Stonehenge

Stonehenge : is an arrangement of mysterious stones standing at Salisbury plain.  Stonehenge consists of two circles, the outer one being sarsen stone (sandstone) pillars, formerly supporting lintels (only six remain), the inner one of blue stones.  Inside the latter circle are two series of standing stones each in the shape of a horseshoe.  Again the outer series is of sarsen stones, the inner of blue stones.  None of the horseshoes is complete, some of the stones have fallen and others are missing altogether. You can take a photographic tour of Stonehenge here.

Inside the innermost horseshoe is a single stone, broken in half, called the Altar Stone and surrounding the outermost circle is a ring of 56 holes called the Aubrey Holes.  Intersecting these, some 80 yards from the Altar Stone is the Heel Stone.

The sarsen stones are of local origin but the blue stones are generally believed to have been transported somehow from the Prescelly Mountains in the far south-west of Wales.  Radical ideas intermingled with legend has it that the magician Merlin brought them from Ireland to Wiltshire and from Africa by giants.

Druids first constructed Stonehenge about 4000 years ago during the Neolithic "New Stone Age".  Stonehenge has been modified a few times since then, most recently around 1400 BC during the early "Bronze Age", thus producing the version that exists today.

The precise function of this awesome monument still remains an enigma.  Some theories include the following:

-         a solar temple

-         a lunar observatory

-         a source of healing energy

-         an extraterrestrial monument

There is a body of literature suggests that the stones align with celestial events fuelling the theory that the monument is some form of complex astronomical observatory.

For example the line between the Altar Stone extends to the precise point of midsummer sunrise.

Janet and Colin Bord in their book Ancient Mysteries of Britain: 100 years of Strange Events, Grafton, London 1987; have exposed some flaws in some of these alignments thus shedding some doubt on the theory of an astronomical observatory.

Like many megaliths the stones have been attributed healing properties due to a high magnetic field.  Indeed modern hospital therapy has found that electromagnetism accelerates the healing process of some bone fractures.  This tends to lend some weight to the theory that Stonehenge could have been used as a source of healing energy.