Stonehenge
is, at first glance, a funny circle of
stones in a field in Wiltshire, England.
People have been curious about this circle
for a long time, but it wasn’t until
the 20th century that it became a really
serious archaeological site. For a long
time most people just thought it was a
“bunch of stones”, but it
turned out that Stonehenge was actually
an important heritage site that held many
secrets about the past of the United Kingdom.
To describe Stonehenge in simple terms
the structure is a man-made circular hill
surrounding many stones. These stones
are buried in the ground so instead of
lying flat they stand straight up. In
this way they might have acquired the
name “standing stones”. Other
smaller stones bridge the tops of the
erected stones, creating a sort of doorway
effect.
Dating back to the Bronze Age, it is thought
that the site was built somewhere between
2500 BCE and 2000 BCE. It wasn’t
built all at once, but added to as the
years passed. No one knows for sure who
used it, why they used it, how they built
it, or where the stones came from. It
is understood that the stones (known as
Megaliths) are not local, and would have
been brought form a relatively long ways
a way. This has only added to the mystery,
with people trying to imagine how Bronze
Age peoples transported such large stones.
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It
is known that many people were buried
at the site, with others being cremated
and then buried. This makes Stonehenge
the oldest cemetery in the United Kingdom.
It is also known that people left offerings
to gods, and that the sight was aligned
with the sun in a way that could indicate
that it was used as some sort of giant
calendar. It is also connected to people
called “druids” but once again
the mists of time erase many footprints.
It isn’t even known if the site
was used by one group or many, with Stonehenge
perhaps being abandoned and the re-occupied
hundreds of years later.
In 1986 site and its surroundings were
added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage
Sites. It is a magnet for tourists and
“would be druids” from across
the world. It has inspired people to make
copies, like a site in the U.S. made out
of cars called “Carhendge”.
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