One of the most famous architectural monuments in the world - Stonehenge - began to be erected in the Stone Age. For one and a half millennia, it was completed and rebuilt, changing the layout more than once. Large-scale excavations in recent years, isotopic dating and genetic analyzes of ancient DNA have helped scientists uncover almost all the secrets of this amazing monument. Who erected it and why.
Typical henge
This monument, located in the south of Britain, in the county of Wiltshire, is already well-known in the chronicles of the 12th century. It has been studied by historians, geologists and astronomers for more than three centuries. During this time, many legends have developed around him. Since the beginning of the 20th century, excavations have been carried out here. The last time was in 2008-2009.
Stonehenge was founded at the end of the Stone Age, about five thousand years ago, by the indigenous Paleolithic tribes that lived in Europe. On the Salisbury plain (the city of the same name is located 13 kilometers from the monument), they made a round platform, limiting it to a moat and a rampart, where archaeologists discovered the bones of a bull, deer, cremated human remains.
Archaeologists call such structures henge. There are quite a few of them in the UK. In henjs, stones or wooden posts were installed.
Henge traces in the archaeological site of Bru-na-Boyne, 40 kilometers from Dublin.
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Stone - a symbol of power
After a couple of hundred years, plans change - they decided to make a large-scale stone monument from a henge on the Salisbury plain. For this, five trilithons were erected in the center - stone structures in the shape of the letter "P", an altar made of red sandstone and several dozen vertical megaliths were dug in circles. This is how Stonehenge arose - a stone henge.
Two types of rocks were used for the construction - siliceous sandstone, known locally as sarsen, and "blue stone", which is a volcanic rock (diorite, rhyolite, tuff).
Scientists have been figuring out for a long time where they took out the stones. Many now agree that the Sarsens are of local origin. They were brought from the Marlborough quarries, which is thirty kilometers from Stonehenge. The blue stones were brought from the Preseli Mountains in West Wales - about four hundred kilometers from here.
How was it that nearly two hundred boulders (85 sarsen and 80 blue stones), fifty tons each, were transported to Stonehenge without any equipment? According to one hypothesis, the Welsh stones did not need to be transported, since they were brought in long before the construction of the glacier. However, geologists do not confirm this.
There is a version that the blue stones were installed in Wales, then dismantled and transported to a new location. Analysis of strontium isotopes in the teeth of 25 people buried within Stonehenge has shown that at least ten of them are indeed from Wales. Perhaps these are the remains of those early builders.
Stonehenge has a round shape, traditional for prehistoric sacral and ritual structures / Illustration by RIA Novosti.
Place of power
Stonehenge was built by fifty generations of people over a period of one and a half thousand years. Scientists estimate that the transportation of the sarsen megaliths alone took about a million man-hours.
During this time, several cultures have changed. The indigenous population was displaced by herders who came from the southern Russian steppes (carriers of the Yamnaya culture, which in the north of Europe was transformed into the culture of corded pottery). Stonehenge remained sacred. Here rituals were held, pilgrimages were made here.
During the Roman era, Stonehenge was also a place of worship. This is evidenced by coins, ceramics, brooches and even surgical instruments found during excavations. Many things and various garbage accumulated over the millennia have been preserved in the cultural layers.
Stages of construction of Stonehenge / Illustration by RIA Novosti.
The personification of an ancient culture
Stonehenge was not unique. On the contrary, it personified local traditions, in it the builders embodied all their skill, technical and managerial skills, and cultural achievements.
Megalithic structures from the Stone and Bronze Ages are found throughout Britain and Europe. Round plan, horseshoe and oval structures, trilithons are typical of places of worship, tombs and dwellings.
Stones served as the main building material. For example, the tombs of Bruno Boyne in Ireland are lined with stones, carefully selected in shape, size and brought here forty kilometers away. But this is the largest monument of the Stone Age, built hundreds of years before Stonehenge.
Stonehenge is inferior in size to Seabury Hill, an artificial embankment forty meters high and 170 meters in diameter at the base. According to estimates, it took 350 thousand cubic meters of stones and soil, at least three million man-hours of work.
To implement projects of this scale, to mobilize people, it was necessary to have strong power and considerable prosperity. This is why, scientists believe, Stonehenge built the wealthy communities that lived in southern Britain.
This point of view is confirmed by the many gold things found in the burials of Stonehenge. The precious metal was found in fifteen mounds from that period. There are five of them in Britain. This speaks of the concentration of powerful tribes in this region and at the same time puts an end to assumptions about the foreign or even "extraterrestrial" origin of the builders of the monument.
Quarry in West Wales where blue stones were quarried to build the interior of Stonehenge.
Cemetery or observatory
Most of the discussions are about the appointment of Stonehenge. This place attracted people even before the construction of the monument. Nearby, archaeologists have found more ancient burials of people of non-British origin. It is believed that the monument was conceived as a cemetery - hundreds of mounds were poured around it.
Perhaps he served as an observatory, a timekeeping instrument. Some features indicate this: for example, a circle of thirty sarsen stones means the lunar cycle. True, then the autumn and spring solstices, according to which the years were counted in ancient times, fall out of it. The mistake can be avoided by adding five stones - just the number of trilithons-sarsen.
Trilithons can symbolize the main gods of the pantheon (if it already existed then) or portals to another world (although the passages for people between the stones are too narrow).
Solar astronomy is indicated by four station stones (two have survived to this day), which form a regular rectangle, and the orientation of the main axis of symmetry of Stonehenge, corresponding to the solstices.
The monument could also be a hospital. The belief that his stones have healing properties is very ancient. Pieces were cut off from the megaliths, and talismans and amulets were made of them. Archaeologists find many fragments and blanks within the circle.
In the 19th century, when they did not yet know the true age of the monument, the British believed that it was erected by the Druids - Celtic priests. Their cult has survived to the present day.
Followers of the Druids performed rituals at Stonehenge and littered it pretty much. In 1985, the UK police did not let the crowd in. There was a clash, 520 people were arrested. Meanwhile, neo-pagans continue to consider Stonehenge as their religious building.
Tatiana Pichugina