Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds).
History[]
Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC,[3] although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.[4][5][6]
One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon.[7] It has been a legally protected scheduled monument since 1882,[1] when legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.[8][9]
Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings.[10] Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500 years.
Mystery[]
The mystery of Stonehenge may finally have been unravelled by researchers who say it's a giant solar calendar that may link the UK to ancient Egypt.
Professor Timothy Darvill, from Bournemouth University, concluded that the site was created based on a solar year of 365.25 days to help people keep track of days, weeks and months.
"Such a solar calendar was developed in the eastern Mediterranean in the centuries after 3000 BC and was adopted in Egypt as the Civil Calendar around 2700 BC and was widely used at the start of the Old Kingdom about 2600 BC," he said.
It is possible that the calendar tracked by Stonehenge was influenced by one of these cultures.
The Stonehenge site is aligned in the direction of the sunrise of the summer solstice and the sunset of the winter solstice, which has long prompted people to suggest that it is some kind of calendar, Prof Darvill said.
The outermost setting of Stonehenge - a circle of 30 upright sarsen stones - was constructed at around 2,500 BC.
Prof Darvill built on this knowledge by analysing the stones and comparing them to other calendars from this period.
The proposed calendar works in a very straightforward way," he said. Each of the 30 stones in the sarsen circle represents a day within a month, itself divided into three weeks each of 10 days. The distinctive stones in the circle mark the start of each week and the design also reflects a leap day every four years - marked by the four station stones outside the sarsen circle, of which there are now only two that remain.
A five-day month was inserted in the calendar to harmonise it with the solar year - represented by the five trilithons in the centre of the site. A trilithon is a structure consisting of two large vertical stones supporting a third stone set horizontally across the top. The calendar's alignment with the sun means that any errors in counting the days would be easily noticed as the sun would be in the wrong place during the summer and winter solstices.