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Stonehenge

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(Sax. Stanhengist, hanging stones), a very remarkable structure, composed of large artificially raised monoliths, situated on Salisbury Plain, two miles from Amesbury, in Wiltshire. Its neighborhood abounds in sepulchral tumuli, in many of which ancient British remains have been found. The fabric of Stonehenge was comparatively entire in the early part of this century, but it now very much defaced. When entire, it consisted of two concentric circles, enclosing two ellipses, the whole surrounded by a double mound and ditch circular in form. Outside of the boundary was a single upright stone, and the approach was by an avenue from the north east, bounded on each side by a mound or ditch. The outer circle consisted of thirty blocks of sandstone, fixed upright at intervals of three and a half feet, and connected at the top by a continuous series of imposts, sixteen feet from the ground. The blocks were all square and rough-hewn, dovetailed to each other, and fitted, by mortise holes in their undersides, to knobs in the uprights. About nine feet within this peristyle was the inner, circle, composed of thirty unhewn granite pillars, from five to six feet in height. The grandest part of Stonehenge was the ellipse inside the circle, formed of ten or twelve blocks of sandstone, from sixteen to twenty-two feet in height, arranged in pairs, each pair separate, and furnished with an impost, so as to form five or six trilithons. Within these trilithons was the inner ellipse, composed of nineteen uprights of granite, similar in size to those of the inner circle; and in the cell thus formed was the so-called altar, a large slab of blue marble. There has been much speculation regarding the origin and purpose of Stonehenge, which are still involved in much obscurity. In modern times the most prevalent opinion has been that, in common with other similar structures elsewhere, it was a temple for Druidical worship; but this belief has been somewhat shaken by the discovery of the sepulchral character of many other monuments which had been also presumed to be Druidical. The circular form has also suggested the idea of a connection with the Worship of the sun; and Stonehenge may possibly have been used for the religious rites of various successive races and creeds; and also as a court of justice or battle ring for judicial combats.