Stonehenge
Wiltshire, U.K. Neolithic Europe. c. 2500-1600 B.C.E. Sandstone
Stonehenge is a famous site know for its large circles of massive stones in a seemingly random location as well as the mystery surrounding how and why it was built. The stones are believed to be from local quarries and farther off mountains. There is also evidence of mud, wood, and ropes assisting in the construction of the site.
Form
- made mainly of bluestone which is very durable
- most of the rocks are mined from a quarry hundreds of miles away
- post-and-lintel construction
- monolithic stones arranged in a circle
Content
- concentric circles of huge stones--lintel stones (the ones sitting on top) are carved to create the curved lines of a circle
- originally made of 30 trilithons
- the trilithons (a stone laying horizontally across two vertical stones) increase in height, which "pull" a viewer visually into the interior of the structure
- the stones stay upright because they were placed in huge pits that were dug into the ground
- archeologists are using technology that looks underground to find that Stonehenge was actually much more expansive than what we see now
Function
- there is evidence that in the second stage of construction in particular, Stonehenge was used as a burial site (all burials were males, aged 20-50--could speak to who held power in society)
- to be buried at Stonehenge would have been a mark of elite status
- the horseshoe of trilithons frames mark both the midsummer's solstice and the midwinter's sunset, which are the longest and shortest days of the year
- could signify a divine connection to solar and lunar calendars, the importance of the movement of the sun/seasons to the people of the society that built Stonehenge
Context
- found in the Salisbury Plain in England
- first phase of construction started around 3100 BCE (this would be concurrent with the first dynasties of Ancient Egypt)
- construction was continued intermittently for the next 500 years
- building the structure would require precise planning and massive amounts of labor, which speaks to a higher level of sophistication in the society that built it than historians previously thought possible
- they had to move the stones, which weigh from 2-4 pounds, not only from the quarry site 250 miles away but also use some kind of machinery to get the lintel stones on top of the post stones
- long-term communal effort (may speak to a hierarchical society)
- understanding of astronomy
- understanding of basic architecture--stones were carved out so that they would fit with each other and create a geometrically correct circle
Cross Cultural Comparisons
Chavín da Huántar
Pantheon
Great Mosque of Djenne
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/prehistoric-art/neolithic-art/a/stonehenge
Khan Academy site + 3 helpful videos
cool BBC article about new Stonehenge discoveries:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-34156673
