BCAA Travel Blog

Ascribing meaning to ancient monuments is a tricky business. However, that doesn’t stop archaeologists from trying. Take Stonehenge, for example. This enigmatic circle of pillars on England’s Salisbury Plain, has long fascinated and puzzled academics, as well as the thousands of wide-eyed tourists who visit the site each year. The landmark has been variously described as a celestial observatory, a giant calendar, a royal cemetery, and a landing site for extraterrestrials. In the latest twist, a pair of British researchers has declared that Stonehenge was a Neolithic nursing home for the sick and infirmed, an early precursor to Lourdes.

The findings were announced at a news conference on September 22, by Tim Darvill, of Bournemouth University, and Geoff Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries. The two professors, who recently completed the first archaeological dig inside the ring since 1946, said they believe that Stonehenge was a centre of healing to which the sick and injured travelled from far and wide to be cured by the mystical power of the bluestones, the smaller rocks set in the centre of the monument’s inner ring.

An abnormal number of the corpses found in tombs near Stonehenge display signs of serious physical injury and disease, and analysis of teeth recovered from graves show that around half of the corpses were from people who were not native to the Stonehenge area. “Stonehenge would attract not only people who were unwell, but people who were capable of healing them,” Darvill told the BBC.

All the stones used to build Stonehenge came from far away before reaching the Salisbury Plain. The 17 sarsen stones, or sandstones–left from a set of about 30 that form the outside of the main monument, stand four metres high and weigh about 25 tonnes each–are believed to have been brought from Marlborough Downs, 30 kilometres to the north. However, even more intriguing is the mystery of the bluestones. They came from a quarry in the Preseli Mountains in southwest Wales, nearly 385 kilometres away. How these stones, each weighing four tonnes, arrived at Stonehenge is still debated. Popular theory suggests they were rolled to the Welsh shore, carried on rafts around the coast and into the River Avon at Bristol. They would have then been transported down local rivers and then back to land, where they were once again rolled to Salisbury Plain.

Originally, there may have been as many as 60 bluestones, but only a few still stand today. The stones were placed in such a way that they increased in size towards the centre and alternated in shape between tall, thin pillar-like stones and stones of a tapering obelisk shape. These bluestones are now severely weathered and covered in lichen. They may not look blue now, but if freshly broken most would have a slate-blue colour.

Why were they brought here? Darvill and Wainwright contend it was because the ancients were convinced that the stones had magical healing power, a belief that persisted into the Middle Ages. “The stones meaning and importance to prehistoric people were sufficiently powerful to warrant the investment of time, effort and resources to move them from the Preseli Hills to the Wessex Downs,” Darvill said. The professors claim that these hills were home to healing centres and holy wells for thousands of years and that a river running through the Preseli Hills had been dammed to create pools for the sick to bathe in. Nearby prehistoric art and burial cairns strengthens the connection between Stonehenge and healing properties. Interestingly, the excavation this spring unearthed hundreds of small fragments of bluestone seemingly taken as lucky charms by visitors to Salisbury Plain.

The research team also pinpointed the construction of the inner circle at Stonehenge to 2,300 B.C. The date correlates with the grave of the so-called Amesbury Archer, an adult male with a healed head wound and an injured left leg who was excavated in 2002. The radiocarbon date is said to be the most accurate yet and means the ring’s original bluestones were erected 300 years later than previously thought. By dating fragments of charcoal to 7,330 B.C, the team also found that hunter-gatherers were here 4,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The findings of Darvill and Wainwright, intriguing as they may be, won’t likely end the debate about Stonehenge’s true purpose. And when you consider its construction went through several phases and spanned 2,000 years, it is probable that the site had several uses. But personally I’m not putting any money on the spaceship landing pad theory.  

 

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