Building Stonehenge

_Elsa_

“So how was it built?” asks Jean-Luc. “Those stones had to be so heavy to move!”

‘Stonehenge was built in a number of stages. Around 3000 BC an earthwork enclosure was built, consisting of a circular bank and ditch. Around 500 years later, the stones were brought to the site and erected; these were mainly large sarsens from the nearby Marlborough Downs and smaller bluestones quarried in Wales.

The sarsens were shaped using sarsen hammerstones, whilst the harder bluestones were used in rougher state. Around 2200 BC the bluestones were rearranged, and around 1750 BC carvings started to be made on the upright sarsens. Read on for some of the key facts.

• 83 – the total number of stones at the Stonehenge site.

• 2 – the number of stone types used to build at Stonehenge: the bluestones (the smaller stones which were brought first), and the sarsens (the larger stones, brought later).

• 30 miles – the approximate distance (48 km) to the Marlborough Downs, from where the sarsen stones were transported.

• 10 years – the estimated time it would have taken to drag all of the sarsen stones to the monument site.

• 500 km² – the area over which the sarsen stones lay at the time Stonehenge was built.

• 10 years – estimated time it would have taken 10 masons to prepare all of the megaliths used to build Stonehenge.

• 2 – the number of entrances to the original monument, a small entrance to the south and a wider one at the north east.

• 1901 – the year that antler picks and hammerstones were found at the site, by mining engineer William Gowland, who had been called in to restore the site following the collapse of one of the stones.’ (Source)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzamrC8Rjfc

‘The first monument - The first monument at Stonehenge was a circular earthwork enclosure, built in about 3000 BC. A ditch was dug with simple antler tools, and the chalk piled up to make an inner and an outer bank. Within the ditch was a ring of 56 timber or stone posts. The monument was used as a cremation cemetery for several hundred years.

In about 2500 BC the site was transformed by the construction of the central stone settings. Enormous sarsen stones and smaller bluestones were raised to form a unique monument. Building Stonehenge took huge effort from hundreds of well-organised people.’ (Source)

“I don’t understand how they were able to move those stones,” Jean-Luc says.

The man tells him that he’s getting to that now.

Let’s continue - Transporting and raising the stones

Start at the beginning – Jean-Luc time travels to the Stonehenge