Event: United Kingdom

Avebury Stones

When:	Daily
Where:	Avebury

The ring at Avebury is the largest known stone ring in the world and is located just 20 miles north of Stonehenge - together they constitute a UNESCO World Heritage site. For many it is even more spectacular than its famous neighbour, and it's well worth a visit if you're in this mystical part of England.

The site is made up of a grass-covered, chalk-stone bank - 427 metres wide and six metres high with a deep inner ditch. Inside this ditch, a grand circle of 27 stones encloses about 28 acres of land and two smaller stone circles, each being about 104 metres in diameter. The two inner circles are believed to have been constructed first, around 2600 BC, while the large outer ring and earthwork dates from 2500 BC.

Like Stonehenge, the construction of the Avebury complex must have involved some extraordinary physical effort on the part of a number of people. Some of the stones weigh as much as 40 tons, and were first hewn from bedrock found over two miles away. Having been dragged that distance, they then had to be erected and anchored.

But that was only the half of it. The excavation of the encircling ditch meant that 200,000 tons of rock had to be chipped and scraped away with the crudest of stone tools and antler picks. Why exactly this was done has is still not entirely clear and has inspired many theories.

Famously, Dr William Stukeley was the first to apply his mind to the mysteries. His numerous drawings are our only record of both the immense size and complexity of the ancient temple. He was the first to theorise that the original ground plan of Avebury was a representation of the body of a serpent passing through a circle and thus forming a traditional alchemical symbol.

More recent thinking suggests that Avebury forms part of a vast network of neolithic sacred sites arranged along a nearly 200-mile line stretching all across southern England. Positioned directly on this line are the great pilgrimage sites of Glastonbury Tor and St Michael's Mount.

The answers are still out there but, while they are, enjoy the mystery.