Stonehenge, if you believe the accepted methods of Dating, a bit younger than the famous Egyptian pyramids. But among the ancient seven wonders of the world he entered not - nothing about him write either Greek or Roman authors Probably Romans these stones are not impressed, because they saw the Egyptian pyramids, they built majestic temples. Today it is impossible to determine who was the first biographer of Stonehenge. Already to the XII century all the information about its origin dissolved in myths and nobody remembered the true purpose of the monument. Who built it?

The ancient Britons called Stonehenge "Dance Giants". Opinion ascribed the authorship of the great magician Merlin. Other stories told about once lived, before the first Flood giants - they supposedly built Stonehenge. King Jacob 1, having visited it, was impressed and ordered the architect Inigo Jones sketch plan of the construction and set for certain, by whom and when it was created. In 1655 he published a book of John Webb "The great antiquity of the UK called colloquially stone-Heng, restored" - the first magazine devoted to Stonehenge. And the point in the research put in the 60-ies of XX century astronomer Gerald Hawkins, who proved that Stonehenge, the ancient Observatory, allowing with high accuracy to carry out astronomical observations.

Stonehenge was built between 1900 and 1600 BC, and its construction took almost a century. The population of Britain was in those early centuries small. Starting around 3000 B.C. on the Islands began to settle farmers from the continent - so-called windmillhill people - the name of the hill bleh JHA. Thanks to them Salisbury plain became the center of crafts and animal husbandry. After 2000 BC, there appeared bakery. Their arrival coincided with the beginning of the bronze age. But three hundred years later, came massacci, lovers of long distance travel in their graves CCA. Benno often find items from all corners of the then Roman, Greek faience from Egypt, amber from the Baltic, rectifiers arrows from Mycenae, Blvd^ Ki Germans... From all of these peoples, there is nothing left that could shed light on their involvement in megalithic structures. We can only guess who? Hawkins believes that all three people had put ' arm" to the construction of Stonehenge.

The stones of which is composed of Stonehenge, different. The master Builder. tion material monoliths - dolerite, but there are volcanic lava (rhyolite), and volcanic tuff, Sandstone, and limestone. Three types - dolerite, rhyolite and volcanic tuff - found only in one place -1 Wales, in the mountains of Preseli, near the coast of Bristol Bay. "There is no doubt, says researcher Stonehenge R. Atkinson, " that blue stones were taken to Stonehenge from that very limited area". The distance in a straight is 210 kilometers - three hours away by bus. But carried them on the ice and on water, and the distance is 380 km. Eighty stones weigh in aggregate up to four hundred tons. Who else in ancient Europe did such an extraordinary RAID? Perhaps no one. Scientists have tracked possible way of builders and found out that a large part of it were carried by water, Some large stones were gathered on the road.

The stones were transported on wooden skids on logs. An experiment conducted by scientists, helped to find out that the twenty-four people are able to drag thus a weight of one ton with a speed of a mile a day. On the water things were simpler: a few wooden Chelny, United boards, withstood tremendous gravity and easily managed. And the most heavy stones - Arseny? Their Deposit was found much closer to Stonehenge, just thirty kilometers. The weight of the large Buddhist "gray Baranov" (so called these blocks) reaches fifty tons. It is estimated that a thousand people took them to the construction site in seven years.

The ancient masters skillfully processed blocks before the spacecraft to ULJTH them to the place of construction of the complex, using the technique of impact and O1 Chebotko fire and cold. After the stone has been Tres] ..and. it laid out the fire and then poured cold water and beaten stone hammers. And after rough treatment and delivery blocks in place followed a more delicate work. The stones are polished very clean, simple" about jewelry. However, the technique to estimate today, unfortunately, it is impossible to water and wind over the centuries has done its work.

Scientists remained figure out how were established giants. It turned out that first dug a pit, with the length equal to the length of that part of the stone, which was supposed to bury. The length and width of the hole was ninety centimeters more than a stone. Three walls of the hole did steep, says J.. Hawkins, and the fourth asked the slope of 45 degrees - it was receiving ramp. Before you put the stone wall of the hole covered with thick wooden stakes. The stone slid on it, not showering the earth. Then edifice with the help of ropes, placed vertically. Quickly-quickly - while those who had, had enough strength - covered space around, just a stone was lying. Tamped, left alone for a few months until the soil will not subside, and will not be compressed. An important detail: the lower ends of vertical stones were covered on a blunt cone - after they were launched in the hole, the stones can be rotated and set more precisely.

And how he got on top of multi-ton crossbars? No helicopters as they got them up. Maybe the earthen embankments? Such method as a hypothesis proposed in 1730 one of the first researchers of Stonehenge S. Wallace. But the construction and unmounting such embankment for all thirty five rungs would require a huge effort - more than work, spent on the entire complex. Besides residues earthen embankments not found, and this version was left. What if operated by the method of throwing out through piles of logs? Approximately so: stone lintel laid them on the ground at the foot of her future supports, and then perpendicular to it laid a layer of logs, crossed her at the logs, but to the place where it before it was put already double layer of logs, but already in parallel and perpendicularly: back and forth, back and forth... And the stone, the roof is at the top. The last task was to pass it on place - to all nests her lay on spikes support. It is estimated that such a tower of longitudinal and transverse layers of wood would require fifteen cubic kilometers of logs with a pre-cut out grooves. And yet calculated for the construction of Stonehenge took three hundred years of work and thousands of workers, only spent one and a half million person-days of physical labor.

In the name of what? Why built Stonehenge? ...In the summer solstice at Stonehenge attracts crowds of people - watch the sunrise over the Heel stone. The show is Destvitelno impressive. Through the lilac fog, usually Curling ^valley in the early hour, suddenly breaking bright ray - just over ^RSINOE Heelstone! Precisely fixed rays of view, nickname) of astronomers made the observer to watch strictly certain portions of the sky, asked for directions, where was I expected century ing. Thus, Stonehenge can be considered ancient observa Tory. she used to predict the time of the beginning of polevie works and, as suggested by J.. Hawkins, is to predict eclipses Hawkins drew attention to the fifty-six so-called "Aubrey holes"included in the ancient complex. "I noticed, " wrote Hawkins, about what these wells are situated along the right of the circle on equal races distance from each other. The wells with a depth of about a meter and a half dug into the shallow ground, and then re-filled with crushed chalk. The priests of mogla to predict year of the Eclipse, say, a winter moon, shifting stones from the hole in the hole on a circle, by a hole in the year". Had nsch and other devices for such projections.

...Five of the seven wonders of the world - the pyramids of Egypt, the statue of Zeus's Olympia, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the mausoleum of Halicarnassus and the lighthouse of Alexandria on the island of Pharos were made of stone. But nowhere, perhaps no stone was so skillfully applied for smart search of ancient, as here, in South-West England, on Salisbury plain.