Stonehenge mystery hinges on unusual stonesNational Geographic Society
The mysterious circle of stones that rises on Salisbury Plain has stood as an archaeological marvel for thousands of years.
A new excavation at Stonehenge seeks to prove that it was not a shrine of the dead but a temple of healing utilizing unique bluestones from a site 250 miles away in Wales.
By Thea Chard, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 4, 2008
AMESBURY, ENGLAND -- The mysterious circle of stones that rises on Salisbury Plain near here has stood as an archaeological marvel for thousands of years, its origins and purpose shrouded in the mists of history.
But a just-completed excavation of Stonehenge, the first within the ancient circle in more than 40 years, could provide some of the first reliable explanations for one of the greatest wonders of the prehistoric world.
Photos: Stonehenge excavationA team of British archaeologists hopes to prove its theory that nearly 4,000 years ago Stonehenge was regarded not as a place of sacrament for the dead, but as a temple with healing powers.
The dig is looking closely at the 82 bluestones -- a double circle of large rocks, some weighing as much as 4 tons, that were brought in during the second stage of Stonehenge, the first stone construction at the site that began about 2150 BC.
About 150 years later, these were rearranged and encircled by much larger sarsen stones that have become iconic of Stonehenge.
Yet it is the bluestones, somehow hauled to the Salisbury Plain from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, Wales, that researchers say hold the key to the mystery.
Although the researchers found to their dismay that the area they examined had been tampered with in Roman times, they still hope the excavations will help show that the bluestones were once viewed as having therapeutic powers.
Stonehenge's legends have been many. Some have said the devil bought the stones from a woman in Ireland; another story suggests they were placed on the plain by the fabled wizard Merlin; others have claimed that aliens built the monument and left it as a place for worship, or that Druids built it as a temple for sacrificial ceremonies.
"You could put 10 archaeologists in a room and you'd get at least 11 theories," said Dr. Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex Archaeology, a firm involved in the excavation, which was approved by English Heritage, which manages Stonehenge.
"I think the one thing everybody would agree on is that Stonehenge is a temple, which is easy to lose sight of in the kind of to-ing and fro-ing of ideas."
But the recent realization that the site contained stones from mountains 250 miles away in Wales shed new light on Stonehenge's origins.
Tim Darvill, a professor at the University of Bournemouth, and Geoff Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries of London, have spent the last six years researching Stonehenge and the rocky outcrop Carn Menyn, thought to be the site in the Preseli Hills from which the bluestones were taken.
Darvill and Wainwright, the co-directors of the dig, found the Welsh site to be a center for ceremony and burials, where the springs that flowed below the rocks were regarded by ancients as having medicinal powers.
They hope that by finding evidence to tie the stones from the Preseli Hills to those at Stonehenge, they will have an answer to the age-old question of the site's purpose.
The two men hope to establish a more precise timeline, to within 10 years, for the construction of Stonehenge by using radiocarbon dating to compare samples from the excavation with those taken from the site in Wales.
The scientists also hope to shed light on whether the stones were transported manually, as Darvill believes, or the former Irish Sea Glacier pushed them to Salisbury. But one fact is certain: Their presence makes Stonehenge unique among the stone circles of its era.
"Once they arrive here, this monument becomes very different from any other kind of monument in the British Isles. . . . And when they come here they elevate this monument into something rather special," Darvill said one recent afternoon as a student volunteer sifted dirt through a large metal sieve.
"You can make the analogy with a medieval cathedral -- it's a bog-standard Paris church until they get those relics, and at that point it becomes a beautiful, marvelous building," he said. "It changes its purpose at about that time from a fairly standard henge to a temple of really European renown."
This theory, first proposed by Darvill in a book, "Stonehenge: The Biography of a Landscape," that he wrote nearly two years ago, is in its infancy when compared with the other beliefs and cult theories about the monument that have been floated for hundreds of years. Even so, Fitzpatrick said, it is also one of the two most widely accepted current archaeological theories about the origins of Stonehenge.
The second dominant theory is being explored by Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, who recently uncovered evidence of a village in Durrington Walls, another henge monument a few miles from Stonehenge.
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