Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a massive stone monument located on a chalky plain north of the modern-day city of Salisbury, England. Research shows that the site has continuously evolved over a period of about 10,000 years. The structure that we call Stonehenge was built between roughly 5,000 and 4,000 years ago and that forms just one part of a larger, and highly complex, sacred landscape.
The biggest of Stonehenges stones, known as sarsens, are up to 30 feet (9 meters) tall and weigh 25 tons (22.6 metric tons) on average. It is widely believed that they were brought from Marlborough Downs, a distance of 20 miles (32 kilometers) to the north.
Smaller stones, referred to as bluestones (they have a bluish tinge when wet or freshly broken), weigh up to 4 tons and come from several different sites in western Wales, having been transported as far as 140 miles (225 km). Its unknown how people in antiquity moved them that far. Scientists have raised the possibility that during the last ice age glaciers carried these bluestones closer to the Stonehenge area and the monuments makers didn’t have to move them all the way from Wales. Water transport through raft is another idea that has been proposed but researchers now question whether this method was viable.
History:
Stonehenge has a long relationship with astronomers, the report explains. In 1720, Dr Halley used magnetic deviation and the position of the rising sun to estimate the age of Stonehenge. He concluded the date was 460 BC. And, in 1771, John Smith mused that the estimated total of 30 sarsen stones multiplied by 12 astrological signs equalled 360 days of the year, while the inner circle represented the lunar month
The first mention of Stonehenge or Stanenges appears in the archaeological study of Henry of Huntingdon in about AD 1130, and that of Geoffrey of Monmouth six years later. In 1200 and 1250 it appeared as Stanhenge and Stonhenge; as Stonheng in 1297, and the stone hengles in 1470. It became known as Stonehenge in 1610, says English Heritage
In the 1880’s, after carrying out some of the first scientifically recorded excavations at the site, Charles Darwin concluded that earthworms were largely to blame for the Stonehenge stones sinking through the soil
