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Stonehenge: A History Mystery
Where is it?
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It's on Salisbury Plain in the south of England, but the stones were hauled from other places. The sandstones were transported only about 20 miles, but, amazingly, the bluestones came over land and sea from the Preseli Mountains in Wales, more than 200 miles away.
How long did it take to move them?
"I have no idea," Wainwright says.
Who built it?
The mystery deepens here. An ancient religious group known as the druids claim the site as a temple, but there's no proof druids were responsible for it. "That the druids were priests and sacred people is beyond dispute, but we have no idea what they did then," says Darvill, explaining that it's not even known what the word for stone was in the Celtic language at the time Stonehenge was built.
Why was it built?
That's biggest mystery of all.
"We believe the bluestones were brought here because they were believed to have magic powers to do with healing," Darvill says.
In Victorian times you could rent a hammer and chip off a bit of stone as a souvenir. Now this World Heritage site, where the stones are scarred with graffiti from as far back as Roman times, is protected from such damage.
