Photos of the enigmatic picturesque Stonehenge prehistoric standing stone circle, England.
Photos of Stonehenge Stone Circle.
Stonehenge is an incredible place to visit and you can’t help but be overwhelmed by the history and scale of the stone circle. Photographing iconic places is always difficult because they have been photographed so many time before. But thats the challenge of creative photography and its why every shoot is a learning process.
Sacred Stone Series
Sacred Stone is a series of photos I have been working on that explores the many ways civilisations have used stone to represent their most sacred and religious beliefs. Stonehenge is an incredible example of now inanimate stone has been transformed into something sacred, that has inspired people for thousands of years.
Stonehenge
We can never really know if Stonehenge was a religious or political centre. The effort to cut and place such huge stones must have put extreme pressure on the relatively small population of prehistoric Britain. This sheer effort alone of building Stonehenge makes it a wonder of the world.
Sacred Beliefs
I was brought up a Roman Catholic but rejected religion in my early teens but indoctrinated though you never really loose all of the indoctrination as you grow older. Sacred Stone is my way of exorcising some bog the religious propaganda locked up in my brain. By exploring great religious statements set in stone I am able to see the folly of mans sacred beliefs. So many religions, that required the human sacrifice to build monuments like Stonehenge, don’t exist any more. So many people have been butchered and oppressed for gods that never existed, and we continue doing the same today.
I hope you enjoy the photos and want to see more from the Stone Series of art photos.
About Stonehenge Standing Stone Circle
The best known British ancient stone circle is Stonehenge. It is unique amongst neolithic and Bronze Age circles with its instantly recognisable square edges upright stones capped with horizontal stones linking them together, this arrangement being known as a trillion. When the Sarsen Stones, sandstone, of Stonehenge were erected around 3000 – 2000 BC they formed a circle of trillions.
The Standing Stones
Each standing stone was around 13 feet (4.1 m) high, 6.9 feet (2.1 m) wide and weighed around 25 tons. Today the full height of the stones cannot be seen as their bases are 7.9 feet (2.4 m) is below todays ground level. The stones were dressed on site and spike shaped cones were cut out of the top of the standing stones that fitted into cone shaped holes in the lintels to form a mortice and tenon joint to hold the lintels in place.
Each lintel stone had tongue and grove joints cut in their ends to further increase the structural strength of the circle of stones. Inside this circle of Stones stood a horseshoe shaped arrangement of trillions 45 feet (13.7 m) across, with its open end facing northeast and consisting of ten massive uprights and five lintels weighing up to 50 tons each.
Only one upright from the Great Trilithon still stands today, of which 22 feet (6.7 m) is visible. At the centre was the so called Altar Stone. Around the outside of the circle of stones was a ditch or henge measuring about 360 feet (110 m) in diameter.
Today the stones that are left standing are impressively big. To build Stonehenge today would require heavy duty equipment to quarry, dress, move and erect the stones. We can only marvel at our Bronze Age ancestors skills and persistence that created Stonehenge.