overall structure
This huge stone building complex is located in an empty Yuan Ye, covering an area of about 1 1 hectare. It is mainly composed of many pieces of blue sandstone, each weighing about 50 tons. Stonehenge not only plays an important role in architectural history, but also has great significance in astronomy: its main axis, the ancient road leading to the stone pillars and the rising sun in the summer solstice morning are on the same line; In addition, there are two stones pointing to the direction of sunset from winter to Sunday. Therefore, people speculate that this is probably built by ancient humans to observe the sky, which can be regarded as the earliest prototype of the Observatory.
The main body of Stonehenge consists of dozens of huge stone pillars, which are arranged in several complete concentric circles. Stonehenge is surrounded by circular trenches and mounds with a diameter of about 90 meters, and there are 56 circular pits inside. Because these pits were discovered by British archaeologist John Aubrey, they are also called "Aubrey" pits. The first stone that appeared in the local area was a sandstone (also known as "planting stone") weighing about 5 tons in the position of a circular "hole". It took 200 years for this stone to appear, and then several stone pillars were shipped from Wales in the west of England and stood in the center, forming a circle, one big and one small. Archaeologists call it the second stage of Stonehenge.
In the latter case, the "planting stones" were removed, and Stonehenge entered the third stage of construction-65,438+080 large sandstone rocks were brought in and rearranged with the original green stone pillars into a circular and horseshoe-shaped structure. In fact, from the existing ruins, people can also see the basic features of the third stage of Stonehenge. It is estimated that at the productivity level at that time, it would take at least 30 million working hours to build Stonehenge, equivalent to 1 10,000 people working 1 year.
The most incredible thing about Stonehenge is the boulder in the center of Stonehenge. The tallest of these boulders is 8 meters, with an average weight of nearly 30 tons. However, people were surprised to find that many huge stones weighing 7 tons were placed horizontally on two vertical stone pillars.
Salisbury, England is an ancient historical city, which is more than 20 kilometers away from London/Kloc-0. Near this ancient city, there is a small village called Amsberry, where Stonehenge is located. Three Important Periods During the period from 3300 BC to 900 BC, the construction of Stonehenge experienced several important stages.
Before 3000 BC-Stonehenge in this period was distributed in the Irish Sea and the surrounding areas of the Irish-Scottish Strait. The number is small but impressive, with a diameter of over 30 meters. There is an independent stone outside the circle, which seems to be a sign that "this place has been occupied"
Around 2600 BC, metals were introduced to the whole of Britain, and hard chisel tools were made. Stonehenge in this period was more exquisite and perfect, such as Stanton Drew in Somerset and Blaude Garin in orkney, with a diameter of over 90 meters. While other major stony layers are much smaller, generally only 18 to 30m. They have a special phenomenon, that is, in addition to circular stone arrays, there will also be oval stone arrays with their long axes pointing in the direction of the sun and the moon. This figure also presents an interesting phenomenon in religion. We found that no matter how big the circumference of Stonehenge is, the number of standing stones in different places is unique. For example, the number of Lake District is 12, hebrides is 13, central Scotland is 4, 6 or 8, Scotland is 19 or 20, and Ireland is 19 or 20.
2000 BC-In this last period, the number of Stonehenge built by traditional methods began to decrease. The overall shape is not perfect, either oval or twisted ring. The scale is not as good as before, and some are even less than 3 meters in diameter. The role of Stonehenge Editor of this paragraph 1997 British scientists found in an experiment that Stonehenge has amazing acoustic characteristics. Scientists put advanced recording equipment into some huge stones for experiments, and found that the huge flat stones that make up Stonehenge can radiate the echo inside Stonehenge very accurately and concentrate it in the center of Stonehenge, forming a * * * sound effect.