Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England (C,2900-1400 BC)
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Rising out of the Salisbury Plain in southern England, is the great stone circle of Stonehenge, the most impressive of the vast megalithic constructions that have been left to posterity by the Neolithic Beaker people in Western Europe. These megaliths are believed to be associated with the worship and burial rites of an ancient religion, or series of religions. But the way in which their builders were able to transport such enormous stones, often over considerable distances, then work them with primitive tools, before siting them according to astronomical observations, continues to astonish archeologists.
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Stonehenge was built during three periods, beginning, in around 2900 BC, with the construction of a circular ditch, almost 327ft (100m) in diameter and backed by a circular wall. Its entrance was marked by two large stones, one of which still remains. Several centuries later, the first stone circle, now the inner circle, comprising 80 smaller bluestones, was set up but was abandoned before completion. Weighing up to four tonnes each, the stones were brought from the Prescelly Hills, 135 miles (217km) away in South Wales. During the third building period, sarsen stones were brought 20 miles (32km) from the Marlborough Downs, for the purpose of constructing an outer circle of uprights. These uprights were capped by lintels, held in place by knobs (tenons), and shaped, like the sarsens, with stone tools.
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Stonehenge, a post-and-lintel construction, was sited in such a way that the rising and sitting sun world shine through the upright stones, allowing the solstices to be determined and predictions of the sun and moon to be made. Possibly Britain’s greatest national icon, Stonehenge is composed of a circle of sarsen stones, surrounded by a bank and ditch, and enclosing a circle of smaller bluestones. Within the inner circle are five trilithons, designed to align with the midsummer sunrise.
Giza, Egypt (c.2528 BC)
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Three great stone pyramids, each the burial place of a fourth-dynasty pharaoh, stand in the desert on the Giza Necropolis, near to the modern city of Cairo. The Great Pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to have survived into modern times. It is the largest and the oldest of the three, and is, indeed, the largest stone structure ever built. It was the burial place of the Pharaoh Khufu (hellennized as Cheops), who ruled Egypt from 2551 to 2528 BC. Buried deep inside the pyramid are three separate chambers, accessed via sharply angled passageways, that once contained everything the great pharaoh would need in the afterlife.
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The Great Pyramid, measuring 756ft (230m) along each of its four sides at the base, originally rose to a height of 482ft (147m). Today,it stands some 39ft (12m) shorter, and its original outer layer of smooth limestone, once dazzling white i the desert sun, has long since gone, most of it taken to build the city of Cairo, Now, the 2,600,00o or so great blocks of stone used in its construction, each weighing approximately 2.5 tonnes, are exposed to the gaze of tourist from all over the world; they cannot fail to be moved by this massive desert presence, that has stood the test of time for four-and-a-half millennia.
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The great Pyramid of Khufu, the second king of the forth dynasty. The face of the Great Sphinx, in the foreground, is believed to be that of khafre, the fourth king of the fourth dynasty, and one of Khufu’s sons.
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