This past Saturday, 6 brave law students rented cars and drove the hour and a half to Stonehenge. More on the car rental saga later--for now, STONEHENGE!
Interestingly enough, Stonehenge was constructed around the same time as the Pyramids in Egypt. It's pretty obvious who won the Craftmanship award between the Druids and Egyptians, but Stonehenge is still extremely impressive for a bunch of rocks sitting on top of each other!
Waaaaay back in 3100 BC, some prehistoric Englishmen decided to make the area which is now Stonehenge a burial mound. There is a large ditch surrounding the circumference of Stonehenge which used to be filled with timber poles. So I guess it really started out as Timber Henge, if you will. The timber poles are long gone now, but the ditch remains. It was kind of neat to see a really, really old ditch. The stones were first added in 3000 B.C. and were dragged from the Welsh Mountains 160 miles away. We don't know how the English did it, but they did. Each stone weighs around 4 tons, so the transport was quite a feat. Not to mention getting the stones to stand up on their sides! Over the course of about 1500 years (3100 to 1600 bc), various stone circles were constructed, arranged and rearranged. The ones standing today are from 1600 BC, although the stones themselves were probably already there from preexisting arrangements.
Regardless, Stonehenge was fabulous to see up close and personal. We had a great time despite it being absolutely freezing! Somehow, it felt warm and sunny in the parking lot, prompting many of us to leave coats and scarves behind only to be ambushed by strong, gusty winds and what felt like a 20 degree drop in temperature at the site. Maybe it's all the dead Druids... maybe! For more pictures, see my picasa web album entitled "Stonehenge." http://picasaweb.google.com/laura.ingram/Stonehenge
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