Stonehenge
up close


This marvelous temple complex is situated in England, about 80 miles southwest of London
and about 8 miles north of Salisbury. My late wife and I visited Stonehenge in the 1960's, before
it was substantialy closed off to the public, as it is now. Do not let the fact that it is fenced keep
you from visiting it. Here is what we saw on our first visit.

It was an overcast day, as is very common in the British Isles,
but the weather improved gradually during the aftermoon.

The great stones were erected around 1600BCE, roughly contemporary
with the New Kingdom of Egypt, the palaces of Knossos in Crete and Mycenae in Greece.
They were the culmination of more than 500 years of construction at
this site. Recent studies indicate that the temple was built on the site of a cemetery
begun around 2500 BCE. A circle of great stones, called Sarsen stones, quarried some 40
miles away, was surmounted by a stone lintel. It enclosed a circle of smaller
blue stones from 200 miles away in Wales, and a horse shoe shaped assembly of
five huge trilithons.

       


[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Looking across
the "heelstone"
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
Sarsen Stones at left. Blue stones in front
of Sarsen Stones
Trilithon in right
background.
crop0008
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
crop0009 crop0010 Ruth Foley
helping support the
largest trilithon
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
crop0012 crop0013 Trilithon through
gap in the
Sarsen Circle
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
crop0015 crop0017 crop0018
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
A storm
came up
crop0020 crop0021
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
Heelstone The Chalk Circle Peg on top of
Sarsen Stone
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
Holes were made
in the lintel stones to
fit pegs on top of the
standing stones
Images of daggers and
axes are incised on the
inner surfaces of some
Sarsen stones.
crop0027
[Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image] [Click to enlarge image]
crop0028 crop0028 Sunset colors
Stonehenge



My Other Pages

e-mail author