http://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/ancient/stonehenge.html

1
Who Built Stonehenge???
Though one of the most complete and monumental
examples of Neolithic and Bronze Age
construction, Stonehenge was not alone in its
time. Hudson notes one estimate that places it
among 300 surviving stone monuments throughout
the British Isles including the famous stone
circle in Avebury. The connections between and
among these sites often remain murky, and
undoubtedly many creations of the Beaker Folk
have returned to nature, leaving few traces of
their existence.
Stonehenge forces
us to reconsider the
period of
history that is
not accompanied
by written
records, Hudson
says. Since the builders
left no explanation, the precise
purpose of their work remains obscure. One theory
sees Stonehenge as a temple, pointing to the
elaborate landscaping surrounding the site. More
recently, historians and archaeologists have
suggested it provided an observatory for either
moon or sun cults. The Beaker Folk are believed
to have been sun worshipers who aligned
Stonehenge with certain important sun events,
such as mid summer and winter solstices. While
the absence of records makes it nearly impossible
to be certain about Stonehenge's purpose, the
site itself does leave us with a portrait of
Beaker Folk society. The building of the
monument required knowledge of civil engineering,
transportation, and quarrying, he says. The
society that constructed it was wealthy enough to
afford such an expensive venture and it also had
a developed theology that provided the guidance
for the designs whose meanings still elude
us. Perhaps it is that elusive meaning that has,
for centuries, drawn people to Stonehenge, to sit
and wonder among the silent stones. Provided by
Pennsylvania State University
Many past archeologists believed that the Druids,
the high priests of the Celts, constructed it for
sacrificial ceremonies. In recent years, however,
researchers have proven this age-old theory
linking Stonehenge's construction to the Druids
impossible. Due to modern dating techniques,
scientists have discovered that its builders
completed Stonehenge over a thousand years before
the Celts ever inhabited this region
("Stonehenge" Encyclopedia Americana, NPA).
Other theories and myths abound. Many sources
site the devil, nonetheless, as a possible
architect of Stonehenge. Another legend
boasts that Merlin built Stonehenge with his
magic at the command of King Aureoles Ambrosias.
Apart from the local myths and lore, we have
a good idea who the builders really are. As
previously stated, most scientists agree on the
modern theory that three tribes built Stonehenge
at three separate times. Stonehenge is
certainly a inscrutable and infamous site, and it
continues to mystify and puzzle archaeologists.
There is no doubt that it will forever. This
magnificent cluster of
menhirs remains a large part of science as well
as folklore. Of the more
than nine hundred stone
structures in England,
Wales, and Scotland,
Stonehenge is the most
impressive and famous. It
stands as a testament of
time and all the world's
wonders.
Stonehenge
Stonehenge in southern England ranks among the
world's most iconic archaeological sites and one
of its greatest enigmas. The megalithic circle on
Salisbury Plain inspires awe and fascinationbut
also intense debate some 4,600 years after it was
built by ancient Britons who left no written
record.

Stonehenge is a monumental
circular setting of
large standing stones
surrounded by a circular
earthwork, built in prehistoric times beginning
about 3100 BC and located about 13 km (8 miles)
north of Salisbury, Wiltshire, Eng. The modern
interpretation of the monument is based chiefly
on excavations carried out since 1919 and
especially since 1950.
A view from the ground gives an air of disarray
to the famed ruins of Stonehenge on Southern
England's Salisbury Plain. In fact, the site's
architecture is the result of centuries of
careful construction and alignment. The monument
began about 5,000 years ago as a large, circular
ditch and bank rimmed with circular pits. Over
the next 1,500 years, timber posts
were erected
within the
circle, later to
be replaced by
large bluestones
and even larger sarsen stones, seen here.
http//www.timelessmyths.co.uk/stonehenge.html
http//www.fortunecity.com/roswell/blavatsky/123/s
tonebuilt.html
http//www.physorg.com/news188147461.html
http//www.britannia.com/history/h7.html
http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stonehenge/qanda/
http//www.edu.pe.ca/rural/class_webs/art/image_fi
le.htm
http//abyss.uoregon.edu/js/glossary/stonehenge.h
tml
http//www.nationalgeographic.com/history/ancient/
stonehenge.html
2

The initial phase of Stonehenge III, starting
about 2000 BC, saw the erection of the linteled
circle and horseshoe of large sarsen stones whose
remains can still be seen today. The sarsen
stones were transported from the Marlborough
Downs 30 km (20 miles) north and were erected in
a circle of 30 uprights capped by a continuous
ring of stone lintels. Within this ring was
erected a horseshoe formation of five trilithons,
each of which consisted of a pair of large stone
uprights supporting a stone lintel. The sarsen
stones are of exceptional size, up to 9 m (30
feet) long and 50 tons in weight. Their visible
surfaces were laboriously dressed smooth by
pounding with stone hammers the same technique
was used to form the mortise-and-tenon joints by
which the lintels are held on their uprights, and
it was used to form the tongue-and-groove joints
by which the lintels of the circle fit together.
The lintels are not rectangular they were curved
to produce all together a circle. The pillars are
tapered upward. The jointing of the stones is
probably an imitation of contemporary
woodworking.
bluestones (igneous rock of diabase,
rhyolite, and volcanic ash), but most of these
bluestones have disappeared. Additional stones
include the so-called Altar Stone, the Slaughter
Stone, two Station stones, and the Heel Stone,
the last standing on the Avenue outside the
entrance. Small circular ditches enclose two flat
areas on the inner edge of the bank, known as the
North and South barrows, with empty stone holes
at their centers. Archaeological excavations
since 1950 suggest three main periods of
building--Stonehenge I, II, and III, the last
divided into phases
The Stonehenge that visitors see today is
considerably ruined, many of its stones having
been pilfered by medieval and early modern
builders (there is no natural building stone
within 21 km 13 miles of Stonehenge) its
general architecture has also been subjected to
centuries of weathering and depredation. The
monument consists of a number of structural
elements, mostly circular in plan. On the outside
is a circular ditch, with a bank immediately
within it, all interrupted by an entrance gap on
the northeast, leading to the Avenue. At the
center of the circle is a stone setting
consisting of a horseshoe of tall uprights of
sarsen (Tertiary sandstone) encircled by a ring
of tall sarsen uprights, all originally capped by
horizontal sarsen lintels. Within the sarsen
stone circle were also configurations of smaller
and lighter
In Stonehenge I, about 3100 BC, the native
Neolithic people, using deer antlers for picks,
excavated a roughly circular ditch about 98 m
(320 feet) in diameter the ditch was about 6 m
(20 feet) wide and 1.4 to 2 m (4.5 to 7 feet)
deep, and the excavated chalky rubble was used to
build the high bank within the circular ditch.
They also erected two parallel entry stones on
the northeast of the circle (one of which, the
Slaughter Stone, still survives). Just inside the
circular bank they also dug--and seemingly almost
immediately refilled--a circle of 56 shallow
holes, named the Aubrey Holes (after their
discoverer, the 17th-century antiquarian John
Aubrey). The Station stones also probably belong
to this period, but the evidence is inconclusive.
Stonehenge I was used for about 500 years and
then reverted to scrubland.
In the second phase of Stonehenge III, which
probably followed within a century, about 20
bluestones from Stonehenge II were dressed and
erected in an approximate oval setting within the
sarsen horseshoe. Sometime later, about 1550 BC,
two concentric rings of holes (the Y and Z Holes,
today not visible) were dug outside the sarsen
circle the apparent intention was to plant
upright in these holes the 60 other leftover
bluestones from Stonehenge II, but the plan was
never carried out. The holes in both circles were
left open to silt up over the succeeding
centuries. The oval setting in the center was
also removed.
During Stonehenge II, about 2100 BC, the complex
was radically remodeled. About 80 bluestone
pillars, weighing up to 4 tons each, were erected
in the center of the site to form what was to be
two concentric circles, though the circles were
never completed. (The bluestones came from the
Preseli Mountains in southwestern Wales and were
either transported directly by sea, river, and
overland--a distance of some 385 km 240
miles--or were brought in two stages widely
separated in time.) The entranceway of this
earliest setting of bluestones was aligned
approximately upon the sunrise at the summer
solstice, the alignment being continued by a
newly built and widened approach, called the
Avenue, together with a pair of Heel stones. The
double circle of bluestones was dismantled in the
following period.
The final phase of building in Stonehenge III
probably followed almost immediately. Within the
sarsen horseshoe the builders set a horseshoe of
dressed bluestones set close together,
alternately a pillar followed by an obelisk
followed by a pillar and so on. The remaining
unshaped 60-odd bluestones were set as a circle
of pillars within the sarsen circle (but outside
the sarsen horseshoe). The largest bluestone of
all, traditionally misnamed the Altar Stone,
probably stood as a tall pillar on the axial line.
About 1100 BC the Avenue was extended from
Stonehenge eastward and then southeastward to the
River Avon, a distance of about 2,780 m (9,120
feet). This suggests that Stonehenge was still in
use at the time.