Stonehenge

Assembled from 35 blocks · 3 evidence · 37 related

1. Story
2. A prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, whose sarsen phase - the great trilithons and the encircling lintelled ring - is conventionally dated to around 2500 BCE. It matters structurally because it is post-and-lintel construction executed with unusual care: the lintels are held to the uprights by mortise-and-tenon joints cut in stone, and to each other by tongue-and-groove joints, so the ring is a locked circle rather than a stack. The uprights taper and the lintels are curved in plan and given a slight entasis, which is a refinement, not a necessity. Provenance work has recently become specific: Nash and colleagues reported in 2020 that fifty of the fifty-two surviving sarsens share a geochemical signature matching West Woods, about 25 km north, and Clarke, Kirkland and colleagues reported in Nature in 2024 that the recumbent Altar Stone is not Welsh at all but derives from Old Red Sandstone of the Orcadian Basin in north-east Scotland, several hundred kilometres away. The smaller bluestones come from the Preseli Hills in west Wales.
3. Knowledge
4. World Heritage Committee
5. Megalithic post-and-lintel construction
6. Stonehenge
7. Connections
8. World Heritage Committee
9. Megalithic post-and-lintel construction
10. The sarsen circle and trilithons are raised at Stonehenge
11. The Stonehenge sarsens are traced to West Woods
12. The Altar Stone is traced to north-east Scotland
13. Global Strategy for a Balanced, Representative and Credible World Heritage List (1994)
14. Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972)
15. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
16. ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites)
17. IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature)
18. The first properties are inscribed on the World Heritage List
19. Angkor inscribed on the World Heritage List and the danger list on the same day
20. The Committee adopts the Global Strategy for a Balanced, Representative and Credible World Heritage List
21. The cultural and natural criteria are merged into a single set of ten
22. Arabian Oryx Sanctuary deleted — the first site ever removed from the World Heritage List
23. Dresden Elbe Valley deleted — the second removal, by a vote of 14 to 5
24. Liverpool – Maritime Mercantile City deleted — the third and most recent removal
25. The Committee declines, again, to place Venice on the danger list
26. Stonehenge
27. Hagia Sophia, Constantinople / Istanbul
28. Chartres Cathedral
29. Load path
30. Stonehenge
31. The sarsen circle and trilithons are raised at Stonehenge
32. Evidence
33. Geochemical fingerprinting indicates that fifty of the fifty-two surviving sarsens at Stonehenge share a common source area at West Woods in the Marlborough Downs, roughly 25 km north of the monument. V55 verification basis: the paper is real and its result widely reported; it was not retrieved in this session and the article number should be confirmed.
34. Detrital mineral age and chemistry indicate that the Altar Stone derives from Old Red Sandstone of the Orcadian Basin in north-east Scotland rather than from Wales, implying long-distance transport of a block of roughly six tonnes. V55 verification basis: the paper is real and its result widely reported; it was not retrieved in this session and the volume and page range should be confirmed.
35. The Stonehenge and Avebury monument complex is inscribed on the World Heritage List, with the sarsen phase of Stonehenge conventionally dated to the third millennium BCE. V55 verification basis: whc.unesco.org is blocked by the environment egress proxy and could not be opened; the inscription year and list reference number are stated from established record and must be confirmed.