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What is cool about Stonehenge?

Updated: 8/17/2019
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Stonehenge is probably among the "Most Cool" places in the world. Though it is mostly in ruins and appears rather dog-eared today, its design and purpose remain almost mystical in their simple sophistication.

Constructed in the Late Stone Age by a shadowy people whose level of technology did not include metal tools, Stonehenge consists of a 110 meter-wide earthen ditch, or dike, with an elaborate, ceremonial entrance at the northeast and a smaller, simple one in the south. Within this Dike was built a perfect circle of 30 enormous, shaped Sarsen Stones surrounding an inner, horseshoe-shaped set of 5 unconnected 3-stone arches called 'Trilithons'.

Aligned to both the Summer Solstice sunrise and the Winter Solstice sunset Stonehenge was a place where people from all over England and the Continent would come and celebrate these two most-sacred days. A mounting body of evidence concludes that there must have been thousands of people involved in these celebrations who came to honor the Ancestors in this hallowed 'Place of Forever'.

Outside the Stone Circle, against the encompassing Dike, are situated the 4 Station-Stones. These form a rectangle that is perpendicular to the axis of both Solstice alignments. These are the Lunar Alignment Stones.

Every 18.5 or so years, at the bottom (or top) of a Lunar long-cycle, the Moon rises much farther south than is usual. Standing at the northwest Station-Stone at this time, one will see the full Moon rise over the East Stone. Now we move to the other side of the Dike to the Southeast Stone at Moon set some hours later and watch it pass behind the opposing West Stone.

Ultimately, Stonehenge was a sacred cemetery for people of high status. There are over 250 sets of cremated remains within the encircling Dike, and these are only the ones they've found on one side of the circle. But even to be buried nearthe Henge was itself a fabulous honor and there are literally hundreds of Barrows in the immediate neighborhood.

One of the most extraordinary things about Stonehenge is its antiquity. For many centuries it had been thought that the Romans must have built it. Or the Celts. Or the Druids. Some thought Merlin must have done it in the 6th century.

The truth is much more astonishing.

Stonehenge had its Sarsens erected around 4,000 years ago - 1,800 years before there were any Romans. About 2,000 years before there were any Celts or Druids.

There was no written word at that time and it is extremely difficult to date stone, so for a long time it had been impossible to know how old it really was. Modern research and amazing advances in technology have brought more Stonehenge mysteries to light in just the past 10 years than in the previous 400.

Until recently it had always been surmised that Stonehenge was a single entity sitting all alone out there on the windy Salisbury Plain. Now we know that it is really just a single elementin a much broader historical view. Most of the features in the surrounding area are connected to the Henge in one way or another, and the breadth and scope of what those people were up to 4,500 years ago is merely one of the things that makes Stonehenge so "Cool".

Feanor65@Yahoo.com

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