A Four Million Pound Clock
2800 BC
-2800 -2800
01.51W51.11N
ARC

SALISBURY PLAIN, ENGLAND
	Imagine visiting Stonehenge just before sunrise on June 21, 2000 BC. As the sun begins to rise, its rays shine down the main avenue, through the entrance of the circle of giant stones. If you were standing at the center of the Sarcen Circle, your body would be bathed in sunlight. This marvel of astronomical timing would be useful to a farming people who needed to mark the passing of times and seasons.
	Stonehenge, situated near the city of Salisbury in Southern England, probably provided other astronomical timings, but over the years, souvenir hunters and scavengers looking for building material have chipped and carried away many of the smaller stones. For this reason, it is impossible to verify various theories concerning Stonehenge's use as an observatory.
	Today, major public buildings take months to build using heavy machinery. In 2000 BC, it would have taken a thousand men several years just to move the large stones the 20 miles to Stonehenge from the mountains where they were mined!
	The familiar outer circle of large upright stones, known as the Sarcen Circle, is about 100 ft. in diameter. The average weight of the stones in the circle is about 50,000 pounds, but one stone is over 100,000 pounds. Each of these massive stones was shaped with nothing more than stone hammers. The top of each upright stone is slightly indented so that cap stones rest on top of them securely. The Sarcen Circle was originally topped by 30 stones each weighing 14,000 pounds.
	Stonehenge's surrounding bank and ditch -- along with a few large stones -- were set in place about 2800 BC. Over time, other elements were added, such as a half circle of small stones in about 2100 BC, and the major circle of capped stones, which was finished 100 years later. About 1,300 years after it was begun, Stonehenge was finally completed. It was still 1,500 years before Christ.
	Some have speculated that a group of priests called Druids built Stonehenge. The Druids lived around the time of Julius Caesar in the first century BC. Since this was many hundreds of years after Stonehenge had been completed, they obviously could not have build it. In addition, the Druids did not use temples, but conducted their ceremonies in forest clearings.