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Introduction to Stonehenge!

Perhaps the most perplexing questions about death and burial at Stonehenge concern how visible or invisible these processes of moving to, and dying and lying within, the Avenue and the Stone Circle actually were.

For example, we have several indications that earth mounds were deliberately piled over the bottom ends of the two parallel ditches that form the northeastern quarter of the Avenue. The use of two opposite ditches and a low embankment also means that, when standing in the Avenue, nothing in the world would have been visible to you behind the little dams except for the white tops of altars, if built in or near the Aubrey Holes.

The apparent focus on ability to surprise and conceal rather than on performative visibility should inject a note of caution in imagining daytime mass ceremonies involving fire, smoke, singing and procession alongside and inside the Stone Circle.

Few ancient monuments stand the test of time like Stonehenge which, to this day, despite its well-documented losses and imperfections, retains the ability not only to impress a first-time visitor but also to inspire them with deep thoughts about the ancients who constructed it and about the significance of the features they created. Is there anything we can infer from the site beyond what is directly visible? Yes: the stones are eloquent as long as we know how to listen! Bringing out the inborn qualities of the stones always was, and remains to be, the key to a compelling story about their origins and use.

Historical Background

What is clear is that Stonehenge continued to be talked and written about over the next six hundred years, though usually as little more than a place-name.

There were some fascinating legends (usually connected with human sacrifice), gathered together by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his “History of the Kings of Britain” (c.1138), but it seems unlikely that he did anything other than collate stories floating around at that time.

It was not until the early 17th century that the first recorded archaeological work at Stonehenge was undertaken by the then owner, the Duke of Buckingham. Charles II visited the monument around this time, and it is known that during his reign some excavation at Stonehenge revealed an ancient grave, complete with human remains.

Stonehenge is surely Britain’s greatest prehistoric monument. Visually, it has an impact comparable to the Pyramids of Egypt and the temples of the Maya, even if it is smaller in scale. Of course, as with other great monuments, it is the unknowns of Stonehenge, as much as what is understood, that accounts for its mystery and fascination.

The first written reference to Stonehenge occurs in Henry of Huntingdon’s “Breviary”, written around 1130. He mentions “Stonehenge” and states that Roman forces built it in four days. This is generally held to be a confused recollection concerning the construction of the Roman temple at Avebury, some 20 miles west of Stonehenge.

Geographical Location

The A303, the major trunk road to Stonehenge, brings the vast majority of visitors through the small town of Amesbury, to the northeast of the site.

The less enthusiastic drivers join it from the west at the junction with the A360 at the Countess roundabout. There are ecological objections to the huge amount of traffic that the road brings into the area, particularly during the numerous summer solstices, but little can be done to shift Stonehenge itself, even if the traffic can be diverted through a 2-mile bored tunnel, to be built as part of a much larger scheme to fix the traffic problems on the 8-mile section of the A303 between Amesbury and Honiton, Devon.

Stonehenge stands on the broad Salisbury Plain, a few miles west of the cathedral city of Salisbury, and about 12 miles from the Hampshire town of Andover. The Plain is mostly empty and open, and many of the surrounding roads are barely more than farm tracks.

The modern roads are, of course, not the original pre-recorded ways and the network of approaches to the monument are still pretty much as they were in the third millennium BCE.

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