London: Stonehenge, the UK's most famous
ancient site, may have been a place of worship some 500 years
before the first stone was erected, a research has claimed.
Archaeologists from the universities of Birmingham,
Bradford and Vienna claim that the sanctity of Stonehenge's
location may have determined the layout of key aspects of the
surrounding sacred landscape.
The research increases the likelihood that the site
was originally and primarily associated with sun worship, 'The
Independent' reported.
The research has also enabled the archaeologists
to reconstruct the detailed route of a possible religious
congregation or other ritual event which they suspect may have
taken place annually to the north of Stonehenge.
In their research, the archaeologists discovered two
great pits, one towards the enclosure's eastern end, the other
nearer its western end.
When they modelled the relationship between these
newly discovered Cursus pits and Stonehenge on their computer
system, they realised that, viewed from the so-called "Heel
Stone" at Stonehenge, the pits were aligned with sunrise and
sunset on the longest day of the year.
The chances of those two alignments being purely
coincidental are extremely low.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, November 27, 2011, 17:40