Stonehenge

Saturday June 26, 2010

The next day we had two goals.  To get to Stonhenge in the morning and the Costwolds by the afternoon.  This was to be my second day of driving.  I was glad to have had a driving free day the day before.  I was concerned that I might not be able to leave the car parked for long periods but no problems.  You just put your ticket and a credit card into a machine before you leave and it validates your parking to leave the gate within the next 10-15 minutes.

Drove out - started out in the wrong direction, turned around.  Ran into some trouble with and inclined stop, killed the engine a few times, got going again.  Drove through a number of towns.  The drivers like to drive fast on the little winding roads, with barely enough room for a car and no shoulders.  Surprisingly though, there are tour buses.

This part of England had quite a few thatched roofs which I thought were maybe very old until we got here and someone was putting on a new thatched roof.

This shows a house with a thatched roof.  You can also see a bit of the highway.

Sometimes there are cars parked on the road in your lane in the little villages.  The technique seems to be to swerve over into the oncoming traffic lane and get past them quickly and swerve back to your lane before someone comes.  If the cars are parked on your side and there is on coming traffic you must stop and wait.

Got to Stonehenge which is a remarkable site.  Built about 5000 years ago the structure took 100's of years to build.  The rocks were brought up the river.  It is unclear what the original purpose was but it does work as a 12 month calendar and precisely predicts the equinox and solstice.

Of course 5000 years ago humans would have had essentially the same intelligence as we have today and apparently had great skill in moving large blocks of stone and erecting them.  The massive stones are about 1/3 underground, 2/3 above ground.  They believe the builders dug holes 1/3 as deep as the stones and tipped the stones into them, then pushed them upright.  It is unclear how the top stones were put into position.

Notice that the stone in the center of this picture has a peg carved into it.  The top piece would have a notch carved into it to fit the peg.  The top piece to this one is now missing.

In the past some stones were carried off to be used as fences stones, and pieces were chipped off for souvenirs.  Obviously the builders belonged to an advanced society/civilization that lasted for hundreds of years.  The druids did not use Stonehenge (as some believe) and came much later.