Stonehenge Remodelled (2012) [pdf]
cambridge.org
cambridge.org
Also, if anyone finds themselves in southwest England, I would recommend against visiting Stonehenge. Getting a sense of scale of the stones that these neolithic people moved hundreds of miles to the site is great, but the sheer mass of people surrounding you while you look at these stones is too much to bear. And then there's that highway that runs about 200' from the site, which certainly doesn't add to the ambience.
The road you speak of got closed, and totally removed, some years back [1].
Only the bluestones are believed to come from hundreds of miles away, the sandstone is believed to have been sourced more locally — still an impressive feat: but the bluestones are the smaller stones in the assembly, being less than 1/10th of the weight of the stones that the trilithons are comprised of.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-23026522
To be honest I don’t think the Stonehenge is a particularly memorable day out either. I get how it’s an incredible accomplishment given when it was built but it’s a pretty underwhelming experience to visit. Personally I consider it one of those rare occasions where pictures of it actually do it justice (usually you find pictures can barely capture the magnificence of historic or cultural landmarks)
No roads can really be seen from the stones, nor on the approach to them. Sure, you can sometimes hear distant traffic on the A303, if the wind is blowing the right/wrong way. But the previous road was indeed just a few hundred feet away as OP stated, and was busy, with vehicles driving past one stone (the Heel Stone) that was literally on the verge of the road by only a couple of feet.
I suppose the whole point comes down to how 'close' is close? The previous road was a hundred-odd feet away, and literally went right past a big stone, by a couple of feet. That road was indeed close.
The A303 by comparison, is not particularly close IMO. It's far enough away that on many days one cannot even hear it. You cannot really see the road, but you can see vehicles (tops of cars, top half of trucks). It's far enough away that if one holds their thumb up, at arms' length, one can easily hide a truck's length completely behind it. Do other folk think that is close then? Seems so. I guess it's relative isn't it.
But IMO that's not particularly close - particularly as our initial/primary comparator here was the road that ran right past the monument.
I agree that it would be better if the 303 wasn't there / wasn't in a tunnel, of course.
There’s thousands of parks and other beauty spots in the U.K. which are far more memorable and to which you can spend hours strolling around, take kids of all ages to, and generally enjoy a day out at. The Stonehenge, while historically significant, is an anticlimactic tourist attraction and an even worse beauty spot.
But maybe if/when they build a tunnel for the A303 they might then do more with the available space and so it becomes more of a family attraction rather “just” a monument.
Could there be an amount FOMO involved as in if you do not work with us then something will happen?
Almost all religions have Gods practicing forms of punishment and promises of heavenly rewards. Certain offering customs of the Aztecs were extremely cruel to people.
Then we also know people came even from Europe traveling 2000 km to visit this place for a specific event. There must have been a real exciting opportunity for spectators to experience when traveling such a vast distance. Just cremating dead bodies of local people that naturally died in that period wouldn't be interesting & controversial enough to attend.
Is Stonehenge a ritual site where people where cremated alive as a punishment for not doing enough work in building monument?
Can you elaborate more on that?
I can't find the specific article anymore about this being a celebrated event and people traveling from far. It could be I reversed the causal relation and the new builders just happend to be migrating anyway.
The setup of Stonehenge does have a remarkable coincidence with the longest & shortest day of the year.It was also a long held belief druids build Stonehenge for sacrificial offerings but that didn't match the actual timeline of their migration.
Considering all builders of Stonehenge were farmers and highly dependent on seasonality, I personally wouldn't be surprised that the stones were used to put people on top and offered in a light of fire so the gods could make changing of the seasons happen. What do you think?
Good fences make good neighbors.
With that said, I did find Avebury much nicer as you can touch the stones there!
"Where's the rest of it?" I asked.
John was baffled. "The rest of it? That's all there is."
"Oh come on: I know that Stonehenge has more than one stone."
He looked at me with a confused pain, wondering if I was truly that daft, or merely affecting the pose.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easby_Moor#Captain_Cook's_Monu...