Who Built Stonehenge?

Lightkeeper · #1 (**permalink**) 29th November 2006, 06:58 PM

Was Stonehenge built by the Druids or before them? What is the significance of Stonehenge?

bahai-sojourner · #2 (**permalink**) 30th November 2006, 01:15 AM

According to T.H. White, in The Once And Future King, Merlin built Stonehenge in a single night. It's as good an explanation as any.

thalassa · #3 (**permalink**) 22nd January 2007, 05:14 AM

Stonehenge was built during the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages...far before the Druids--and before the Celts even arrived in the area. Though it is thought that the Druids were among those that used the site.

It is/was more that the structure we see today and was though to have gone thru several versions and manifestations in its (about 2000 year) construction...

Nor is Stonehenge the only such structure built in the world...there are other "Stonehenges" (albiet MUCH smaller, and not as well preserved) and archaeological remains of wooden versions of Stonehenge (often dubbed "Woodhenge"s) in places from Cahokia, IL to Russia to Peru...

As far as *the* Stonehenge...PBS has a special "Secrets of Lost Empires--Stonehenge" by NOVA from 1998 (my mom LOVES NOVA---we have just about every episode on DVD since she converted them from VHS

), as does the History (forgot what it is called) that does thru the history and archaeology of the site...

RHEMtron · #4 (**permalink**) 24th January 2007, 10:43 AM

hahaha i just recently watched that nova program. they showed it again the other weekend

Lightkeeper · #5 (**permalink**) 31st January 2007, 12:42 AM

Quote:

Circa 2600 BC: village of at least 2 dozen houses unearthed near Stonehenge
Tue Jan 30, 4:18 PM

By Randolph E. Schmid

WASHINGTON (AP) - A village of small houses that may have sheltered the builders of the mysterious Stonehenge, or people attending festivals there, has been found by archaeologists studying the stone circle in England.

Eight of the houses, with central hearths, have been excavated, and there may be as many as 25 of them, Mike Parker Pearson said Tuesday at a briefing organized by the National Geographic Society.

The ancient houses are at a site known as Durrington Walls, about three kilometres from Stonehenge. It is also the location of a wooden version of the stone circle.

The village was carbon dated to about 2600 BC, about the same time Stonehenge was built. The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built at about the same time, said Parker Pearson of Sheffield University.

Julian Thomas of Manchester University noted that both Stonehenge and Durrington Walls have avenues connecting them to the Avon River, indicating a pattern of movement between the sites.

"Clearly, this is a place that was of enormous importance," he said of the new find.

The researchers speculated that Durrington Walls was a place for the living and Stonehenge, where cremated remains have been found, was a cemetery and memorial.

The wooden houses at the new site were square and about four metres along each side. They were almost identical to stone houses built at about the same time in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, Parker Pearson said.

He said there were indications of bed frames along the side walls and of a dresser or storage unit of some sort on the wall opposite the door.

Stone tools, animal bones, arrowheads and other artifacts were uncovered in the village. Remains of pigs indicated they were about nine months old when killed, which would mark a midwinter festival.

Stonehenge was oriented to face the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, while the wooden circle at Durrington Walls faced the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset.

Two of the houses, found by Thomas, were separate from the others and may have been the dwellings of community leaders or perhaps were cult houses used for religious rituals. Those sites lacked the debris and household trash that was common in the other homes, he noted.

Durrington appears "very much a place of the living," Parker Pearson said. In contrast, no one ever lived at the stone circle at Stonehenge, which was the largest cemetery in Britain of its time. Stonehenge is thought to contain 250 cremations.

The research was supported by the National Geographic Society, Arts & Humanities Research Council, English Heritage and Wessex Archaeology.

On the Net:

National Geographic: http://www.nationalgeographic.com

Stonehenge Riverside Project: http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/stonehenge

Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press

mooomooo · #6 (**permalink**) 31st January 2007, 01:28 AM

-------this is my theory on it -----

The closest river to Stonehenge went upstream to where the big slabs of stone were where the workers would chisel them into form .
They dug a big canal from the slabs down to the river and at the point in the river where Stonehenge is they built another canal by cutting into the hill straight into it so it was flat from the river through the canal to where they were to place these stonehenge slabs .
Back at the slabs they built and secured oxygen bags all around each slab and secured around these bags wooden airtight slabs of wood to encase each slab of stone .
Then they dug big holes around each slab and slowly filled each hole with water filling the hole and making each slab rise to the top of the water .
Then they waited for winter and the enclosed slabs of rock rested on top of the frozen man made canal .
They slid the slabs down the frozen canal to the river and floated them down stream to the man made canal at ,what l call, Stonehenge Point , and they then slid each slab onto the now frozen canal from the river at Stonehenge Point and the slabs were moved to the area they are now ,to place them .
One by one by man force these single enclosed floating slabs were slid into each spot they are in now and chipped away at the ice and slowly the slab lowered into the already dug hole there .
They finish by melting the ice around the slab and slowly release the oxygen which causes it to lower into place .

However it took many many workers to build this great monument [to be ]and during one of the transfers of a slab, the canal from Stonehenge point to Stonehenge collapsed killing thousands of workers etc so they scrapped the whole thing and kept Stonehenge as it is as a monument of those killed while making it .
If they were to dig from the river at Stonehenge Point to Stonehenge and cleared it straight through the hills etc they will find another Stonehenge slab which was trapped and left in the collapsed canal with the workers who died during this horrible tragedy.

bahai-sojourner · #7 (**permalink**) 31st January 2007, 02:04 AM

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

Ancient complex discovered near Stonehenge
By Thomas H. Maugh II
Times Staff Writer

3:02 PM PST, January 30, 2007

Archeologists working near Stonehenge in England have discovered an ancient religious complex containing a treasure trove of artifacts that may finally illuminate the lives and religious practices of the people who built the mysterious monument 4,600 years ago, British archeologists said Tuesday.

Nick_A · #8 (**permalink**) 8th August 2007, 02:17 PM

Ancient Armenia of the highlands included the "sun" people believed responsible for Carahunge; the huge observatory. Stonehenge seems to be a similar such observatory and quite possibly built by descendents of the same people.

The only thing I can think of now is that the ancients knew that participating in the direct observation of distant cosmic phenomenon through the means of this sacred geometry had a beneficial influence on their own being and self awareness.

http://www.carahunge.am/

mark53 · #9 (**permalink**) 28th August 2008, 12:07 PM

It wasn't me! I didn't do it. I always get the blame!

This has always been a point of conjecture! One of M. Scott Peck's books "In search of stones' is a marvellous book and is good to read. At least I have come from the Land Down Under to visit there.

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