers and stone on the sled. It took 10 years to get all of the stones to the site. It was an elaborate process to get the stones lined up and mounted standing up using ropes and pulleys - quite an engineering feat for the time!

Even more impressive is the particular placement of the stones so the sun shines through the “windows” perfectly on the day of the midsummer solstice. These people had an understanding of geometry hundreds of years before the Greeks defined mathematics!

Stonehenge is unique in several ways from other stone circles.  It is the

• only one with blue stones
• only one to be "dressed". Each stone's outer edge was beaten to be smoothed and curved to make the circle border round and not squared

 

Over centuries many stones have fallen down. It was plundered and people took the stone away and it was defaced. At one time people could hire a stone chisel and chip off a piece as a souvenir! Nowadays you cannot get too close to the monument and in fact you have to take shuttle busses from a distant parking area to the stones and back again. I think this makes it look less commercial to because the natural beauty around it can be preserved without modern day trappings. . 

As to why it was built, common legends say it was a temple, a sacrificial place, or that Merlin the magician created it for King Arthur.  It was thought at one point to be a temple to the sun and mark the season - an early clock telling you the time of year. There were huge parties on the Solstice days. It may have even been like a Cathedral of the time.

In the last few years after lots of archaeological digging around the area, the consensus is this was a burial site. Quite a few burial mounds surround the area and there is evidence of a huge Neolithic village of 300 houses. When people died they would be cremated and dropped into the river Avon. They would save the special people for the big party, take the ashes along the processional route into the middle of the stone and bury the ashes underneath the stone. They have found evidence of cremated remains of abut 200 people. They would have a party and feast to celebrate those who had died and would eat beef and pork on the stones because they were closer to the heavens. Stone was the chosen material because it was perceived to be an eternal material. 

Stonehenge was finished around 1600 BC and ironically around the time of the start of new burial techniques which brought an end to cremation. At this point Stonehenge became a monument to the dead instead of a burial site or monument to the sun. 

The educators among us were thrilled that several kids actually used the audio tour!

Now for a flood of people pictures :)