Posted on 08.01.2012, and completed on 26.05.2012 and 30.07.2013
I don't know if Stonehenge is the most important megalithic construction wich surviving the history, but certainly is the best known and most intensively researched. Located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 13 km north of Salisbury, Stonehenge assembly consists of four concentric circles made of standing stones set within earthworks. The outer circle (33m in diameter) is constructed of 30 sarsen blocks, arranged vertically, above which were placed as lintels some other blocks, circular arc-shaped. Inside is another circle of eggplant stone blocks. They surround a horseshoe-shaped arrangement, built also of eggplant stone, within which is a sandstone slab mecacee called the Altar Stone. The whole building is surrounded by a circular ditch measuring 104m in diameter. Inside stands a sandbank which contains 56 tombs, known as the Aubrey holes (named after the discoverer). The embankment and the ditch are intersected by a processional path 23m wide and almost 3km long, Stonehenge Avenue, which connect Stonehenge with the River Avon. Near the entrance to the Avenue is Slaughter Stone, and on the other side is the Heelstone, a single large block of sarsen stone.
I don't know if Stonehenge is the most important megalithic construction wich surviving the history, but certainly is the best known and most intensively researched. Located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 13 km north of Salisbury, Stonehenge assembly consists of four concentric circles made of standing stones set within earthworks. The outer circle (33m in diameter) is constructed of 30 sarsen blocks, arranged vertically, above which were placed as lintels some other blocks, circular arc-shaped. Inside is another circle of eggplant stone blocks. They surround a horseshoe-shaped arrangement, built also of eggplant stone, within which is a sandstone slab mecacee called the Altar Stone. The whole building is surrounded by a circular ditch measuring 104m in diameter. Inside stands a sandbank which contains 56 tombs, known as the Aubrey holes (named after the discoverer). The embankment and the ditch are intersected by a processional path 23m wide and almost 3km long, Stonehenge Avenue, which connect Stonehenge with the River Avon. Near the entrance to the Avenue is Slaughter Stone, and on the other side is the Heelstone, a single large block of sarsen stone.
With regard to construction's purpose, opinions are divided, the most important theories circulated claiming that Stonehenge have served as a burial ground, as a place of healing, as part of a ritual landscape or have a celestial observatory function. Even I'm not historian, may have my own opinion, isn't it? Personally I believe that the people who have built it (between 3100 and 1600 BC) just don't thinking like us, ie they not separate the sides of existence as we do, but they viewed things globally. Surrounding universe didn't have for them a sacred dimension and a profran one, but life, death, nature, cosmos, divinity was closely entwined, forming a inseparable whole. As a result I don't think there was a space where they worshiped gods, another in which they buried the dead, another in which they made astronomical observations and so on, but there was only one site (like Stonehenge) which served all these types of activities.
The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 in a co-listing with Avebury Henge monument, under the name Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites.
About the stamps
All three stamps are part of the definitive series issued in 2011, about which I wrote here.
sender 1, 2: Jeni & George Dragoman
sent from London (England / United Kingdom), on 07.12.2011
photo 1: Skyscan Balloon
photo 2: James O. Davies
photo 1: Skyscan Balloon
photo 2: James O. Davies
sender 3: Maura / fairymin (postcrossing)
sent from Amesbury (England / United Kingdom), on 25.07.2013