History of Stonehenge Architecture - Techniques, Design And Myth

History of Stonehenge Architecture : Stonehenge is perhaps the world’s most famous prehistoric monument. They built it in several stages. The first monument was an early henge monument. They built it about 5,000 years ago. But they built the unique stone circle in the late Neolithic period about 2500 BC. Yes. In the early Bronze Age, they built many burial mounds nearby.

Today, together with Avebury, Stonehenge forms the heart of a World Heritage Site. Also, it has a unique concentration of prehistoric monuments.

It is one of the most recognizable monuments of the Neolithic world. It is also one of the most popular monuments with over one million visitors a year. People come to see this because it is so impossibly big and so impossibly old. Yes. Some are searching for a connection with a prehistoric past. Some come to witness the workings of this massive structure. Yes. The people living in the fourth millennium B.C.E. who began work on Stonehenge were contemporary with the first dynasties of Ancient Egypt, and their efforts predate the building of the Pyramids. What they created has endured millennia and still intrigues us today. We tried to cover the most information you need to know. Continue reading to know more.

What is Stonehenge?

Myths covered Stonehenge’s origins and purpose. It still remains one of the world’s great mysteries. Who designed it? How did it come to be? When did they construct it? And, above all, the most intriguing. What was the purpose of Stonehenge? The following are eleven Stonehenge facts that attempt to explain these age-old questions.

Stonehenge is unique because it is the only one of its kind in the world. It is located in Wiltshire, England, 2 miles west of Amesbury and 8 miles north of Salisbury, on a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its massive stones may be seen for miles. Although only about half of the amazing building survives, it is a symbol of Britain’s past. It dates from before ancient Egypt built its first pyramids.

Stonehenge Architecture History

Archaeologists think that people built Stonehenge between 3000 and 2000 BC. The earliest phase of the monument consists of a circular earth wall and ditch. They dated it to around 3100 BC. They erected the first bluestones between 2400 and 2200 BC. According to radiocarbon dating, they could have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.

Stonehenge is a British cultural symbol and one of the most well-known landmarks in the UK. Then, in 1882 the government of Britain passed the law to protect historic monuments successfully. Since then, it became a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Then, in 1986, UNESCO placed the site and its surroundings on its list of World Heritage Sites. The National Trust owns the surrounding land. Now the English Heritage owns the Crown and maintains it.

From the outset, it could have been a burial cemetery. They found human bone deposits while excavating the ditch and bank. It was back in 3000 BC. It continued for at least another 500 years.

Stonehenge Architecture First stage: 3000–2935 BCE

Stage I

Between 3000 and 2935 BCE, they built the oldest component of the Stonehenge monument. It consists of a more than 330-foot-diameter circular cage. A high bank and a low bank, or counterscarp, border the enclosure’s ditch on the inside and outside, respectively.

The outer bank has a diameter of 270 feet. The ditch measures 300 feet in diameter. Similarly, the inner bank has a diameter of 330 feet. The circle of Aubrey Holes has a circumference of 360 long feet. There were two entrances to the circular perimeter. The major entrance is in the northeast, whereas the southern entrance is narrower.

They found human cremation burials within and around the majority of the holes. They also found those within the surrounding ditch and bank. The majority of the burials were of adult males. They also found additional chunks of unburned human bone. Also, they found them dispersed throughout Stonehenge. They removed the stones from Bluestonehenge later and likely transported them to Stonehenge.

We spotted the majority of Stonehenge’s original 45 bluestones dolerite from southwest Wales, notably the Preseli Mountains. They think other rhyolites, rhyolitic tuff, volcanic ash, and dolerite stones came from the same area.

Stage II

However, in 2011, they identified Pont, north of the Preselis, as a source for one of the rhyolites. The Altar Stone and two other sandstone monoliths likely came from the Brecon Beacons. It was a collection of mountains about 60 miles (100 km) east of the Preseli range.

Most experts believe that humans brought the Welsh stones. Whereas some geologists insist that ice-age glaciers may have taken them thousands of years earlier to the Salisbury Plain.

The Heelstone is a massive unworked sarsen outside the northeastern entrance. They placed them during Stonehenge’s first stage, if not earlier. Furthermore, they assumed rows of timber-post holes within the circular enclosure’s northeastern entrance to date from this period. The posts included within them may have served to record the moon’s movement near its northern main limit.

Stonehenge Architecture Second stage: 2640–2480 BCE

Between Stonehenge’s first and second periods of building, there is no trace of activity except for human burials. They imported sarsen stones from the Avebury area of the Marlborough Downs around 2500 BCE. To the north, about 20 miles. They were smoothed outside the northeastern entrance by beating with sarsen hammers. They then put them in a horseshoe-shaped configuration of five tall trilithons inside the circle. The central and largest is known as the huge trilithon. It is surrounded by 30 uprights that are connected to form a circle by curved lintels.

Height & Weight of Stones of Stonehenge Architecture

The stones appear to have been set out systematically in long foot units and subunits; the sarsen circle’s circumference is 300 long feet. Mortise-and-tenon (dovetail) joints hold the lintels. It weighs around 7 tonnes apiece, on top of the uprights. On other hand, tongue-and-groove joints hold the curving lintels of the sarsen circle together.

All of the joints were made with hammer stones, supposedly to resemble wooden. The majority of the sarsen uprights are roughly 25 tonnes and 18 feet (5.5 metres) tall. The huge trilithon’s uprights, on the other hand, were 29 feet and 32 feet tall. It weighed more than 45 tonnes.

Circles of Stonehenge Architecture

Two concentric timber circles were created within a huge hamlet around 2 miles (3 km) northeast of the Stonehenge monument around the same period as the sarsens. The Southern Circle, for example, was built in the centre of a historic village of tiny homes. The smaller Northern Circle was constructed on the settlement’s north flank.

In 2004–07, they dug nine buildings with plans up to 18 feet square were dug as part of a 42-acre village. The village could have supported up to 1,000 similar units. The builders’ camp is likely to have been this seasonally populated and short-lived village. The bank and ditch of Britain’s biggest henge enclosure, Durrington Walls, encircled its ruins by 2460 BCE. Woodhenge, a third concentric timber circle, stood outside its south entrance.

Stonehenge Architecture Third stage: 2470–2280 BCE

Between 2470 and 2280 BCE, the side ditches and banks of a ceremonial avenue over 2 miles (3 km) long were dug from Stonehenge to the River Avon, according to radiocarbon dating. The avenue may follow the course of the bluestones that were moved from the Aubrey Holes and Bluestonehenge to the Q and R holes during Stonehenge’s second stage of construction.

The avenue is 60 to 115 feet (18 to 35 metres) wide and ends with a tiny henge on the riverbank. After the bluestones at its centre were removed, this henge was erected, measuring 100 feet (30 metres) in circumference.

The first 1,600 feet (500 metres) of the avenue from Stonehenge are aligned with the summer and winter solstices dawn and sunset. Holes drilled in 2008 revealed that this section of the avenue’s banks was built on top of pre-existing natural chalk ridges that happened to be aligned with the solstitial equinox.

They created a similar avenue, roughly 560 feet long and 100 feet wide between the Southern Circle and the River Avon at Durrington Walls in 2500 BCE. It remained in use for several centuries. They aligned the summer solstice sunset with Durrington Avenue. They also aligned the winter solstice dawn with the Southern Circle. This social alignment raised the hypothesis that they created Stonehenge and Durrington as complementary sides of a single complex.

Stonehenge Architecture Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth stages: 2280–1520 BCE

Between 2280 and 2030 BCE, the fourth stage of Stonehenge’s construction took place. They adjusted the bluestones to form a circle and an inner oval around 2200 BCE. Atkinson speculated that they later transformed the inner oval to form a horseshoe in prehistory. However, this alteration might have occurred as a result of Roman stone removal or later stone-robbing.

Between 2030 and 1750 BCE, they dug a ring of trenches that we know as the Z Holes. They dug it outside the sarsen circle during Stonehenge’s fifth stage. Between 1640 and 1520 BCE, the second ring of pits known as the Y Holes was dug during the monument’s sixth and final stage of construction. The precise dates of such occurrences may only be determined via radiocarbon dating, as with all other methods.

The precise dates of such occurrences may only be estimated within decades, if not centuries, as with any radiocarbon dating.

Stonehenge Architecture Techniques

The fact that they didn’t build Stonehenge overnight does not in any way diminish the scale of the undertaking. But how could Neolithic society have achieved this? Given the sheer size and weight of the stones, what ingenious devices do they employ? And what of the stones?

They are not typical of the local geology- indeed. They traced the source of the first excavated bluestones to the Preseli Mountains of southwest Wales. Somehow they transported these enormous stones to the Salisbury Plains. The stones were surely too heavy for timber rollers. Perhaps they transported them on sledges, on greased tracks of wood. They pulled it using a rope that they made from the plant fibre of the indigenous lime bark. They soaked them in water for weeks. Modern engineering simulations have surmised that they dragged massive uprights into place and then tilted it. They used stone counterweights in a position demonstrating an understanding of the centre of gravity.

The technology was staggering. For example, even though the ground is slightly sloping, the lintels are perfectly horizontal. The craftsmen employed carpentry techniques. They dressed lintels with mortises that would have fitted securely onto the tenons on top of the supporting sarsens. On the other hand, tongues similar to toggle joints linked each lintel in the outer circle to its neighbour. It was in effect an enormous three dimensional stone puzzle.

To get the 9-ton lintels into place, the most likely method of construction may have been via the use of an earth ramp piled up against the uprights. The ropes would have dragged lintels up to the ramp into their exact position.

Whatever the methods used, we are still not certain about it. They demonstrated an astounding level of both achievement and ambition.

Stonehenge Architecture Design

After the final build phase in 2100 BC, the outer circle of the monument formed. Enormous blocks of sarsen stone formed it. Immediately within the sarsen circle are smaller upright stones. We call it bluestones. Inside the bluestone circle is a horseshoe arrangement of five trilithons. Made of sarsen stones each trilithon consists of two uprights topped by a horizontal lintel. The trilithons are unique to Stonehenge, and their purpose and intent are unknown. At the center is the Altar Stone. It is neither sarsen nor bluestone. Therefore, it may have had a special significance for the builders of Stonehenge.

Stonehenge Architecture Elements

They made the largest stones out of sarsen. It is likely of local origin no more than 24 miles away at Marlborough Downs. But each of these stones weighs up to 50 tons which is as heavy as about six elephants. It remains an enduring mystery as to how precisely they moved them. Especially through the marshes, valleys, and woodland. Spotted dolerite made the smaller more ancient bluestones.

It is a volcanic rock that one can only find in one place in Britain, Preseli Mountains. It is in South Wales. There has been a big controversy about how our prehistoric ancestors got the bluestones. Stones that weigh up to four tons each such a vast distance, more than 125 miles away. One theory is that they brought them downriver through the Bristol Channel on prehistoric rafts. After that, they dragged them overland by teams of men and oxen.

Stonehenge Architecture Principles

The word Stonehenge is early English and translates literally into hanging stones. They have given the “Henge” suffix to numerous monuments in the British Isles. They use it as a generic term describing any prehistoric circular earthwork enclosed by a bank and a ditch. The irony is Stonehenge doesn’t quite fit the definition.

There is still no consensus as to precisely why people built Stonehenge. But it was likely a ceremonial center where people gathered for ritual and festivity. In 1965, professor G. Hawkins put forward a belief that people built Stonehenge to mark significant times of the year. Especially the approach and arrival of the summer and winter solstices, the longest and shortest days of the year. And experts now agree that they aligned the axis of Stonehenge solstice and that was almost certainly deliberate. This suggests that Stonehenge was a solar temple.

Stonehenge Architecture Style

We know Stonehenge mainly for its cultural contribution to Neolithic architectural design. The site also features a certain amount of rock art, such as carvings and engravings. The local enormous sarsen stones were three times harder than granite. Yet they had to break it using the ancient stonemasons, the only tools the builders had at the time. They made this using bone, stone, and wood. So shaping them would have taken many years. They sunk the upright sarsen base deep into the ground. Then, it faded at the top to form lumps. It fit hollows on the bottom of the lintels similar to carpentry style joints. Amazingly the top of the lintel is perfectly level to within inches even though the ground below them is uneven. Precisely how they raised these enormous stones into place remains speculation, but most likely using a system of levers.

Stonehenge Architecture in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Stonehenge Architecture in the Late 1800

In 1897, the Ministry of Defence bought a vast tract of land on Salisbury Plain for army training exercises. Since then activities of the military have had an impact on the area. They established barracks, firing ranges, field hospitals, airfields and light railways. Some of these, such as the First World War Stonehenge airfield, have long since been demolished. Others, such as the Larkhill airfield sheds, still stand and are important in the history of early military aviation.

Stonehenge Architecture in Late 1800 to Early 1900

Meanwhile, the introduction of turnpike roads and the railway to Salisbury brought many more visitors to Stonehenge. From the 1880s, they propped up various stones with timber poles. Later, concern for the safety of visitors grew when an outer sarsen upright and its lintel fell in 1900. The then owner, with the help of the SA, organised the re-erection of the leaning tallest trilithon in 1901.

The monument remained in private ownership until 1918. In 1918, the new owner of Stonehenge gave it to the nation. He bought that from the Atrobus family at an auction three years previously. Thereafter, the duty to conserve the monument fell to the state. Nowadays English Heritage performs the act.

Stonehenge Architecture in Mid 1900

From 1927, the National Trust began to acquire the land around Stonehenge to preserve it and restore it to grassland. Large areas of the Stonehenge landscape are now in their ownership. More recent improvements to the landscape happened. They removed the old visitor facilities. They closed the section of the old A344 that ran close to the stones – have begun the process of returning Stonehenge to an open grassland setting. There is more that we can do. English Heritage welcomes government plans to invest in a tunnel. This would remove much of the busy A303 and help reconnect the monument to its ancient landscape.

This was the start of a sequence of campaigns to conserve and restore Stonehenge. They consolidated the last stones in 1964.

FAQs on Stonehenge Architecture

What are the solstice celebrations at Stonehenge?

For many, Stonehenge is a spiritual and magical place, and for two of the most sacred days for Pagans, Druids, and Witches, thousands of people gather around the Stonehenge monument. On the summer solstice celebrations and watch dawn break on the longest day of the year. On the winter solstice, the celebration takes place after the longest night of the year, looking ahead to the start of spring which marks the “rebirth of the sun.” It told the people that the cycle of life would soon begin again. That soon it would be time to plant and the earth would bloom again.

What kind of architecture is Stonehenge?

Neolithic architectural design. We know Stonehenge mainly for its cultural contribution to Neolithic architectural design. The site also features a certain amount of rock art, such as carvings and engravings. The local enormous sarsen stones were three times harder than granite. Yet they had to break it using the ancient stonemasons, the only tools the builders had at the time. They made this using bone, stone, and wood. So shaping them would have taken many years. They sunk the upright sarsen base deep into the ground. Then, it faded at the top to form lumps. It fit hollows on the bottom of the lintels similar to carpentry style joints. Amazingly the top of the lintel is perfectly level to within inches even though the ground below them is uneven. Precisely how they raised these enormous stones into place remains speculation, but most likely using a system of levers.

What is the architectural technique in Stonehenge?

They are not typical of the local geology- indeed. The archaeologist tracked the first erected bluestones. They are of the Preseli Mountains of southwest Wales. Somehow they transported these enormous stones to the Salisbury Plains. The stones were surely too heavy for timber rollers. Perhaps they transported them on sledges, on greased tracks of wood, pulled by a rope. Ropes that they had made from the plant fibre of the indigenous lime bark. They soaked the fibre in water for weeks. Modern engineering simulations have surmised that they hauled the massive uprights into place and then tipped it. They used stone counterweights, into position, demonstrating an understanding of the centre of gravity.

What are 10 interesting facts about Stonehenge?

First, it is really big.
The people who created it left no written records.
We assume that it was a burial ground.
They brought some of the stones from nearly 200 miles away.
We know them as “ringing rocks”.
There is an Arthurian legend about Stonehenge.
They excavated the body of a decapitated man from the site.
They produced the earliest known realistic painting of Stonehenge in the 16th century.
It was the cause of a battle in 1985.
It attracts more than a million visitors a year.

What is Stonehenge architecture?

What materials were used to build Stonehenge Architecture?

It is a volcanic rock that one can only find in one place in Britain, Preseli Mountains. It is in South Wales. There has been a big controversy about how our prehistoric ancestors got the bluestones. Stones that weigh up to four tons each are such a vast distance, more than 125 miles away. One theory is that they brought them downriver through the Bristol Channel on prehistoric rafts. After that, they dragged them overland by teams of men and oxen.