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A plan of the Y and Z Hole circuits at Stonehenge in relation to the central stone structure. The Y and Z Holes are two rings of concentric (though irregular) circuits of 30 and 29 near-identical pits cut around the outside of the Sarsen Circle at Stonehenge. The current view is that both circuits are contemporary.
The Station Stones are elements of the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge. Originally there were four stones, resembling the four corners of a rectangle that straddles the inner sarsen circle, set just inside Stonehenge's surrounding bank. Two stood on earth mounds at opposing corners, one corner broadly in the north of the site and one in the ...
The name 'cursus' was suggested in 1723 by William Stukeley, the antiquarian, who compared the Stonehenge cursus to a Roman chariot-racing track, or circus. [3] Stonehenge Cursus, Wiltshire. Cursuses range in length from 50 yards (46 m) to almost 6 miles (9.7 km). The distance between the parallel earthworks can be up to 100 yards (91 m).
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, a feature unique among ...
The word henge is a backformation from Stonehenge, the famous monument in Wiltshire. [5] Stonehenge is not a true henge, as its ditch runs outside its bank, although there is a small extant external bank as well. The term was first coined in 1932 by Thomas Kendrick, who later became the Keeper of British Antiquities at the British Museum.
This is the first evidence for any unambiguous alignment at Stonehenge (the solstice axis). The analysis of the spacing between the Q and R array, and that of the modified (inset) portal group (Fig.3) imply a shift from an angular splay of 9 degrees (i.e. 40 settings) to 12 degrees, the same as that of the later 30 Sarsen Circle.
Many interpretations prefer an astronomical explanation for the purpose of the holes although this is by no means proved. It was formerly thought that when the Aubrey holes were first dug, the only standing feature at Stonehenge was the Heelstone, which marked the point of the midsummer sunrise, viewed from the centre of the henge.
Stonehenge is effectively Britain's largest third millennium BC cemetery, containing 52 cremation burials and many other fragments of both burnt and unburnt bone. [6] Many of the cremation deposits contained more than one individual, so that an estimate of the number of people buried here during that period may be between 150 and 240.