Archaeology & History

The true purpose of Stonehenge may have finally been found

By T.K. Randall
December 23, 2024 ·  3 comments

Stonehenge helped to unify the people of the British Isles. Image Credit: PD - Erwin Bosman Sitting isolated among the green fields of the Wiltshire countryside, Stonehenge - which dates back many thousands of years, remains one of the world's most enduring and intriguing monuments.

Although its exact purpose has long remained a topic of debate, we do know that it held spiritual and ritualistic significance for the people of the British Isles over the millennia and would have also served as a form of astronomical calendar with the stones aligning with sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice.

With the recent discovery that the giant altar stone in the center of the circle had been transported hundreds of miles from modern day Scotland, researchers now believe that Stonehenge served another purpose too - bringing together and unifying people from across the land."Travel by land would have provided much better opportunities for spectacle, pageantry, feasting and celebration that would have drawn people in (the) thousands to witness and take part in this extraordinary venture," the researchers wrote.

This also suggests that the people of the time were a lot more connected than previously believed.

"The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions, making it unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose - as a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos," said study lead author Mike Parker Pearson.

Source: Independent | Comments (3)

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