Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Stonehenge and Woodhenge

28 June 2008, Saturday
Stonehenge and Woodhenge
World Heritage Site

Started driving at 8AM, one hour of scenic drive led me to Stonehenge.

Stonehenge

5000 years old World Heritage Site. This must be as old as the pyramids of Egypt!! Erected between 3,000 BC and 1,600 BC, the stones were carried hundreds of miles over land and sea, while antlers and bones were used to dig the pits that hold the stones.

All this and more, but, a whooping 7 pound ticket to get in!! Did not opt and spent 30 minutes walking around recording a few views. If I weren't allowed to this proximity too, I would have happily pasted the Stonehenge jpg, shipped my Mr.Bill Gates along with Windows OS.


Heel Stone


Woodhenge

A 5 minute drive from Stonehenge would lead you to Woodhenge.

Woodhenge is so called because it was originally a wooden structure of a type similar to Stonehenge. It was setup during Bronze age in 2000 BC for ceremonial use. The rings are oval with the long axis aligned on the mid-summer sunrise.


The next destination was Avebury, had planned a drive through the town of Marlborough.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hiya,

A couple of days later you visited Stonehenge, I was accidentally browsing TV at home, and came across Discovery screening a programme on Stonehenge, Woodhenge and Avisbury (or was it Avebury what you have mentioned? It doesn't matter anyway; not interested in Googling on it ;o)

You have mentioned that the Woodhenge was used for ceremonial purposes. I caught three interesting things about these places in the programme on Discovery:

1. The programme spoke about four places, with Avebury at the centre (if my memory doesn't go bananas) and there is a cone shape structure here, and probably this place was at quite an elevation and once could see this cone structure from the Stonehenge, the Woodhenge and the other place which I don't remember. And that these places were connected by some river (I think)

2. The cone shaped mound in Avebury (or the other place which I can not correctly recollect) is used as a semaphore station to synchronise the ceremonial activities in the other three places (stone-wood-and-the-other-henge)

3. Whenever an important man died (of course it is always the death of an important man which catches attention ;o) the funeral procession used to start from the Woodhenge at the time of the sunrise and start moving along the bank of the river and finally reach the Stonehenge as the Sun set. This practice in fact stood metaphorical to the journey of life.

The last one is something appealed to me very much, the Sunrise indicating the birth, and the Sunset the death, with the long circuitous funeral procession indicating the journey.

Anyways, forgetting all those historical things...you know what you exactly did? You spent your weekend visiting a graveyard (smashAna nODlik hOgiddee neenu hahahahha)

mbv

Anonymous said...

Hey,

Forgot one more interesting point about the UK. Remembered while reading that Woodhenge is a wooden structure.

Just imagine what would have happened if India had a place like Woodhenge. It would have been destroyed by termites. But there are no termites in UK (probably termites don't survive temparate climate)

madhu

Srik said...

how stingy ! could you not have spent 7 out of the 42 you get everyday

Akhila S said...

Yes, since these were on the way to Bath, and not a full day visit, not much loss.

@Srik, 7 pounds for just a view, when you can get all that from outside. We have much better things back home....hehehe...

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