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“I prefer Stonehenge in the rain.” |
(Wales Road Trip Day: 1)
We (my parents, sister Rachel, Uncle Dennis and myself) set out on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, 25 November, to see the legendary Stonehenge. It was a typical late Autumn day for Southern England—absolutely freezing, windy, with rain falling sideways. These were probably not the best conditions for viewing outdoor historical sites but it did not deter us. Well, it did not deter me anyway. There was a chill in the end caused not by the wind, but by the glares imploring me to hurry up so we could get back in the car.
“Stonehenge,” as it is called in modern times, has stood as a temple in one form or another on this site in Wiltshire for 5000 years. Historians believe it was just a circular ditch surrounded by wooden posts at that time and had not begun to be reconstructed of the stones we still see standing today until about 2500 B.C. Despite the fact that the stones are the most famous part of Stonehenge, the contrived contour of the ditches and banks within and around those stones are just as important. The way in which they are important has been the subject of study, debate, mythology and superstition for centuries. To this day the purpose of these standing stones and the arrangement of the ground beneath them remains a mystery, as well as how they got those stones there. There are many theories though.
The largest stones—known as the sarsen stones because they are made of sarsen sandstone—weigh about 40 tonnes each. They are even larger than they look as about 1/3 of each stone is underground. Studies of the geology of the area show that these stones must have traveled about 19 miles to reach the site. The smaller bluestones which each weighed up to 5 tonnes traveled even farther—an incredible 150 miles. There are several theories concerning how these stones were moved such great distances. Theoretically a wooden sled being dragged on wooden rails by 200 or so people could have moved the sarsen stones the 19 miles they had to travel. But the bluestones? An experiment was conducted to try to move the bluestones in a similar way over the terrain they would have had to travel. They made it about two miles. I’m fairly certain there is still a lone bluestone propped up in a field somewhere.
The site as it stands today is more breathtaking than any photograph can really capture, but as the rain slowed and finally stopped I did my best. The stormy skies—and the small number of tourists willing to brave the weather to see it—created an atmosphere that made the stones all the more imposing. I imagine that thousands of tourists surrounding the stones on a brilliantly sunny day would not have been nearly as valuable in reminding us that we were standing in the presence of ancient mysteries.
previous travel blog entry
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