Home
This Page
▼Library
▼WikiAnswers
▼Resources
▼Tools
▼
Did you mean: Stonehenge (historical site, England), Stonehenge (Various Artists video), Stonehenge (Hawkwind video), Stonehenge (game), Superweapons of Ace Combat More...
A group of standing stones on Salisbury Plain in southern England. Dating to c. 2000–1800 B.C., the megaliths are enclosed by a circular ditch and embankment that may date to c. 2800. The arrangement of the stones suggests that Stonehenge was used as a religious center and also as an astronomical observatory.
Probably the most famous prehistoric ceremonial monument in Europe, situated on the chalk downs of Salisbury Plain in central southern England. Extensively excavated by William Gowland in 1901, William Hawley in 1919 to 1926, and more recently by Richard Atkinson, Richard John Copland, Stuart Piggott, Stuart, and J. F. S. Stone intermittently between 1951 and 1964, the site as visible today has three main phases to its construction. Phase 1 comprises the circular earthwork enclosure constructed around 2950 bc. There were at least three entrances, the main one being to the northeast. Inside the bank was a circle of 56 postholes (Aubrey Holes) that originally held wooden posts. Phase 2 dates to the period 2900–2400 bc, the late Neolithic, and sees the ditch filling in through a combination of human actions and natural processes. The posts in the Aubrey Holes decayed or were removed and a series of timber settings were constructed in the northeastern entrance and in the central area. Towards the end of Phase 2 the site was used as a cremation cemetery. Phase 3 dates to the period 2550–1600 bc, the end of the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age. It is subdivided into a number of subphases and these represent the evolution of the stone structures in the centre of the site. The first such structure comprised two concentric circles of bluestones imported from southwest Wales set up around 2500 bc. Round about were the four station stones and the heelstone and its twin outside the rings to the northeast to provide a sighting on the rising midsummer sun for those inside the circles. Beyond these stones was an embanked avenue leading across the landscape to the northeast. The bluestone circles were later removed and a new much larger set of circles constructed. Ultimately this comprised a series of four concentric rings of stones (from the centre out): a horseshoe of bluestones with the altar stone at its focus; a horseshoe setting of five trilithons; the circle of bluestones; and the outer sarsen circle with lintelled uprights. Observers standing at the site at sunrise on midsummer morning would have seen the light from the rising sun appear to shine up the avenue (which may also have had stones added to the bank at this time) and into the circles.
Altogether, the construction and use of Stonehenge spanned at least 1500 years, probably more. Stonehenge was not built primarily as an observatory or giant calculator but rather a place where people came to engage in ceremonies and events. The way they used the site, their movements within it, and the apparatus that controlled those movements changed from time to time while at the same time maintaining connections with the signals and celestial events that gave their actions meaning.
[Rep.: R. M. J. Cleal, K. Walker, and R. Montague, 1995, Stonehenge in its landscape. Twentieth-century excavations. London: English Heritage]
For more information on Stonehenge, visit Britannica.com.
Stonehenge (Wilts.) is the best-known archaeological site in the British Isles. It is spectacular, but what survives is but the ruin of the final phase of a structure dating from c.4000 to c.1500 BC. The monument was orientated to mark sunrise at the midsummer solstice (and sunset at the midwinter solstice), but whether it has further astronomical significance is debatable.
Always this must have seemed a place of mystery. Whatever tales Britons and Romans told about it are lost, but the name itself is a clue to Anglo-Saxon storytelling, for it means ‘The Stone Gallows’. Early antiquaries tried to explain the name as ‘The Hanging Stones’, with reference to the way the lintels balance on the uprights, but this is grammatically impossible, since in Old English adjectives normally come before, not after, their noun; ‘stone’ is an adjective here, qualifying hengen, ‘gibbet, gallows’. Clearly, the trilithons reminded the Saxons of the kind of gallows where several men at once are hanged from a crossbar held on two uprights; there must have been some story explaining who hanged whom there, and why—but it is forgotten.
The earliest surviving origin legend is the Norman one given by Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1136): the stones were brought by sea from ‘Killaraus, a mountain in Ireland’, on the advice of Merlin, to mark the graves of 460 British noblemen murdered by Saxons. In Ireland, the circle had been known as ‘the Giants’ Dance', having been brought from Africa by giants; its stones had healing powers, as water poured over them cured anyone who bathed in it. This may be one of the few occasions when a legend enshrines an ancient fact, since Stonehenge does contain some stones which are not local, though they come from Wales, not Ireland. Even so, the story need not have been passed on orally for millennia; the difference between the local sarcen stones and the intrusive ‘bluestones’ is obvious, so an observer at any period could have deduced that the latter were brought from elsewhere. Geoffrey, however, is unaware of the distinction and makes Merlin responsible for the transport and erection of the whole monument.
The name ‘Giant's Dance’, which he does not explain, implies an alternative legend according to which the stones would themselves have been the giants, turned to stone while dancing (cf. Stanton Drew), which matches the appearance of Stonehenge very neatly. The belief that the stones could heal persisted; Aubrey (in his unpublished Monumenta Britannica, c.1690) said local people dropped pieces or powder into their wells to drive toads away, while in the 18th century water in which scrapings had been steeped was used on wounds and sores.
Another folk belief was that the stones could not be counted, since some magic power ensured that the total was never twice the same, and that anyone who happened upon the right total would be sure to die. Daniel Defoe, in his A Tour through England and Wales (1724), says he was told how ‘a baker carry'd a basket of bread, and laid a loaf upon every stone, and yet could never make out the same number twice’. In 1651, while fleeing to France, Charles II found himself forced to spend a day near Stonehenge, and passed the time by counting and recounting the stones, to his own satisfaction.
The theory that Druids built Stonehenge was launched by Aubrey (c.1690) and elaborated by Stukeley in 1740; at that time the Celts were the only society known to have preceded the Romans in England, so the conjecture was reasonable. Although most people are now aware that Stonehenge is far too old for this to be literally true, it has become a sacred site of prime importance to most groups of Neo-Pagans, including the various modern Druidic Orders dating from the late 18th and 19th centuries, who have worshipped there at the summer solstice (21 June) throughout most of the 20th century. A larger Pagan gathering, the Stonehenge Festival, was held from 1974 until banned in 1985; access to the monument for Midsummer worship was also forbidden in 1985, but was allowed again in 1998 for selected groups.
Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.
A megalithic, prehistoric monument near Salisbury, England, in Wiltshire; the most imposing megalithic monument in existence.
It was at one time widely believed that Stonehenge was a druid temple, but this is contradicted by the fact that the druids probably did not arrive in Britain until c.250 B.C. In 1963 the American astronomer Gerald Hawkins theorized that Stonehenge was used as a huge astronomical instrument that could accurately measure solar and lunar movements as well as eclipses. Hawkins used a computer to test his calculations and found definite correlations between his figures and the solar and lunar positions in 1500 B.C. (However, as a result of the development of calibration curves for radiocarbon dates, Stonehenge is now believed to have been built in several stages between c.3000 and c.1500 B.C., with the main construction completed before 2000 B.C.) Some archaeologists objected to Hawkins's theory on the basis that the eclipse prediction system he proposed was much too complex for the Early Bronze Age society of England.
Most archaeologists agree, however, that Stonehenge was used to observe the motions of the moon as well as the sun. Research by the archaeologist Alexander Thom, based on the careful mapping of hundreds of megalithic sites, indicates that the megalithic ritual circles were built with a high degree of accuracy, requiring considerable mathematical and geometric sophistication.
Bibliography
See G. S. Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded (1965); H. Harrison and L. E. Stover, Stonehenge (1972); A. Thom, Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967) and Megalithic Lunar Observations (1973).
Ancient prehistoric monument of standing stones located in Wiltshire, England. The name derives from the Old English hengen ("hung up"), referring to the horizontal lintel stones. Over the centuries, legend ascribed Stonehenge to Druidic, Roman, and Danish construction, but it is now generally accepted that it dates from Neolithic times and stands as the culmination of the period of megalith construction, remnants of which can be found across the British Isles. It was probably last in use about 1400 B.C.E. Megalithic (large stone) monuments exist in many locations in Europe.
A major step in understanding the use and significance of Stonehenge occurred in the 1960s when it was discovered that the alignment of the stones seems to facilitate the prediction of a variety of astronomical events, such as the summer solstice, and were thus probably related to late Neolithic worship ceremonies.
The Stonehenge site is composed of three distinct elements—an outer circle of local sarsen stones and two inner circles of blue stones from the Prescelly Mountains of Wales, 200 kilometers (125 miles) away. The first and third circles are capped with stone lintels, and the whole construction is encircled by a ditch, inside the bank of which are 56 pits known as the "Aubrey Holes" and a cemetery associated with them.
Isolated outside the stone circles is the Heel stone, over which the sun rises on Midsummer Day (June 24). It is clear that Stonehenge had special astronomical significance, since, in addition to the marking of the summer solstice by the Heel stone, the center of the great circle indicated the orbits of sun and moon, and holes were positioned for posts to mark these orbits. The whole construction indicates remarkable astronomical and mathematical knowledge on the part of the ancient builders. Like the pyramids of ancient Egypt, Stonehenge and similar monuments also involved considerable engineering skill in mining and transporting the huge stones.
Prior to modern archaeological investigations, Stonehenge was surrounded by confusing legends of origin and use. Radio-carbon dating has now established a date of around 2000 B.C.E. for the first monument, the second a few centuries later, and the third about the middle of the second millennium B.C.E. It is possible that the Druids inherited an oral tradition of the significance of Stonehenge and used it for sacred rituals involving sun worship.
Folklore credits such sites with magical power, and they have been associated with witchcraft rites. In France young girls would slide down such ancient stones with bare buttocks in the belief that it would make them fertile.
Early Christian missionaries attempted to absorb or neutralize such occult traditions by building churches inside prehistoric mounds. In medieval times, at the great stone monument at Avebury in southern Britain, there was a ceremony in which a single stone was dislodged and ritually attacked to symbolize the victory of the Christian Church over the Devil. Most sites, including Stonehenge, have also suffered vandalism over the centuries.
Modern Stonehenge
In the 1980s Stonehenge became the center of another strange ritual every midsummer. Thousands of hippies, living a nomadic life in battered automobiles (often unlicensed), reminiscent of the American dust bowl days, descended on the fields surrounding Stonehenge and set up makeshift camps, intending to gain access to Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice. But the site has been fenced off with barbed wire and the solstice ceremony restricted to a modern revival Druid organization and no more than six hundred ticket-holding visitors. To prevent the hippies from overrunning the site, farmers annually barricaded paths and byways with trailers and machinery, while hundreds of police stood by in riot gear.
For many years there was a ritual battle between hippies and police. Rocks, bottles, and other objects were thrown, while police with helmets and batons forced back the intruders and arrested many of them. After the summer solstice, the hippies were obliged to retreat to their battered vehicles.
Stonehenge remains one of England's most visited tourist sites in spite of the fence, which prevents visitors from walking among the stones.
Sources:
Burl, Aubrey. The Stone Circles of the British Isles. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976.
Chippendale, Christopher. Stonehenge Complete. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Hawkins, Gerald. Stonehenge Decoded. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965. Reprint, London: Souvenir Press, 1966.
Hitching, Francis. Earth Magic. London: Cassell, 1976.
Mitchell, J. Astro-Archaeology. London: Thames & Hudson, 1977.
Newham, C. A. The Astronomical Significance of Stonehenge. UK: John Blackburn, 1972.
Thom, Alexander. Megalithic Sites in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Ancient circles of large, upright stones that stand alone on a plain in England. There is some controversy about who shaped, carried, and set up these huge stones, which perhaps had religious and astronomical uses. Scholars theorize that Stonehenge was built in three phases beginning in about 2800 b.c. The huge stones are believed to date from 1800 to 1500 b.c.
 |
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. |
| Stonehenge, Avebury, and Associated Sites* |
|
|---|---|
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
 |
|
| State Party | 
United Kingdom |
| Type | most likely Religion |
| Criteria | i, ii, iii |
| Reference | 373 |
| Region† | List of World Heritage Sites in Europe |
| Inscription History | |
| Inscription | 1986 (10th Session) |
|
* Name as
inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO. |
|
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. One of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. Archaeologists believe the standing stones were erected around 2200 BC and the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 in a co-listing with Avebury henge monument, and it is also a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. Stonehenge itself is owned by the State and managed by English Heritage while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.
Christopher Chippindale's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words "stān" meaning "stone", and either "hencg" meaning "hinge" (because the stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or "hen(c)en" meaning "hang" or "gallows" or "instrument of torture". Medieval gallows consisted of two uprights with a lintel joining them, resembling Stonehenge's trilithons, rather than looking like the inverted L-shape more familiar today.
The "henge" portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges. Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian usage, and Stonehenge cannot in fact be truly classified as a henge site as its bank is inside its ditch. Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge is in many ways atypical. For example, its extant trilithons make it unique. Stonehenge is only distantly related to the other stones circles in the British Isles, such as the Ring of Brodgar.[citation needed]
The Stonehenge complex was built in several construction phases spanning at least 3,000 years, although there is evidence for activity both before and afterwards on the site, perhaps extending its time frame to 6500 years.
Dating and understanding the various phases of activity at Stonehenge is not a simple task; it is complicated by poorly-kept early excavation records, surprisingly few accurate scientific dates and the disturbance of the natural chalk by periglacial effects and animal burrowing. The modern phasing most generally agreed by archaeologists is detailed below. Features mentioned in the text are numbered and shown on the plan, right, which illustrates the site as of 2004. The plan omits the trilithon lintels for clarity. Holes that no longer, or never, contained stones are shown as open circles and stones visible today are shown coloured.
Some archaeologists have found four (or possibly five, although one may have been a natural tree throw) large Mesolithic postholes which date to around 8000 BC nearby, beneath the modern tourist car-park. These held pine posts around 0.75 m (2.4ft) in diameter which were erected and left to rot in situ. Three of the posts (and possibly four) were in an east-west alignment and may have had ritual significance; no parallels are known from Britain at the time but similar sites have been found in Scandinavia. At this time, Salisbury Plain was still wooded but four thousand years later, during the earlier Neolithic, a cursus monument was built 600 m north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the forest and exploit the area. Several other early Neolithic sites, a causewayed enclosure at Robin Hood's Ball and long barrow tombs were built in the surrounding landscape.
The first monument consisted of a circular bank and ditch enclosure made of Late
Cretaceous (Santonian Age) Seaford Chalk, (7 and
8) measuring around 110 m (360 feet) in diameter with a large entrance to the north east and a smaller one to the south
(14). It stood in open grassland on a slightly sloping but not especially remarkable
spot. The builders placed the bones of deer and oxen in the bottom
of the ditch as well as some worked
Evidence of the second phase is no longer visible. It appears from the number of postholes dating to this period that some form of timber structure was built within the enclosure during the early 3rd millennium BC. Further standing timbers were placed at the northeast entrance and a parallel alignment of posts ran inwards from the southern entrance. The postholes are smaller than the Aubrey Holes, being only around 0.4 m in diameter and are much less regularly spaced. The bank was purposely reduced in height and the ditch continued to silt up. At least twenty-five of the Aubrey Holes are known to have contained later, intrusive, cremation burials dating to the two centuries after the monument's inception. It seems that whatever the holes' initial function, it changed to become a funerary one during Phase 2. Thirty further cremations were placed in the enclosure's ditch and at other points within the monument, mostly in the eastern half. Stonehenge is therefore interpreted as functioning as an enclosed cremation cemetery at this time, the earliest known cremation cemetery in the British Isles. Fragments of unburnt human bone have also been found in the ditch fill. Late Neolithic grooved ware pottery has been found in connection with the features from this phase providing dating evidence.
Archaeological excavation has indicated that around 2600 BC, timber was abandoned in favour of stone and two concentric crescents of holes (called the Q and R Holes) were dug in the centre of the site. Again, there is little firm dating evidence for this phase. The holes held up to 80 standing stones (shown blue on the plan) 43 of which, the bluestones (dolerite, a holocrystine igeneous rock), were thought for much of the 20th century to be derived from the Preseli Hills, 250 km away in modern day Pembrokeshire in Wales. The current (2007) theory is that they were brought from glacial deposits much nearer the site, which had been carried down from the northern side of the Preselis to southern England by the Irish Sea Glacier. Other standing stones may well have been small sarsens, used later as lintels. The stones, which weighed about four tons, consisted mostly of spotted Ordovician dolerite but included examples of rhyolite, tuff and volcanic and calcareous ash. Each measures around 2 m in height, between 1 m and 1.5 m wide and around 0.8 m thick. What was to become known as the Altar Stone (1), a six-ton specimen of green micaceous Silurian-Devonian sandstone, twice the height of the bluestones, is derived from either South Pembrokeshire or the Brecon Beacons and may have stood as a single large monolith.
The north eastern entrance was also widened at this time with the result that it precisely matched the direction of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset of the period. This phase of the monument was abandoned unfinished however, the small standing stones were apparently removed and the Q and R holes purposefully backfilled. Even so, the monument appears to have eclipsed the site at Avebury in importance towards the end of this phase and the Amesbury Archer, found in 2002 three miles (5 km) to the south, would have seen the site in this state.
The Heelstone (5), a Tertiary sandstone, may also have been erected outside the north eastern entrance during this period although it cannot be securely dated and may have been installed at any time in phase 3. At first, a second stone, now no longer visible, joined it. Two, or possibly three, large portal stones were set up just inside the north eastern entrance of which only one, the fallen Slaughter Stone (4), 16 ft (4.9 m) long, now remains. Other features loosely dated to phase 3 include the four Station Stones (6), two of which stood atop mounds (2 and 3). The mounds are known as 'barrows' although they do not contain burials. The Avenue, (10), a parallel pair of ditches and banks leading 3 km to the River Avon was also added. Two ditches similar to Heelstone Ditch circling the Heelstone, which was by then reduced to a single monolith, were later dug around the Station Stones.
The next major phase of activity at the tail end of the 3rd millennium BC saw 30 enormous Oligocene-Miocene sarsen stones (shown grey on the plan) brought from a quarry around 24 miles (40 km) north to the site on the Marlborough Downs. The stones were dressed and fashioned with mortise and tenon joints before 30 were erected as a 33 m (108 ft) diameter circle of standing stones with a 'lintel' of 30 stones resting on top. The lintels were joined to one another using another woodworking method, the tongue in groove joint. Each standing stone was around 4.1 m (13.5 feet) high, 2.1 m (7.5 feet) wide and weighed around 25 tons. Each had clearly been worked with the final effect in mind; the orthostats widen slightly towards the top in order that their perspective remains constant as they rise up from the ground while the lintel stones curve slightly to continue the circular appearance of the earlier monument. The sides of the stones that face inwards are smoother and more finely worked than the sides that face outwards. The average thickness of these stones is 1.1 m (3.75 feet) and the average distance between them is 1 m (3.5 feet). A total of 74 stones would have been needed to complete the circle and unless some of the sarsens were removed from the site, it would seem that the ring was left incomplete. Of the lintel stones, they are each around 3.2 m long (10.5 feet), 1 m (3.5 feet) wide and 0.8 m (2.75 feet) thick. The tops of the lintels are 4.9 m (16 feet) above the ground.
Within this circle stood five trilithons of dressed sarsen stone arranged in a horseshoe shape 13.7 m (45 feet) across with its open end facing north east. These huge stones, ten uprights and five lintels, weigh up to 50 tons each and were again linked using complex jointings. They are arranged symmetrically; the smallest pair of trilithons were around 6 m (20 feet) tall, the next pair a little higher and the largest, single trilithon in the south west corner would have been 7.3 m (24 feet) tall. Only one upright from the Great Trilithon still stands; 6.7 m (22 ft) is visible and a further 2.4 m (8 feet) is below ground.
The images of a 'dagger' and 14 'axe-heads' have been recorded carved on one of the sarsens, known as stone 53. Further axe-head carvings have been seen on the outer faces of stones known as numbers 3, 4, and 5. They are difficult to date but are morphologically similar to later Bronze Age weapons; recent laser scanning work on the carvings supports this interpretation. The pair of trilithons in north east are smallest, measuring around 6 m (20 feet) in height and the largest is the trilithon in the south west of the horseshoe is almost 7.5 m (24 feet) tall.
This ambitious phase is radiocarbon dated to between 2440 and 2100 BC.
Later in the Bronze Age, the bluestones appear to have been re-erected for the first time, although the exact details of this period are still unclear. They were placed within the outer sarsen circle and at this time may have been trimmed in some way. A few have timber working-style cuts in them like the sarsens themselves, suggesting they may have been linked with lintels and part of a larger structure during this phase.
This phase saw further rearrangement of the bluestones as they were placed in a circle between the two settings of sarsens and in an oval in the very centre. Some archaeologists argue that some of the bluestones in this period were part of a second group brought from Wales. All the stones were well-spaced uprights without any of the linking lintels inferred in Stonehenge 3 III. The Altar Stone may have been moved within the oval and stood vertically. Although this would seem the most impressive phase of work, Stonehenge 3 IV was rather shabbily built compared to its immediate predecessors, the newly re-installed bluestones were not at all well founded and began to fall over. However, only minor changes were made after this phase. Stonehenge 3 IV dates from 2280 to 1930 BC.
Soon afterwards, the north eastern section of the Phase 3 IV Bluestone circle was removed, creating a horseshoe-shaped setting termed the Bluestone Horseshoe. This mirrored the shape of the central sarsen Trilithons and dates from 2270 to 1930 BC. This phase is contemporary with the famous Seahenge site in Norfolk.
Even though the last known construction of Stonehenge was about 1600 BC, and the last known usage of it was during the Iron Age (if not as late as the 7th century), where Roman coins, prehistoric pottery, an unusual bone point and a skeleton of a young male (780-410 cal BC) were found, we have no idea if Stonehenge was in continuous use or exactly how it was used. Notable is the late 7th-6th century BC large arcing Scroll Trench which deepens E-NE towards Heelstone, and the burial of a decapitated Saxon man excavated from Stonehenge dated to the 7th century. The site was known by scholars during the Middle Ages and since then it has been studied and adopted by numerous different groups.
The Heel Stone was once known as “Friar’s Heel”. A folk tale, which cannot be dated earlier than the seventeenth century, relates the origin of the name of this stone:
The Devil bought the stones from a woman in Ireland, wrapped them up, and brought them to Salisbury plain. One of the stones fell into the Avon, the rest were carried to the plain. The Devil then cried out, “No-one will ever find out how these stones came here!” A friar replied, “That’s what you think!,” whereupon the Devil threw one of the stones at him and struck him on the heel. The stone stuck in the ground and is still there.
Some claim “Friar’s Heel” is a corruption of “Freyja’s He-ol” or “Freyja Sul”, from the Nordic goddess Freyja and (allegedly) the Welsh words for “way” and “Friday” respectively.
Stonehenge is also mentioned within Arthurian legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth said that Merlin the wizard directed its removal from Ireland, where it had been constructed on Mount Killaraus by Giants, who brought the stones from Africa. After it had been rebuilt near Amesbury, Geoffrey further narrates how first Ambrosius Aurelianus, then Uther Pendragon, and finally Constantine III, were buried inside the ring of stones. In many places in his Historia Regum Britanniae Geoffrey mixes British legend and his own imagination; it is intriguing that he connects Ambrosius Aurelianus with this prehistoric monument, seeing how there is place-name evidence to connect Ambrosius with nearby Amesbury.
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the rocks of Stonehenge were healing rocks which Giants brought from Africa to Ireland for their healing properties. These rocks were called The Giant's Dance. Aurelius Ambrosias (5th Century), wishing to erect a memorial to the nobles (3000) who had died in battle with the Saxons and were buried at Salisbury, chose (at Merlin's advice) Stonehenge to be their monument. So the King sent Merlin, Uther Pendragon (Arthur's father), and 15,000 knights to Ireland to retrieve the rocks. They slew 7,000 Irish. As the knights tried to move the rocks with ropes and force, they failed. Then Merlin, using "gear" and skill, easily dismantled the stones and sent them over to Britain, where Stonehenge was dedicated. Shortly after, Aurelius died and was buried within the Stonehenge monument, or "The Giants' Ring of Stonehenge".
By the beginning of the 20th century a number of the stones had fallen or were leaning precariously, probably due to the increase in curious visitors clambering on them during the nineteenth century. Three phases of conservation work were undertaken which righted some unstable or fallen stones and carefully replaced them in their original positions using information from antiquarian drawings.
In 1915 Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge, through Knight Frank & Rutley estate agents, for £6,000 as a present for his wife. She gave it to the nation three years later. The item was listed in the catalogue as "Lot 15. Stonehenge with about 30 acres, 2 rods, 37 perches of adjoining downland."[1]
Stonehenge is a place of pilgrimage for neo-druids and those following pagan or neo-pagan beliefs. The midsummer sunrise began attracting modern visitors in the 1870s, with the first record of recreated Druidic practices dating to 1905 when the Ancient Order of Druids enacted a ceremony. Despite efforts by archaeologists and historians to stress the differences between the Iron Age Druidic religion and the much older monument, Stonehenge has become increasingly, almost inextricably, associated with British Druidism, Neo Paganism and New Age philosophy. After the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985 this use of the site was stopped for several years, and currently ritual use of Stonehenge is carefully controlled.
In more recent years, the setting of the monument has been affected by the proximity of the A303 road between Amesbury and Winterbourne Stoke, and the A344. In early 2003, the Department for Transport announced that the A303 would be upgraded, including the construction of the Stonehenge road tunnel. The controversial plans have not yet been finalised by the government.
