I stood gazing at wildflowers mottled in the endlessly verdant lea. Puffy white clouds sailed in that blue summer sky. A murder of raucous ravens and the distant mottle of sheep painted that typical English pastoral scene here in the rolling plains of Wiltshire.
Judging by the crowds, however, this was surely the site of a spectacle beyond this idyllic setting.
In this landscape were also huddled gigantic sandstone spectators in a circle standing as they have for centuries. This could have been the very scene 4,000 years ago except that instead of ancient Britons heaving enormous slabs of stone, camera-toting tourists milled around taking in this sight of their lifetimes from all photographic angles.
I stood in the ample grounds of the enigmatic Stonehenge whose story will be forever shrouded in mystery. Over centuries legends have been retold of sun worship, sacrifice cults, healing stones and Druid rituals that may have taken place here. Given its precise alignments with solar and lunar events, some scientists believe this setting was a Neolithic computer for predicting astronomical events. Did Merlin use his magic spells to lift these stones from Ireland? For that matter, why would Atlanteans or even alien powers possibly build such a unique monument that too in the most unremarkable part of England?
For centuries, its popularity as a healing centre had brought scores of patients who washed the stones with water and bathed themselves with it. New Age cultists think of Stonehenge as a powerful energy vortex where lines of Nature’s power crisscross the site.
One sunny morning last month I resolutely signed up for a bus-tour from the bustle of Victoria in Central London and zooming along speedy expressways, reached the parking lot of Stonehenge in just a couple of hours. It was indeed a contrasting sight — on one side of a busy A303 highway, trailers and trendy cars whizzed by, while on the other, loomed an ancient circle of megaliths in that endless green plain as they had stood for thousands of years.
Melodic air
As I walked toward the stones, I could feel a becalming quiet staring at these timeless megaliths. Thousands of years ago, sacred chants may have resonated from within a timber hut surrounded by that stone circle marking another sacred summer solstice. The incantations may have reached a crescendo even as the first sliver of sunlight streaked between two gigantic Heel Stones, kissing the altar in the innermost circle. Each year, ancient peoples from far away would have come here in droves to witness this spectacle, having moored their boats by the banks of the Avon.
As we walked around the protective rope skirting the monument, Andrew, our guide, explained how Stonehenge must have been created in three stages lasting 1,500 years. Around 3100 BC, an ancient people had dug out a wide circular ditch and constructed an embankment using stone, bones, antlers and sheer muscle. Centuries later, a timber structure was built in the centre, presumably for worship or healing. Starting in 2400 BC till the site’s abandonment in 1600 BC, a glorious transformation took place. A mystical parade of gigantic stones were erected within and around this hallowed ditch, and what was once just a crude timber temple had metamorphosed into a majesty worthy of awe and admiration.
As I walked around the rope circle, I saw several types of stones that made up the monument. Many had fallen, missing or broken having weathered a relentless assault of the elements, builders and over-zealous devotees alike through the ages. The stone arrangement was thus broken and I could only imagine how the monument must have looked in its years of glory.
Stonehenge's 60 bluestones each weighing four tons were hauled from faraway Preseli mountains in Wales, 240 miles away. No one knows how. Each of the 30 sarsens that were lugged from Marlborough Downs about 20 miles away, stood 18 to 20 ft tall and weighed 25 to 30 tons. Only 17 of the 30 sarsens remain today.
Andrew explained that the innermost horseshoe arrangement was made up of sacred bluestones hauled from those faraway mountains in Wales. A series of outer sandstone megaliths known as the Sarsen Circle was later erected in a circular formation. What was mindboggling to me was not just the fact that each slab loomed 20 ft tall, but that these were joined together by huge lintels atop carved into an arc, which when all joined, would have made a perfect circle. Another horseshoe arrangement of such stones known as trilithons was created between the bluestones and the outer circle. More interestingly, all these lintels were held firmly atop by a mortise and tenon joint — a bulge on the standing sarsen was matched by a concavity on a lintel! How these mighty stones were hoisted, propped into the ground, carved to perfection and joined together before the discovery of iron or bronze is the essence of the mystery at Stonehenge.
Two thousand years of frenetic activity would have surely had some purpose that historians are trying hard to unravel. Recent usual discoveries have added to the confusion. How did archaeologists chance upon a Roman skeleton in the ditch when Romans had set foot in Britain only in 43 AD, much after Stonehenge had lost its secret purpose? Why was that Anglo-Saxon nobleman ritually executed by a hail of flint-tipped arrows shot from short range?
What other sights had these vigilant stones watched over the ages? What secret rituals took place in its sanctum? Only those silent sentinels would know.
HOW TO GET THERE
Stonehenge lies 11 miles from the ancient town of Salisbury, and 90 miles from Central London. It takes a good two hours by car to get to Stonehenge from London. British Rail from London Victoria stops at Salisbury and one can take a hop-on hop-off tour bus to Stonehenge. A visit to Old Sarum, Salisbury Cathedral and the town of Bath is encouraged for history buffs. One should book in advance online for the Inner Circle tour — where you could get past the ropes and be in close proximity to the stones, after tourists leave. Otherwise, an audio-guided tour would be more than sufficient.
