Team Carta: Stonehenge! And Woodhenge?

Monday, September 16, 2019

Stonehenge! And Woodhenge?

Stonehenge

One of Christine's top destinations on our drive north was Stonehenge.

It has always intrigued her and seemed like a wonderfully unique experience for the children. It was also a good reason to rent a car as it really is out in the middle of farm fields. While it does have a nicely developed visitor's center, the main arrival option is paid tour bus. It is visible from the road (see it there past Dave!) and you can walk in for fee along some public access roads. However, without the audio guide and interpretive displays at the visitor's center, it would not have been nearly as educational for the children. By purchasing a family English Heritage membership, we additionally gained access to many more historical sights in England by spending only a little more.

"Henge" is actually the name archaeologists give to monuments that have an earthworks consisting of a circular embankment with an internal ditch. Ironically, at Stonehenge the ditch is on the outside of the embankment.

Each of us got our own audio guides to help us navigate and learn about this site from 3000 BC.

Of course, one of the wonders of Stonehenge is how the ancient peoples brought the stones here. Based on the types of stone and the possible sources, the stones were brought from quarries 25 - 150 miles away. As an example of how many people it would have taken to move the stones even with the help of rolling logs, they have this display that measures how hard you pull and shows how many more people you would need tugging with you to move the stone. As I recall, it said the boys would need 20 more men to move it! Also of note, this stone had to be a stand-in because there are no more chunks of this kind of stone big enough today to make another like you'd find at Stonehenge.

How did they get here?? Well they clearly had more manpower than we did!

The boys learned about tools and living circumstances for the people who visited Stonehenge, likely on pilgrimages. Archaeologists have found many clues to the past. Pottery shards indicate significant trading from far away parts of the UK as people traveled to visit this site. Other remains, such as many many bones of nine month old pigs, point to rituals and feasts that took place here.

Stonehenge actually changed and evolved in shape and layout over several centuries with stones being added or moved. It's thought it took up to 1500 years before it stayed at the current design. These neat metal replicas show how the designs likely changed.

This is how it stands today, with some parts fallen over the years; a smiley face! Or maybe that was what it was supposed to be all along. Nobody knows!

Woodhenge

We had never heard of Woodhenge - had you? We definitely enjoyed exploring this monument discovered by aerial survey in 1926! Originally it had wood posts, but short cement posts now mark the three concentric circles.