These models in the Visitor Center are really useful for understanding what Stonehenge looked like in 2500 BC and what it looks like today. It consisted of trilithons—two standing stones topped with a lintel—in a rough horseshoe shape, surrounded by a ring of smaller bluestones. The sarsen stones (sarsen is a kind of sandstone common in southern England) in the outer circle are each about thirteen feet high and seven feet wide. Most incredibly, the lintels on top of those stones were connected with mortise and tenon joints. How did they do that?
In the model on the left you can really see the ditch and banks surrounding the site, which were built hundreds of years before the stones were put in place, and are quite impressive on their own—we climbed the bank to see the view on our way to the stones. The “henge” in Stonehenge probably originally meant to hang, but is now used by archaeologists to refer to any circular ditch and bank. We saw another one at Avebury later that day.
In the model on the left you can really see the ditch and banks surrounding the site, which were built hundreds of years before the stones were put in place, and are quite impressive on their own—we climbed the bank to see the view on our way to the stones. The “henge” in Stonehenge probably originally meant to hang, but is now used by archaeologists to refer to any circular ditch and bank. We saw another one at Avebury later that day.
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