STONEHENGE Not just another bunch of rocks

The stones were roped off so the tourists would not be able to touch the stones. The following photos are of Stonehenge as I walked around the structure. The photos that just look like I took pictures of grass, I was trying to photograph the trench that ran around parts of the structure. It was incredible to be there.

From here on these facts were taken from the Stonehenge English Heritage Guide Book: Stonehenge was built as a temple – at first just a simple circular ditch and bank, within which lay a circle of upright timber posts. This was constructed about 5,000 years ago, in the period of prehistory known as the Neolithic or New Stone Age. By about 2500BC more timber structures had been built and rotted away and the first stones had started to arrive. Huge sarsen stones came from north Wiltshire and smaller bluestones from west Wales. This marked the beginning of over 800 years of construction and alteration stretching into the period known as the Bronze Age, when the first metal tools and weapons were made. By this time Stonehenge was the greatest temple in Britain, its banks, ditches and standing stones arranged in sophisticated alignments to mark the passage of the sun and changing seasons. But Stonehenge was just one part of a remarkable ancient landscape.

Hundreds of burial mounds clustered on the surrounding hilltops, while smaller temples and other ceremonial sites were built nearby. Stonehenge and these other ancient structures form an archeological landscape. Stonehenge has inspired people to study and interpret it for centuries. Medieval writers used magic as an explanation of how it was created; antiquities, like William Stukeley in the early 18 th century, guessed – wrongly – that the Druids had built it. Archeology provides the best hope of answering some of these fundamental questions about Stonehenge: how and when it was built, who built it and, perhaps most difficult of all, why it was built. But even with the evidence that archeology and modern science provide, not all these questions can be answered. Stonehenge will always keep some of its secrets. For more info I am sure you can find websites.

An interesting fact, the stone that lays on top horizontally on the two vertical rocks are called lintels. Anyways, what is interesting is that if you see the vertical rock with what looks like a nubby thing, the rock was shaped that way and the lintel would have a hole the same size so when placed precisely it would form a fitting so that the lintel would be more secured and not topple over. I thought of Legos.

This lonesome rock is one of four known as the Station Stones. These stones mark the corners of a perfect rectangle with its central point in the exact center of the monument. The reason for this is uncertain, although it has been suggested that the Station Stones were survey markers for the original builders.

This is called the Heel Stone. Of the reading, I think this stone was used as an alignment tool. It seems that all historians agree that Stonehenge was built around the alignment of the sun, so when the sun rises and sets on certain days, mainly the solstices. Which when the sun is just right, it is a beautiful sight to see, check out the postcard of the sun between the stones.

The flat rock in front is called the Slaughter Stone, the stone’s name is a misnomer since there have not been blood sacrifices, it was named due to the fact that the depression on top of the stone collected rain water and reacted with the iron in the stone and turned it a rusted color, which was thought to be evidence of past sacrifices.

Proof that I was at Stonehenge

Trophy at Stonehenge

Postcards from Stonehenge