This time it is England friends. Stonehenge, a World Heritage site eight miles north of Salisbury in Wiltshire, is one of the world's most famous prehistoric monuments. The reason it has such a name is that it is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. English word ‘stan’ means stone and ‘hencg’ means hinge. More than nine hundred stone rings exist there, and archaeologists estimate that twice that number may originally have been built. Though it is nearly impossible to precisely date the stone rings, scholars believe the standing stones were erected around 2200 BC and the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. These megalithic structures should be referred to as rings rather than circles since only 2 percent of the structures are in the shape of true circles; the other 98 percent are constructed in a variety of elliptical shapes.
But who built it?
Why did they build it?
More than 5000 years ago, technology was merely known to mankind.
Then how did they build it?
A walk around Stonehenge only provokes more and strange feelings, more and more queries to be answered. It taunts us with its mystery. For over 5000 years it has stood silent vigil over the earth. It has been excavated, x-rayed, measured, and surveyed. Yet despite all that has been learned about its age and construction, its purpose still remains one of the great mysteries of the world. People believe that Stonehenge was used to predicting events of the night sky, although it’s probably a futile effort to try to understand the motives behind the construction.
The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 in a co-listing with Avebury henge monument, and it is also a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. Stonehenge itself is owned by the State and managed by English Heritage while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.
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