Located about 90 miles west of London, Stonehenge is one of the world’s most famous and mysterious prehistoric monuments. Built around the same time as Egypt’s Great Pyramid, this complex of giant stones, some weighing up to 30 tons, has captivated archaeologists and historians for more than a thousand years .
Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
Stonehenge was built before the wheel was even invented, making its construction even more mysterious. In response, some wild theories have sprung up. One text from the 12th century depicts a giant from the Nephilim race helping the wizard Merlin erect the stones. A popular book from the 1960s suggested that Stonehenge (along with the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids) was actually built using alien technology.
The first ship to cross the isthmus of Panama went not by sea but by land: The paddlewheel steamship Explorer was taken apart and transported by rail, an effort that generated “more trouble than profit,” according to one account.
From gatherings at Stonehenge in the UK to celebrations of the triumph of Mithra in Iran, cultures around the world have marked the shortest day of the year in a variety of ways for a very long time. Here are eight known to us today that endure.
If you ask archaeologist Mike Pitts, the leading theories about how Stonehenge was built are all wrong. Instead of using wooden rollers to transport the sarsen stones, he suspects stone-age builders used sleds, and that they raised them not with long ropes but rather with the same technique islanders used to raise the big stone heads on Easter Island.
Back in the day, access to Stonehenge was free and open to all; families would picnic there, and there was even a Woodstock-inspired music festival that drew up to 100,000 attendees. Then, in 1985, Margaret Thatcher put the kibosh on the festival, blocking off road access and calling in 1,300 riot police to violently arrest festival goers. This documentary features footage from that day. People have been largely banned from the central part of the monument ever since, except on solstices and equinoxes.
Every year, some 15,000 people make the pilgrimage to Stonehenge to watch the sunrise on the summer solstice. And hundreds of thousands more watch the event from home, live-streamed on YouTube. Among those that attend solstice celebrations in person are neo-druids in white hooded robes, performing spiritual ceremonies among the stones.
Prehistoric people approached Stonehenge via a route archaeologists call “The Avenue.” If they stood in the center of the circle and looked back down the Avenue on the summer solstice, they’d see the sunrise framed by the large sarsen stones. If you can’t visit Stonehenge in person, this interactive 3D virtual tour—complete with sidebars and video explainers—is the next best thing.
What is a henge anyway? Where did the theory that aliens built it come from? How did some guy manage to buy Stonehenge as a gift for his wife for only £6,000? Host Greg Jenner breaks down the big questions about Stonehenge on this comedic history podcast from BBC Radio 4, with help from stand-up comedian Richard Herring and archaeologist Susan Greaney.
If you can’t quite picture how human beings managed to lug 30-ton stones over miles of prehistoric English countryside and stand them up, this short animation from English Heritage can help. The Stone Age engineering involved using giant wooden rollers and carving precisely interlocking tongue-and-groove joints to hold the heavy stones in place.
At the University of Salford, acoustics researcher Trevor Cox has been doing sound experiments on a scale model of Stonehenge that he keeps inside a soundproof studio. He found that the monument had concert-hall acoustics, which might tell us something about why it was built. A BBC video crew visited Cox’s office for a demonstration of its special sound.
Weave together the many narratives of world history with our highly curated and expanding selection of diverse, fascinating resources designed to showcase the breadth and richness of Earth's story, from the earliest traces of human civilization to the dramatic developments of contemporary cultures.