If you could time travel, would you? Where would you go? Writers write about mysterious places like Stonehenge, Wiltshire, United Kingdom, one of the world’s best known megalithic structures. Was it a house, a hiding place, a temple? No one knows for sure. Some think the bluestones were brought there by rollers and by water on a raft. Others think they were a relic of the Ice Age, deposited on the Salisbury Plain thousands of years earlier by glaciation.There is no natural stone nearby; the only known source for the huge bluestones is South Wales. The puzzle is unlikely to be solved, though it is generally accepted that Stonehenge was a place of worship.
According to D.M. Field’s book “The World’s Greatest Architecture-Past and Present,” Archaeologists distinguish three main periods of construction. Period I, Neolithic workmen using picks made from antlers dug a circular ditch nearly 327ft in diameter, backed by a
Stonehenge: the slightly controversial reconstruction has made it appear less of a ruin than it once was.
circular wall. Two large stones, one still surviving, marked the entrance. Period II, about 2100 BC, two concentric circles of 80 bluestone pillars weighing up to four tonnes each were erected in the center, but its significance remains a mystery. Also, the construction of Period II is aligned with the rising sun at the summer solstice. Period III, 100 years later, saw the erection of the circle of sarsen uprights capped by sarsen lintels, fashioned with stone hammers, which largely form the monument as it is today. Sarsen stones are sandstone blocks found in quantity in the United Kingdom on Salisbury Plain.
If you were a writer, would you have your characters time travel to or from Stonehenge? What are your thoughts about time travel from Stonehenge today into the future?
Great post Gail. I’ve been there, time travel back 25 years. It’s quite impressive. It sits in the middle of nowhere now, open fields and a single narrow road to get there. Those main stones are immense.
Thanks Bob. All I kept thinking about when I wrote this was how in Gabaldon’s Outlander appeared to use those stones for time travel. Perfect place for fantasy writing.
I would love to visit Stonehenge someday! And I totally agree with PJ about Outlander. Great and clever use of standing stones!
Thanks Casey, I haven’t figured out how to get there. I am not ready for time travel, and I have a lively imagination, so I figure I better not investigate those stones. Not yet anyway, got to finish that WIP.
Gail, what an interesting post. Your piece on Stonehenge makes me think of the novel I’m reading now. In “the Outlander (Book 1) a woman steps through a circle of Stones and ends up in the 1700’s. Very cool.
Thanks Joy. When I saw the stones in my architectural books,I was inspired by D.G. and her Outlander. Someday, someone will figure those stones out. Fascinating.
Very Nice blog, Gail. I too would love to see it–someday. Fascinating and thanks for all the info. Makes you wonder how–way back then–they could achieve such a feat, if indeed it was built. I like to think so.
Thanks Bev. They are an amazing work, but by whom and why? Will we ever have the answers? The architecture of them is the first work they talk about when learning architecture.
One of my favorite stories is OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon. When Claire, an English nurse at the end of WWII is traveloing in Scottland with her husband, she falls through some “standing stones” and travels back in time to the 1700’s and meets Jamie Fraser, a handsome, stubborn, but very lovable Highlander. One of the most captivating parts of this epic series is Gabaldon’s explanation of time travel and her use of history, natural medicine, and politics of the day.
As much as I have come to dread travelling anywhere, I would love to see Stonehenge. Fascinating post, Gail.
Thanks Paula, when I decided to blog about the stones, I was inspired by the time travel in Outlander. I read Diana Gabaldon’s books, they are wonderful, fascinating, and intriguing. Why do you dread traveling anywhere? I would have thought you are curious about the world, and love discovery.
Great post, Gail, I’ve often wondered what it was too.
Thanks Marian. Curious work of architecture. I would love it if someone would figure it out.