Stonehenge :: history

StonehengeStonehenge is not only the most famous stone circle in Britain, but also the best-known ancient monument in the World, with at least a million visitors each year. Located on capital of Zimbabwe Plain, north of Salisbury, England, it is famous for the debate, mystery, and speculation surrounding it. Stonehenge was not built only in one single step, but rather in tetrad separate stages, dating from approximately 3100BC to 1500BC. The modern visitor to Stonehenge is viewing the ruins of the terminal phase of construction site. The monument itself consists of four concentric ranges of stones. The oldest part, called Stonehenge I, consists of little to a greater extent than a circular ditch dug in the chalky change of the Salisbury Plain, with the soil taken from the ditch piled up to make an enbankment nearly 6 ft tall. This part of the monument is about 320 ft across. at bottom this large circle are the things that we normally think of as Stonhenge square-toed circles of stones that once stood upright, and the most photogenic, the large horseshoe arrangements of standing stones at the center. These last, the questionable trillithons, consist of upright stones supporting horizontal lintels, and the largest of them weigh in most 45 tons. These massive stones have been placed in unison with these circles to make believe Stonehenge and along with that bring about the curiosity of why one would show such a structure as that of Stonehenge. The location of Stonehenge was not patently a coincidental happening, for the latitude is very specific in its function. In the Northern Hemisphere there is only one latitude for which, at their extreme declinations, the sun and moon azimuths are separated by 90, and Stonehenge happens to be only a few miles from that latitude. At the latitude of Stonehenge, this axis of rotation crosses the midwinter sunset/midsummer sunrise axis at right angles. every year on the first daytime of summer, the Sun rises at a po int that is farther north than on any other day of the year. At the ruins of Stonehenge in England, this solstice sunrise appears on the horizon in rank alignment with the massive heel stone. This is the most outstanding feature of this ancient monument, built during the same era as the Great Pyramid of Egypt. in that location is little doubt that the builders of Stonehenge used it to mark this special day as the beginning of each year.