The Mystery of the Megaliths

No place has generated so much speculation and wild theories as the standing stones of Stonehenge. After driving for miles through the rolling hills and plains of the English countryside the sight of this unusual structure makes people gasp. A walk around it only provokes more strange feelings. There's a sense that this is something very important. It taunts us with its mystery. For over 5000 years it has stood silent vigil over the earth. It has been excavated, x-rayed, measured, and surveyed. Yet despite all that has been learned about its age and construction, its purpose still remains one of the great mysteries of the world.

 
Construction

Around 3500 BC the semi-nomadic peoples that populated the Salisbury Plain began to build the monument now known as Stonehenge. The original construction was a circular ditch and mound with 56 holes forming a ring around its perimeter. The first stone to be placed at the site was the Heel Stone. It was erected outside of a single entrance to the site. 200 years later 80 blocks of bluestone was transported from a quarry almost 200 miles away in the Prescelly Mountains. It is surmized that these blocks were transported by way of rafts along the Welsh coast and up local rivers, finally to be dragged overland to the site. These stones were erected forming two concentric circles.
At some point this construction was dismantled and work began on the final phase of the site. The bluestones were moved within the circle and the gigantic stones that give Stonehenge its distinctive look were installed. Some of these massive stones weigh as much as 26 tons! It remains a mystery how such huge stones could have been moved from the quarry at north Wiltshire by a supposedly primitive people.
As much of a mystery is how the construction itself was accomplished. Carefully carved lintels were placed on top of pairs of upright stone blocks, held in place by the use of ball and socket joints. These constructions have become known as "trilithons". The final element to be added was the alter block, a large block of green sandstone from South Wales that was placed in front of one of the trilithons. (right) Close up of stonework on top of trilithon   Over 1500 years had passed since the beginning of construction.. Each generation carefully tended to the monuments, increasing its size as technology to move and finish the large blocks improved. It is almost inconceivable for us, in this age were nothing lasts more than a few decades at best, to image a people maintaining a monument for almost 2 millennia.

So the fundamental question that needs to be asked about Stonehenge is not how it was built, but why...

Stonehenge's Purpose

In the 1960's astronomer Gerald Hawkins used a computer to provide the first concrete evidence that Stonehenge was used as a device for observing the heavens. He found that the placement of key stones lined up precisely with certain events such as the Solstices and Equinoxes. He claimed that Stonehenge could even be used as a type of computer to predict eclipses and track heavenly bodies across the sky. The numerous alignments are clearly no accident, but whether this was the monuments true purpose, however, is still far from being agreed on. The monument seems too grand to be a simple calendar and many of the alignments touted would not even be visible due to the stone's great height.
There are many stone circles and standing stones in the British countryside. It is likely that they all had a similar purpose and as with other ancient sites it is not unusual to find alignments with major astronomical events. But Stonehenge is unique among all the other sites in England. Its sophistication goes beyond the simple stone circles found in other areas.

 It looms over the landscape, taunting us with its mystery. One viewing this powerful structure gets the distinct impression that they are in the presence of something very important. Something with a purpose that perhaps has still, after all these centuries, not been utilized. For over 5000 years it has stood silent vigil over the earth. What will it do when it -

 

http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/stonehenge/megaliths.html

Lasers Confirm Stonehenge’s Solstitial Function and Approach

 Laser scan of the Great Trilithon reveals its extremely straight, neat outline and smooth surface, compared with all the other trilithons. It suggests that Stonehenge creators made deliberate efforts to shape and dress it more carefully due to its special position on the solstice axis, just as they did for other stones that flank this axis. (English Heritage)


A comprehensive 3-D laser survey of Stonehenge has revealed the varying techniques used to highlight the stones aligned with the winter and summer solstices.
The stones on the outer sarsen circle are visible when approaching from the north east along the ancient avenue, and are the largest and most uniform. Their lintels are well worked, and they have been pick dressed to expose a brighter surface, unlike the outer faces of stones to the south west.
Also, the sides of the stones on the solstitial axis form straight narrow slots.

The main road currently passing through the World Heritage monument will be redirected to restore the site’s alignment with the solstices.
“The new presentation of Stonehenge will enable visitors to appreciate the importance of the solstitial alignment far better,” said Loraine Knowles, Stonehenge director at English Heritage, in a press release.
“It’s why we are closing the A344—which severs the alignment—to enable the stone circle to be reunited with the Avenue.”
The laser scan also revealed more prehistoric carvings, including 71 axeheads from the Bronze Age.
“Analysis of the different techniques used to dress the stones may even help to refine the chronology of the construction,” said Susan Greaney, senior properties historian at English Heritage, in the release.
“Disappointing to some, the scan has also ruled out many poorly defined lines and hollows previously thought to be possible prehistoric carvings.”

 http://www.theepochtimes.com/

Swedish Stonehenge? Stone Structure Spurs Debate

A series of 59 boulders placed at a seaside cliff in Sweden might represent Stonehenge's "sister" site.

THE GIST

• An ancient stone structure in Sweden may be 1,500 years older than previously thought.
• New analysis suggests the stones represent an ancient astronomical calendar.
• Some researchers argue the stones were placed with the same underlying geometry of Stonehenge.

Getty Images

Could this megalithic structure, known as Ales Stenar, be much older than we thought?

Ancient Scandinavians dragged 59 boulders to a seaside cliff near what is now the Swedish fishing village of Kåseberga. They carefully arranged the massive stones -- each weighing up to 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) -- in the outline of a 220-foot-long (67-meter) ship overlooking the Baltic Sea.
Archaeologists generally agree this megalithic structure, known as Ales Stenar ("Ale's Stones"), was assembled about 1,000 years ago, near the end of the Iron Age, as a burial monument. But a team of researchers now argues it's really 2,500 years old, dating from the Scandinavian Bronze Age, and was built as an astronomical calendar with the same underlying geometry as England's Stonehenge.
"We can now say Stonehenge has a younger sister, but she's so much more beautiful," said Nils-Axel Mörner, a retired geologist from Stockholm University who co-authored the paper on the interpretation, published in March in the International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Other researchers familiar with the site are skeptical. Among other arguments, they cite the results of carbon dating to reject Mörner's interpretation.
Inspired by Stonehenge?
Mörner says his team observed that the sun rises and sets at specific points around Ales Stenar at the summer and winter solstices, hinting that an ancient culture could have built it as an astronomical calendar to time things like annual religious ceremonies or planting and harvesting crops. [Stunning Photos of Summer Solstice]
They also observed that certain aspects of the stone ship's geometry matched those of Stonehenge, a Bronze Age monument that some enthusiasts believe was used as a calendar. (Those claims are contentious, and there are many other theories of Stonehenge's original purpose.)
The similarities led Mörner to propose the mysterious stone structure of Sweden was a Stonehenge-inspired astronomical calendar constructed by a Bronze Age Scandinavian community that regularly traveled and traded throughout Europe and the Mediterranean.
"The first thing is to see that, yes, it's a calendar," Mörner told LiveScience. "But Ale's Stones also tells us a lot more than we knew before about trading and travel in the Bronze Age among Scandinavia, England and Greece."
Beowulf, not the Bronze Age
Other researchers are not convinced.
"The idea that the stone ship might have been an astronomical calendar has no supporters among academic archaeologists," said Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist, managing editor of the archaeology journal Fornvännen.
Rather, Ales Stenar was probably an ornate grave marker, he said.
The Swedish countryside is home to many similar megalithic structures, which are generally known as stone ships. Most of them date back to Sweden's Late Iron Age (approximately A.D. 500-1000), and they serve as burial monuments, Rundkvist said.
Archaeologists using radiocarbon dating have calculated that Ales Stenar was built about 1,400 years ago, near the end of Scandinavia's Iron Age -- long after the construction date estimated by Mörner's team. [Photos: Mysterious Stone Structures]
Ales Stenar was built by members of a war-like community of seafarers who used oxen, slaves, rope, sleds, wooden spades and simple steel tools to collect and raise the huge boulders, Rundkvist said.
"This was the world of Beowulf," Rundkvist said, referring to the epic poem set in Iron Age Scandinavia.
Ships were an important part of life in this nautical culture, which may have inspired communities to mark the graves of important people with stone ships, some scholars say.
Rundkvist believes there's no evidence for anything beyond that -- including Mörner's Stonehenge theory.
"New Age mystics like standing stones," Rundkvist told LiveScience.

 http://news.discovery.com/