Martinez Henry
English IV
Period 2
March 8, 2011
The Marvelous Stonehenge
What is a Stonehenge? Facts about the origins of the name “Stonehenge” The
definition of a henge is “A prehistoric monument built in a circular area with standing
stone or wooden pillars and often enclosed by a bank or ditch probably used for tribal or
religious rituals”. Stonehenge is taken from the combination of “stone” and “henge”, a
tribute to the biggest henge.
The Great Stone circle in Southwestern England is one of the world’s most
famous ancient monuments, also one of the most mysterious. Every year on the
summer solstice, usually June 21, people gather to see the sunrise at Stonehenge in
Southwestern England. In addition, the sarsen stones are jointed together, hollow
mortise holes on the undersides of the lintels fit over tenons projecting from the tops of
the uprights; and the lintels of the outer circle are interlocked by vertical tongues and
grooves. The standing stones of Stonehenge are called megaliths. They are large
blocks of stones that have been partially shaped and chipped into tall pillars, with one
end buried deep in the ground. Inside the bank there was a ring of 56pts, evenly spaced
about 4 to 6 meters apart: these are now known as the Aubrey Holes after their
discoverer, the 17th century antiquary John Aubrey. The stones got their name from the
language of the Saxons, an ancient British people, in Saxon the name Stonehenge
means “Hanging Stones”.
Where the Stonehenge stone come from? The 30 Sarsen stones were believed
to originate from at quarry at Marlborough Downs near Avebury in North Wiotshire-30
kilometers away. The Bluestones weighting up to 4 tons are believed to have come from
the Preseli Mountains in Pembroke, South Wates. Stonehenge stands on the southern
part of Salisbury plain, about 8 miles north of Salisbury an 2 miles west of Amesbury. It
is the focal point of the densest concentration of Neolithic Bronze Age monuments
anywhere in Britain, and can be regarded as a kind of prehistoric cathedral which
endured for 2000 years. The building of Stonehenge II began at a time when the
influence of the beaker people was coming to an end, and they themselves were
gradually mixing with the larger native population to produce new and vigorous
societies. Through one such myth, the heel stones got its name. Stones seem to have
remained use as a place of Neolithic worship and burial for about seven centuries.
Then, in period II, it was altered by the addition of the Avenue Bluestones, about 2100
B.C. According to the legend, the stones are magical, and no one can count all the
stones. The heel stone, pictured, got its name from a myth about the devil striking a
friar’s heel with the stone. The four station lie at the corners of a rectangle, the short
sides of which point to the rising sun at mid-summer and the setting at mid-winter, and
the long sides to the most southerly rising an most northerly setting of the moon.