AMESBURY, ENGLAND — The mysterious circle of stones that rises on Salisbury Plain near here has stood as an archaeological marvel for thousands of years, its origins and purpose shrouded in the mists of history.
But a just-completed excavation of Stonehenge, the first within the ancient circle in more than 40 years, could provide some of the first reliable explanations for one of the greatest wonders of the prehistoric world.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, May 16, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 71 words Type of Material: Correction
Stonehenge dig: An article in the May 4 Section A about an archaeological excavation at Stonehenge had a wrong word in a quote from Tim Darvill, one of the dig's directors: "You can make the analogy with a medieval cathedral -- it's a bog-standard Paris church until they get those relics, and at that point it becomes a beautiful, marvelous building." The quote should have read, "it's a bog-standard parish church."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, May 18, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 71 words Type of Material: Correction
Stonehenge dig: An article in Section A on May 4 about an archaeological excavation at Stonehenge had a wrong word in a quote from Tim Darvill, one of the dig's directors: "You can make the analogy with a medieval cathedral -- it's a bog-standard Paris church until they get those relics, and at that point it becomes a beautiful, marvelous building." The quote should have read, "it's a bog-standard parish church."
A team of British archaeologists hopes to prove its theory that nearly 4,000 years ago Stonehenge was regarded not as a place of sacrament for the dead, but as a temple with healing powers.
The dig is looking closely at the 82 bluestones -- a double circle of large rocks, some weighing as much as 4 tons, that were brought in during the second stage of Stonehenge, the first stone construction at the site that began about 2150 BC.
About 150 years later, these were rearranged and encircled by much larger sarsen stones that have become iconic of Stonehenge.
Yet it is the bluestones, somehow hauled to the Salisbury Plain from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, Wales, that researchers say hold the key to the mystery.
Although the researchers found to their dismay that the area they examined had been tampered with in Roman times, they still hope the excavations will help show that the bluestones were once viewed as having therapeutic powers.
Stonehenge's legends have been many. Some have said the devil bought the stones from a woman in Ireland; another story suggests they were placed on the plain by the fabled wizard Merlin; others have claimed that aliens built the monument and left it as a place for worship, or that Druids built it as a temple for sacrificial ceremonies.
"You could put 10 archaeologists in a room and you'd get at least 11 theories," said Dr. Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex Archaeology, a firm involved in the excavation, which was approved by English Heritage, which manages Stonehenge.
"I think the one thing everybody would agree on is that Stonehenge is a temple, which is easy to lose sight of in the kind of to-ing and fro-ing of ideas."
But the recent realization that the site contained stones from mountains 250 miles away in Wales shed new light on Stonehenge's origins.
Tim Darvill, a professor at the University of Bournemouth, and Geoff Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries of London, have spent the last six years researching Stonehenge and the rocky outcrop Carn Menyn, thought to be the site in the Preseli Hills from which the bluestones were taken.
