Stonehenge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in Wiltshire, England, about 2 miles (3 km) west of Amesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. One of the
Wikipedia
HENGES
No one seems to know
why, millennia ago
so many huge rocks were arranged
in a circular or oval henge.
Could it have been some deranged
dramatic giant act of revenge?
Then why were there so many built?
Or were these ancient builders driven by obsessive guilt?
Or, perhaps a henge is just an ancient meeting place,
but one built with a meso or neolithic sense of space?
If so, despite all their mystery,
are they merely tending
to show the early history
of governmental spending?
hzl
9/8/15
Move over, Stonehenge: Scientists just found a ‘superhenge’ next door
An illustration of the big new (old) henge. (LBI ArchPro, Juan Torrejón Valdelomar, Joachim Brandtner)
We've all heard of Stonehenge, even if most of us aren't quite sure what a henge is. But it turns out that the mysterious ancient monument may have been dwarfed by a nearby contemporary. Scientists working with theStonehenge Hidden Landscape Project have discovered evidence of a massive henge just two miles away. Here's a visual reconstruction for scale:
“We don’t think there’s anything quite like this anywhere else in the world,” Vince Gaffney of the University of Bradford, one of the project's lead researchers, said at the British Science Festival on Monday. “This is completely new and the scale is extraordinary.”
The 100-odd stones, which were discovered using ground-penetrating radar technology, sit beneath three feet of earth and are thought to be 4,500 years old -- roughly the same age as the more famous henge down the road. The new find sits beneath a henge known as Durrington Walls, a previously discovered, younger "superhenge" thought to once be one of the largest settlements in Europe, spanning a space five times larger than Stonehenge.
While some of the stones are only known by the depressions they left behind, others are still buried. The researchers believe the stones may have been deliberately toppled over at the time that Durrington Walls was constructed. Some of the stones are as tall as 15 feet.
Scientists still aren't exactly sure what purpose Stonehenge served. Was it a sacred space, for rituals and religious celebrations? Was it some kind of astronomical calendar? An elite burial ground? As the structures grow more and more common, our theories may have to change.
"Everything written previously about the Stonehenge landscape and the ancient monuments within it will need to be rewritten," Paul Garwood, an archaeologist and lead historian on the project at the University of Birmingham, told CNN.
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