Stonehenge, located in the plain of Salisbury, in the south-west
of England, is the greatest prehistoric structure of Europe, dating from
neolothic and the bronze age.
Stonehenge is composed of 4 concentric sets of stones:
- The external unit is made by large blocks
of rectangular sandstones which form a circle 30 meters in diameter.
- A interior second cromlech made by smaller blocks.
- Then in whole of sandstone triliths, made by each of
2 surmounted vertical blocks of a lintel. They are laid out of horseshoe
and inside is a block of sandstone evoking a stone of furnace bridge.
The monument is girdled of a circular ditch of 104 meters
diamétre, and of a slope or were dug 56 wells: holes of Aubray.
In this circle one can see sandstone monoliths and smaller
stones: blue stones.
The function of Stonehenge was the object of many theories:
Prediction of the solstices and equinoxes, the eclipses of sun and moon,
calendar for the positions of the sun and the moon , and of course religious
ceremonies.
Its construction with begun into 3050 front j.c by the
circular pit and the slope forming the enclosure. Towards 2500 front j.c
a timber structure is set up in the center. Between 2500 and 1500 front
j.c erection of the circular monument.
ANECDOTE drawn from the files of the Telegramme of 1997:
Is Stonehenge the work of " the Breton ones "?
Aubray Burl bases its theory on three reports:
1) The circle of stonehenge is placed in the heart of
a rectangle of 4 stones which indicate according to seasons' to raise it
sun or to lay down it the moon. This configuration is only in Brittany.
2) The half rings in the horseshoe shape has of equivalent
only in Brittany (the Er Lannic cromlech).
3) A drawing is reproduced on a megalith, representing
an axe which never existed in Great Britain.
Charles Tanguy-Le Roux as some sorrows to take with serious,
the cromlech of er Lannic does not seem to have of astronomical contents,
in addition there is incompatibility of time between Stonehenge and the
megaliths decorated with axes in Brittany.
Return to Mégaliths from elsewhere