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92-475: Six months have passed since the end of The Summer Tree , and Kim is waiting for the dream that will tell her how to summon the Warrior to aid them in their battle against Maugrim. Jennifer is pregnant with Rakoth Maugrim's child and, surprisingly, is determined to have the baby—aware that Maugrim wanted her dead, she is determined not only to live but to have the child, believing that it will be both an answer and

184-435: A circular bank and ditch enclosure made of Late Cretaceous ( Santonian Age) Seaford chalk , measuring about 360 feet (110 m) in diameter, with a large entrance to the north east and a smaller one to the south. It stood in open grassland on a slightly sloping spot. The builders placed the bones of deer and oxen in the bottom of the ditch, as well as some worked flint tools. The bones were considerably older than

276-566: A feature unique among contemporary monuments. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones . Inside these are free-standing trilithons , two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice . The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds). Stonehenge

368-401: A location sacred to the goddess, arriving (by chance?) on Midsummer Eve, or Maidaladan, a night of potent sexual/erotic magic. Kim, Gereint, Jaelle and the mages discover that Metran, renegade first mage of Brennin, is making the winter on an island; since all the ports are frozen, they cannot get to him to stop him. Kevin is wounded during a boar hunt which he realizes marks him as belonging to

460-562: A megalithic bluestone quarry at Craig Rhos-y-felin , near Crymych in Pembrokeshire, which is the most likely place for some of the stones to have been obtained. Other standing stones may well have been small sarsens (sandstone), used later as lintels. The stones, which weighed about two tons, could have been moved by lifting and carrying them on rows of poles and rectangular frameworks of poles, as recorded in China, Japan and India. It

552-466: A natural tree throw ), which date to around 8000 BC, beneath the nearby old tourist car park in use until 2013. These held pine posts around two feet six inches (0.75 m) in diameter, which were erected and eventually rotted in place. Three of the posts (and possibly four) were in an east–west alignment which may have had ritual significance. Another Mesolithic astronomical site in Britain

644-574: A procession route on the longest and shortest days of the year. Parker Pearson speculates that the wooden circle at Durrington Walls was the centre of a 'land of the living', whilst the stone circle represented a 'land of the dead', with the Avon serving as a journey between the two. Later in the Bronze Age , although the exact details of activities during this period are still unclear, the bluestones appear to have been re-erected. They were placed within

736-581: A religious site. In the 1960s, Gerald Hawkins described in detail how the site was apparently set out to observe the Sun and Moon over a recurring 56-year cycle. More recently, two major new theories have been proposed. Geoffrey Wainwright , president of the Society of Antiquaries of London , and Timothy Darvill , of Bournemouth University , have suggested that Stonehenge was a place of healing—the primeval equivalent of Lourdes . They argue that this accounts for

828-411: A ring of 30 lintel stones resting on top. The lintels were fitted to one another using tongue and groove joints – a woodworking method, again. Each standing stone was around 13.5 feet (4.11 m) high, 7.0 feet (2.13 m) wide, and 3.5 feet (1.06 m) deep, weighing around 26 tons. Each had clearly been worked with the final visual effect in mind: The orthostats widen slightly towards

920-593: A second group brought from Wales. All the stones formed well-spaced uprights without any of the linking lintels inferred in Stonehenge 3 III. The Altar Stone may have been moved within the oval at this time and re-erected vertically. Although this would seem the most impressive phase of work, Stonehenge 3 IV was rather shabbily built compared to its immediate predecessors, as the newly re-installed bluestones were not well-founded and began to fall over. However, only minor changes were made after this phase. Soon afterwards,

1012-516: A threat to him. She and Paul are menaced in their own world by Galadan; Paul, tapping the potent but unreliable power of Mörnir that lives in him since his three nights on the Summer Tree, takes the two of them back to Fionavar. They arrive safely but the crossing brings on Jennifer's labor. When the child is born she names him Darien and gives him to Vae and Shahar, the parents of Finn. Jaelle sends Paul and Jennifer back to their own world. In

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1104-672: A vast army of the Dark, and only Dave's summoning of the Wild Hunt by blowing Owein's Horn turns the tide. However, the Hunt are as wild as their name, and when they finish slaughtering the armies of the Dark they turn on the Dalrei and the other armies of the Light. Ceinwen intervenes, and that night she takes Dave as her lover. Meanwhile Darien has used his powers to accelerate his growth and, now

1196-569: A young man, overhears Cernan ask Paul why "the child" was allowed to live. Angry, hurt by Finn's desertion, feeling unwanted and unloved, Darien decides to seek his father, Maugrim. Jennifer comes to terms with her past and has one day of joyous reunion with Arthur, both of them daring to hope that this time things will be different since there is "no third" (i.e. no Lancelot). Arthur, Loren, Matt, Paul and Diarmuid set sail for Cader Sedat, and Jennifer goes to Lisen's tower with Brendel to await their return. The ship, Prydwen , reaches Cader Sedat and

1288-520: Is Warren Field in Aberdeenshire , which is considered the world's oldest lunisolar calendar , corrected yearly by observing the midwinter solstice . Similar but later sites have been found in Scandinavia . A settlement that may have been contemporaneous with the posts has been found at Blick Mead , a reliable year-round spring one mile (1.6 km) from Stonehenge. Salisbury Plain

1380-496: Is a holdover from antiquarian use. Mike Parker Pearson , leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project based around Durrington Walls , noted that Stonehenge appears to have been associated with burial from the earliest period of its existence: Stonehenge was a place of burial from its beginning to its zenith in the mid third millennium B.C. The cremation burial dating to Stonehenge's sarsen stones phase

1472-622: Is also reflected in a general 'resurgence' of hunter-gatherer ancestry, predominantly from males, across western and central Europe in the Middle Neolithic. At the time the megalithic Stonehenge 3 II was constructed (2600–2400 BC) by Neolithic people, the Bell Beaker people arrived, around 2,500 BC, migrating from mainland Europe. They lived side by side for ca. 500 years, with the Bell Beaker people probably incorporating

1564-702: Is bound to answer to this name because of the May Babies , children he had ordered slain in an attempt to forestall Mordred 's growing to manhood. Kim and Arthur rejoin the others in Fionavar. This time, Fionavar is in the midst of an unnatural months-long winter. Upon meeting Arthur, a flood of memories awakens in Jennifer and she recalls her life as Guinevere . Unable to break through the walls she created to survive her ordeal in Starkadh, Jennifer retreats to

1656-448: Is likely just one of many from this later period of the monument's use and demonstrates that it was still very much a domain of the dead. Stonehenge evolved in several construction phases spanning at least 1500 years. There is evidence of large-scale construction on and around the monument that perhaps extends the landscape's time frame to 6500 years. Dating and understanding the various phases of activity are complicated by disturbance of

1748-459: Is no evidence of glacial deposition within southern central England. A 2019 publication announced that evidence of Megalithic quarrying had been found at quarries in Wales identified as a source of Stonehenge's bluestone, indicating that the bluestone was quarried by human agency and not transported by glacial action. The long-distance human transport theory was bolstered in 2011 by the discovery of

1840-539: Is no excavated evidence of them. A recent excavation has suggested that the Aubrey Holes may have originally been used to erect a bluestone circle. If this were the case, it would advance the earliest known stone structure at the monument by some 500 years. In 2013, a team of archaeologists, led by Mike Parker Pearson , excavated more than 50,000 cremated bone fragments, from 63 individuals, buried at Stonehenge. These remains were originally buried individually in

1932-477: Is not known whether the stones were taken directly from their quarries to Salisbury Plain or were the result of the removal of a venerated stone circle from Preseli to Salisbury Plain to "merge two sacred centres into one, to unify two politically separate regions, or to legitimise the ancestral identity of migrants moving from one region to another". Evidence of a 110-metre (360 ft) stone circle at Waun Mawn near Preseli, which could have contained some or all of

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2024-482: The Middle Ages and since then it has been studied and adopted by numerous groups. Stonehenge was produced by a culture that left no written records. Many aspects of Stonehenge, such as how it was built and for what purposes it was used, remain subject to debate. A number of myths surround the stones. The site, specifically the great trilithon, the encompassing horseshoe arrangement of the five central trilithons,

2116-462: The River Avon . The timber circle was orientated towards the rising Sun on the midwinter solstice , opposing the solar alignments at Stonehenge. The avenue was aligned with the setting Sun on the summer solstice and led from the river to the timber circle. Evidence of huge fires on the banks of the Avon between the two avenues also suggests that both circles were linked. They were perhaps used as

2208-905: The Senni Beds , perhaps from 50 miles (80 kilometres) east of the Preseli Hills in the Brecon Beacons. Work announced in 2024 by a team from Curtin University , who analysed the chemical composition of fragments of rock that had fallen off the Altar Stone, and dated them, found that the best match was with rocks in the Orcadian Basin (which includes Caithness , Orkney , and the Moray Firth regions of north-eastern Scotland). The researchers stated that this implies

2300-639: The Stonehenge Archer , discovered in the outer ditch of the monument in 1978, and the two sets of burials, known as the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen , discovered three miles (5 km) to the west. Analysis of animal teeth found two miles (3 km) away at Durrington Walls , thought by Parker Pearson to be the 'builders camp', suggests that, during some period between 2600 and 2400 BC, as many as 4,000 people gathered at

2392-579: The Wiltshire Museum . In 1877, Charles Darwin dabbled in archaeology at the stones, experimenting with the rate at which remains sink into the earth, for his book The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms . Stone 22 fell during a fierce storm on 31 December 1900. William Gowland oversaw the first major restoration of the monument in 1901, which involved the straightening and concrete setting of sarsen stone number 56 which

2484-410: The paternal (Y-DNA) lineages of Neolithic farmers in Britain were almost exclusively of Western Hunter-Gatherer origin. This was also the case among other megalithic-building populations in northwest Europe, meaning that these populations were descended from a mixture of hunter-gatherer males and farmer females. The dominance of Western Hunter-Gatherer male lineages in Britain and northwest Europe

2576-667: The stanenges or Stanheng "not far from Salisbury " recorded by 11th-century writers are "stones supported in the air". In 1740, William Stukeley notes: "Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire ;... I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones." Christopher Chippindale 's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words stān ' stone ' , and either hencg ' hinge ' (because

2668-501: The surrounding land is owned by the National Trust . Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500 years. The Oxford English Dictionary cites Ælfric 's 10th-century glossary, in which henge-cliff is given the meaning ' precipice ' , or stone; thus,

2760-533: The " Amesbury Archer " grew up near the Alpine foothills of Germany; and the " Boscombe Bowmen " probably arrived from Wales or Brittany, France. On the other hand, Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University has suggested that Stonehenge was part of a ritual landscape and was joined to Durrington Walls by their corresponding avenues and the River Avon. He suggests that the area around Durrington Walls henge

2852-455: The 'Blick Mead' camp 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Stonehenge (near the Vespasian's Camp site) has been dated to 4000 BC. The University of Buckingham 's Humanities Research Institute believes that the community who built Stonehenge lived here for several millennia, making it potentially "one of the pivotal places in the history of the Stonehenge landscape." The first monument consisted of

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2944-427: The 18th century. According to the team, these acoustic properties could explain why certain bluestones were hauled such a long distance, a major technical accomplishment at the time. In certain ancient cultures, rocks that ring out, known as lithophonic rocks , were believed to contain mystic or healing powers, and Stonehenge has a history of association with rituals. The presence of these "ringing rocks" seems to support

3036-474: The Aubrey holes, but were exhumed in 1920 during an excavation by William Hawley , who considered them unimportant and in 1935 re-buried them together in one hole, Aubrey Hole 7. Physical and chemical analysis of the remains has shown that the cremated were almost equally men and women, and included some children. There is evidence that the underlying chalk beneath the graves was crushed by substantial weight, so

3128-675: The Eastern Mediterranean, travelling west from there, and 25% ancestry coming from Western Hunter-Gatherers from western Europe. These farmers moved to Iberia before heading north, reaching Britain in about 4,000 BC. Most of the ancestry of British Neolithic farmers came from the people who followed this route, with a minor contribution from groups who followed the Danube into Central and Western Europe. Their agricultural techniques seem to have come originally from Anatolia , and their mixture appears to have happened primarily on

3220-516: The Goddess. That night, Midsummer Eve, Diarmuid and Sharra admit their love for each other; meanwhile, Kevin follows Cavall to the cave of Dun Maura where he sacrifices his life to the Goddess, allowing her to intercede and, with the magic unleashed from his sacrifice, end the winter that has been looming over Fionavar. Freed from winter, war begins. Kim and Brock journey to the mountains where they are attacked by brigands. The Dalrei are attacked by

3312-509: The Plains, the eltor are bogged down in the snow and harried by Galadan's wolves. The Dalrei do their best to protect the herds but come under attack by an army of urgach mounted on slaug. Diarmuid and his men, with Dave and Kevin, arrive in time to thwart the initial assault, but it is Tabor, mounted on Imraith-Nimphais, who finally saves them. Ivor worries that his son's bond with the deadly but beautiful magical beast will weaken Tabor's hold on

3404-400: The Q and R holes purposefully backfilled. The Heel Stone , a Tertiary sandstone, may also have been erected outside the north-eastern entrance during this period. It cannot be accurately dated and may have been installed at any time during phase 3. At first, it was accompanied by a second stone, which is no longer visible. Two, or possibly three, large portal stones were set up just inside

3496-407: The antler picks used to dig the ditch, and the people who buried them had looked after them for some time prior to burial. The ditch was continuous but had been dug in sections, like the ditches of the earlier causewayed enclosures in the area. The chalk dug from the ditch was piled up to form the bank. This first stage is dated to around 3100 BC, after which the ditch began to silt up naturally. Within

3588-504: The arrival of the Bell Beaker people, who had approximately 50% WSH ancestry. Throughout recorded history, Stonehenge and its surrounding monuments have attracted attention from antiquarians and archaeologists . John Aubrey was one of the first to examine the site with a scientific eye in 1666, and, in his plan of the monument, he recorded the pits that now bear his name, the Aubrey holes . William Stukeley continued Aubrey's work in

3680-540: The base of six stones and the outer ditch. He also located a bottle of port in the Slaughter Stone socket left by Cunnington, helped to rediscover Aubrey's pits inside the bank and located the concentric circular holes outside the Sarsen Circle called the Y and Z Holes . Richard Atkinson , Stuart Piggott and John F. S. Stone re-excavated much of Hawley's work in the 1940s and 1950s, and discovered

3772-421: The binding between Matt and Loren and so Loren is no longer a mage. The company prepares to depart; Lancelot is reluctant to accompany them, knowing that his mere presence will cause yet more pain to Arthur and Guinevere, both of whom he loves so deeply. "Then Arthur spoke, and there was sorrow in his voice and there was love. 'Oh, Lance, come," he said. "She will be waiting for you.' " (WF, p. 244). And so

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3864-628: The bluestone in Wales and had not extensively lived in the area of Stonehenge before death. Between 2017 and 2021, studies by Professor Parker Pearson (UCL) and his team suggested that the bluestones used in Stonehenge had been moved there following dismantling of a stone circle of identical size to the first known Stonehenge circle (110m) at the Welsh site of Waun Mawn in the Preseli Hills . It had contained bluestones, one of which showed evidence of having been reused in Stonehenge. The stone

3956-422: The builders abandoned timber in favour of stone and dug two concentric arrays of holes (the Q and R Holes ) in the centre of the site. These stone sockets are only partly known (hence on present evidence are sometimes described as forming 'crescents'); however, they could be the remains of a double ring. Again, there is little firm dating evidence for this phase. The holes held up to 80 standing stones (shown blue on

4048-399: The builders' belief system. The excavated remains of culled animal bones suggest that people may have gathered at the site for the winter rather than the summer. There is little or no direct evidence revealing the construction techniques used by the Stonehenge builders. Over the years, various authors have suggested that supernatural or anachronistic methods were used, usually asserting that

4140-477: The carved axes and daggers on the Sarsen Stones. Atkinson's work was instrumental in furthering the understanding of the three major phases of the monument's construction. In 1958, the stones were restored again, when three of the standing sarsens were re-erected and set in concrete bases. The last restoration was carried out in 1963 after stone 23 of the Sarsen Circle fell over. It was again re-erected, and

4232-474: The chalk downs of southern England). The bluestones are composed of dolerite, tuff, rhyolite, or sandstone. The igneous bluestones appear to have originated in the Preseli hills of southwestern Wales, about 140 miles (230 km) from the monument. The sandstone Altar Stone may have originated in east Wales. Analysis published in 2020 indicates the sarsens came from West Woods , about 16 miles (26 km) from

4324-436: The circle (60 stones) and the trilithon horseshoe (15 stones). It was thought the ring might have been left incomplete, but an exceptionally dry summer in 2013 revealed patches of parched grass which may correspond to the location of missing sarsens. The lintel stones are each around 10 feet (3.2 m) long, 3.3 feet (1 m) wide and 2.6 feet (0.8 m) thick. The tops of the lintels are 16 feet (4.9 m) above

4416-689: The company discovers that Metran is fueling his unnatural winter by draining the life from hundreds of svart alfar, resurrecting them again and again using the Cauldron of Khath Meigol. Loren breaks the spell and kills Metran but in the process draws so much power that Matt dies. Below the castle, the company finds the Chamber of the Dead and Arthur, shouldering the full weight of his repeated penance, awakens Lancelot du Lac. Lancelot exercises his gift of healing and brings Matt back to life, though death has broken

4508-830: The company, including Lancelot, prepares to depart for home. Dave Langford reviewed The Wandering Fire for White Dwarf #86, and stated that "What Kay has done is to swipe character from the finest legend of all, a Tale which is not his, and throw them into the already too-huge cast with promises of Heavy Triangulation next book." Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire , England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury . It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones , each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones, held in place with mortise and tenon joints,

4600-524: The continent before the Neolithic farmers migrated to Britain. At the time of their arrival, Britain was inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers who were the first inhabitants of the island after the last Ice Age ended about 11,700 years ago. The farmers replaced most of the hunter-gatherer population in the British Isles without mixing much with them. Despite their mostly Aegean ancestry,

4692-603: The early eighteenth century, but took an interest in the surrounding monuments as well, identifying (somewhat incorrectly) the Cursus and the Avenue. He also began the excavation of many of the barrows in the area, and it was his interpretation of the landscape that associated it with the Druids . Stukeley was so fascinated with Druids that he originally named Disc Barrows as Druids' Barrows. The most accurate early plan of Stonehenge

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4784-410: The early third millennium BC suggests that some form of timber structure was built within the enclosure during this period. Further standing timbers were placed at the northeast entrance, and a parallel alignment of posts ran inwards from the southern entrance. The postholes are smaller than the Aubrey Holes, being only around 16 inches (0.4 m) in diameter, and are much less regularly spaced. The bank

4876-403: The ground. Within this circle stood five trilithons of dressed sarsen stone arranged in a horseshoe shape 45 feet (13.7 m) across, with its open end facing northeast. These huge stones, ten uprights and five lintels, weigh up to 50 tons each. They were linked using complex jointing. They are arranged symmetrically. The smallest pair of trilithons were around 20 feet (6 m) tall,

4968-445: The heel stone, and the embanked avenue, are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice. A natural landform at the monument's location followed this line, and may have inspired its construction. It has been conjectured that the design of the monument included a celestial observatory function, which might allow prediction of eclipse, solstice, equinox and other celestial events important to

5060-564: The henge-structures into their belief-system. The earliest British individuals associated with the Beaker culture, most likely speakers of Indo-European languages whose ancestors migrated from the Pontic–Caspian steppe, were similar to those from the Rhine. Eventually, there was again a large population replacement in Britain. More than 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool was replaced with

5152-483: The high number of burials in the area and for the evidence of trauma deformity in some of the graves. However, they do concede that the site was probably multifunctional and used for ancestor worship as well. Isotope analysis indicates that some of the buried individuals were from other regions. A teenage boy buried approximately 1550 BC was raised near the Mediterranean Sea; a metal worker from 2300 BC dubbed

5244-441: The hypothesis that Stonehenge was a "place for healing" put forward by Darvill, who consulted with the researchers. There is evidence to suggest that despite the introduction of farming in the British Isles, the practice of cereal cultivation fell out of favor between 3300 and 1500 BC, with much of the population reverting to a pastoralist subsistence pattern focused on hazelnut gathering and pig and cattle rearing. A majority of

5336-600: The major phases of Stonehenge's construction took place during such a period where evidence of large-scale agriculture is equivocal. Similar associations between non-cereal farming subsistence patterns and monumental construction are also seen at Poverty Point and Sannai Maruyama . Researchers studying DNA extracted from Neolithic human remains across Britain determined that the people who built Stonehenge I and II were closely related to Iberian and Central European Early and Middle Neolithic populations, modelled as having about 75% ancestry from Early European Farmers who came from

5428-422: The monument but it is unknown if the monument was in continuous use throughout British prehistory and beyond, or exactly how it would have been used. Notable is the massive Iron Age hillfort known as Vespasian's Camp (despite its name, not a Roman site) built alongside the Avenue near the Avon. A decapitated seventh-century Saxon man was excavated from Stonehenge in 1923. The site was known to scholars during

5520-480: The monument, mostly in the eastern half. Stonehenge is therefore interpreted as functioning as an enclosed cremation cemetery at this time, the earliest known cremation cemetery in the British Isles. Fragments of unburnt human bone have also been found in the ditch-fill. Dating evidence is provided by the late Neolithic grooved ware pottery that has been found in connection with the features from this phase. Archaeological excavation has indicated that around 2600 BC,

5612-649: The monument. Researchers from the Royal College of Art in London have discovered that the monument's igneous bluestones possess "unusual acoustic properties" – when struck they respond with a "loud clanging noise". Rocks with such acoustic properties are frequent in the Carn Melyn ridge of Presili; the Presili village of Maenclochog (Welsh for bell or ringing stones) used local bluestones as church bells until

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5704-419: The natural chalk by periglacial effects and animal burrowing, poor quality early excavation records, and a lack of accurate, scientifically verified dates. The modern phasing most generally agreed to by archaeologists is detailed below. Features mentioned in the text are numbered and shown on the plan, right. Archaeologists have found four, or possibly five, large Mesolithic postholes (one may have been

5796-506: The next pair a little higher, and the largest, single trilithon in the south-west corner would have been 24 feet (7.3 m) tall. Only one upright from the Great Trilithon still stands, of which 22 feet (6.7 m) is visible and a further 7.9 feet (2.4 m) is below ground. The images of a 'dagger' and 14 'axeheads' have been carved on one of the sarsens, known as stone 53; further carvings of axeheads have been seen on

5888-406: The north-eastern entrance, of which only one, the fallen Slaughter Stone, 16 feet (4.9 m) long, now remains. Other features, loosely dated to phase 3, include the four Station Stones , two of which stood atop mounds. The mounds are known as " barrows " although they do not contain burials. Stonehenge Avenue , a parallel pair of ditches and banks leading two miles (3 km) to the River Avon ,

5980-767: The northeastern section of the Phase 3 IV bluestone circle was removed, creating a horseshoe-shaped setting (the Bluestone Horseshoe) which mirrored the shape of the central sarsen Trilithons. This phase is contemporary with the Seahenge site in Norfolk. The Y and Z Holes are the last known construction at Stonehenge, built about 1600 BC, and the last usage of it was probably during the Iron Age . Roman coins and medieval artefacts have all been found in or around

6072-737: The opportunity was taken to concrete three more stones. Later archaeologists, including Christopher Chippindale of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge and Brian Edwards of the University of the West of England , campaigned to give the public more knowledge of the various restorations and, in 2004, English Heritage included pictures of the work in progress in its book Stonehenge: A History in Photographs . Prydwen Too Many Requests If you report this error to

6164-459: The outer edge of the enclosed area is a circle of 56 pits, each about 3.3 feet (1 m) in diameter, known as the Aubrey holes after John Aubrey , the 17th-century antiquarian who was thought to have first identified them. These pits and the bank and ditch together are known as the Palisade or Gate Ditch. The pits may have contained standing timbers creating a timber circle , although there

6256-532: The outer faces of stones 3, 4, and 5. The carvings are difficult to date but are morphologically similar to late Bronze Age weapons. Early 21st century laser scanning of the carvings supports this interpretation. The pair of trilithons in the north east are smallest, measuring around 20 feet (6 m) in height; the largest, which is in the south-west of the horseshoe, is almost 25 feet (7.5 m) tall. This ambitious phase has been radiocarbon dated to between 2600 and 2400 BC, slightly earlier than

6348-475: The outer sarsen circle and may have been trimmed in some way. Like the sarsens, a few have timber-working style cuts in them suggesting that, during this phase, they may have been linked with lintels and were part of a larger structure. This phase saw further rearrangement of the bluestones. They were arranged in a circle between the two rings of sarsens and in an oval at the centre of the inner ring. Some archaeologists argue that some of these bluestones were from

6440-477: The plan), only 43 of which can be traced today. It is generally accepted that the bluestones (some of which are made of dolerite , an igneous rock), were transported by the builders from the Preseli Hills , 150 miles (240 km) away in modern-day Pembrokeshire in Wales. Another theory is that they were brought much nearer to the site as glacial erratics by the Irish Sea Glacier although there

6532-649: The real world. Kim, Dave, Levon and a small band make their way to the Cave of the Sleepers and Dave blows Owein's Horn to wake the Wild Hunt . Owein and seven shadowy kings awaken, but there are nine horses. Just as the Hunt is about to rampage forth looking for their missing member, Finn arrives and takes his place on the ninth horse: this is his Longest Road, riding with the Wild Hunt. The entire company (except for Paul who remains with Darien) journeys to Gwen Ystrat,

6624-692: The site as early as 3000 BC. One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. It has been a legally protected scheduled monument since 1882, when the Ancient Monuments Protection Act was passed in the UK. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO 's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage ;

6716-513: The site for the mid-winter and mid-summer festivals; the evidence showed that the animals had been slaughtered around nine months or 15 months after their spring birth. Strontium isotope analysis of the animal teeth showed that some had been brought from as far afield as the Scottish Highlands for the celebrations. At about the same time, a large timber circle and a second avenue were constructed at Durrington Walls overlooking

6808-457: The spring, Kim and the others go to Stonehenge , where a dream has revealed to Kim she can call on Uther Pendragon to find out where Arthur is buried. She succeeds in raising Uther and extracting from him the name by which Arthur may be summoned. Using the Baelrath, she sends the others to Fionavar and herself to Glastonbury Tor , where she summons Arthur with the name Childslayer. Arthur

6900-476: The stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or hen(c)en ' to hang ' or ' gallows ' or ' instrument of torture ' (though elsewhere in his book, Chippindale cites the ' suspended stones ' etymology). The "henge" portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges . Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology, this

6992-429: The stone was transported some 430 miles (690 km), and thus demonstrates cultural links between Southern England and Northern Scotland. The north-eastern entrance was widened at this time, with the result that it precisely matched the direction of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset of the period. This phase of the monument was abandoned unfinished, however; the small standing stones were apparently removed and

7084-552: The stones and discovered charred wood, animal bones, pottery and urns. He also identified the hole in which the Slaughter Stone once stood. Richard Colt Hoare supported Cunnington's work and excavated some 379 barrows on Salisbury Plain including on some 200 in the area around the Stones, some excavated in conjunction with William Coxe . To alert future diggers to their work, they were careful to leave initialled metal tokens in each barrow they opened. Cunnington's finds are displayed at

7176-460: The stones in Stonehenge, has been found, including a hole from a rock that matches the unusual cross-section of a Stonehenge bluestone "like a key in a lock". Each monolith measures around 6.6 feet (2 m) in height, between 3.3 and 4.9 ft (1 and 1.5 m) wide and around 2.6 feet (0.8 m) thick. What was to become known as the Altar Stone was believed to have been derived from

7268-425: The stones were impossible to move otherwise due to their massive size. However, conventional techniques, using Neolithic technology as basic as shear legs , have been demonstrably effective at moving and placing stones of a similar size. The most common theory of how prehistoric people moved megaliths has them creating a track of logs which the large stones were rolled along. Another megalith transport theory involves

7360-408: The team concluded that the first bluestones brought from Wales were probably used as grave markers. Radiocarbon dating of the remains has put the date of the site 500 years earlier than previously estimated, to around 3000 BC. A 2018 study of the strontium content of the bones found that many of the individuals buried there around the time of construction had probably come from near the source of

7452-467: The temple of Dana, relieved that at least there is no Lancelot and so although she cannot love Arthur, at least she won't betray him. Meanwhile, Darien is growing up unnaturally quickly, like all andain, so Vae, Shahar and Finn move to Ysanne's cottage by the lake. Darien is a loving little boy and devoted to Finn—but he also hears voices in the storm and sometimes unknowingly flexes the power he inherited from his father, which makes his eyes turn red. On

7544-474: The top in order that their perspective remains constant when viewed from the ground, while the lintel stones curve slightly to continue the circular appearance of the earlier monument. The inward-facing surfaces of the stones are smoother and more finely worked than the outer surfaces. The average thickness of the stones is 3.6 feet (1.1 m) and the average distance between them is 3.3 feet (1 m). A total of 75 stones would have been needed to complete

7636-472: The use of a type of sleigh running on a track greased with animal fat. An experiment with a sleigh carrying a 40-ton slab of stone was successfully conducted near Stonehenge in 1995; a team of more than 100 workers managed to push and pull the slab along the 18-mile (29 km) journey from the Marlborough Downs . Proposed functions for the site include usage as an astronomical observatory or as

7728-416: Was a place of the living, whilst Stonehenge was a domain of the dead. A journey along the Avon to reach Stonehenge was part of a ritual passage from life to death, to celebrate past ancestors and the recently deceased. Both explanations were first mooted in the twelfth century by Geoffrey of Monmouth , who extolled the curative properties of the stones and was also the first to advance the idea that Stonehenge

7820-516: Was also added. During the next major phase of activity, 30 enormous Oligocene – Miocene sarsen stones (shown grey on the plan) were brought to the site. They came from a quarry around 16 miles (26 km) north of Stonehenge, in West Woods , Wiltshire . The stones were dressed and fashioned with mortise and tenon joints before 30 sarsens were erected in a circle of standing stones approximately 98 feet (30 m) in diameter, with

7912-523: Was constructed as a funerary monument. There are other hypotheses and theories. According to a team of British researchers led by Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, Stonehenge may have been built as a symbol of "peace and unity", indicated in part by the fact that at the time of its construction, Britain's Neolithic people were experiencing a period of cultural unification. Stonehenge megaliths include smaller bluestones and larger sarsens (a term for silicified sandstone boulders found in

8004-459: Was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 BC. The famous circle of large sarsen stones were placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the bluestones were given their current positions between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at

8096-569: Was identified by its unusual pentagonal shape and by luminescence soil dating from the filled-in sockets which showed the circle had been erected around 3400–3200 BC, and dismantled around 300–400 years later, consistent with the dates attributed to the creation of Stonehenge. The cessation of human activity in that area at the same time suggested migration as a reason, but it is believed that other stones may have come from other sources. The second phase of construction occurred approximately between 2900 and 2600 BC. The number of postholes dating to

8188-413: Was in danger of falling. In straightening the stone he moved it about half a metre from its original position. Gowland also took the opportunity to further excavate the monument in what was the most scientific dig to date, revealing more about the erection of the stones than the previous 100 years of work had done. During the 1920 restoration, William Hawley , who had excavated nearby Old Sarum , excavated

8280-430: Was purposely reduced in height and the ditch continued to silt up. At least twenty-five of the Aubrey Holes are known to have contained later, intrusive, cremation burials dating to the two centuries after the monument's inception. It seems that whatever the holes' initial function, it changed to become a funerary one during Phase two. Thirty further cremations were placed in the enclosure's ditch and at other points within

8372-403: Was that made by Bath architect John Wood in 1740. His original annotated survey has now been computer-redrawn and published. Importantly Wood's plan was made before the collapse of the southwest trilithon, which fell in 1797 and was restored in 1958. William Cunnington was the next to tackle the area in the early nineteenth century. He excavated some 24 barrows before digging in and around

8464-533: Was then still wooded, but, 4,000 years later, during the earlier Neolithic, people built a causewayed enclosure at Robin Hood's Ball , and long barrow tombs in the surrounding landscape. In approximately 3500 BC, a Stonehenge Cursus was built 2,300 feet (700 m) north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the trees and develop the area. Other previously overlooked stone or wooden structures and burial mounds may date as far back as 4000 BC. Charcoal from

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