The World of Stonehenge at the British Museum on the 19th, April 2022
The World of Stonehenge at the British Museum on the 19th, April 2022
The famous standing stone
circle on Salisbury Plain known to us as Stonehenge was not unique. The new exhibition at the British Museum
offers us an understanding of the construction of Stonehenge, details of other
henges and standing stone circles in Britain and the near continent. Such sites were important in pre-history for
communal religious worship until changes in society and the advent of metalwork
came to mean that precious objects became more important than sites. These changes occurred when new arrivals like
the Beaker people (known as this because of the characteristic bronze beaker
they used) who came to Britain about 4,400 years ago, reinvigorating the local
economy and technological means too. It
is thought that the Beaker people all but wiped out the Neolithic farmers that
occupied Britain until their arrival.
Stonehenge was built
between 5000 and 3500 BC. Each block of
stone had to be dragged 25 km. It took
up to 1000 people to move the sarsen stones, inevitably there were many
injuries and even fatalities. The
builders of Stonehenge used sophisticated mortice and tenon joints, derived
from woodworking to join the stones together.
Stonehenge is only the starting point for this exhibition which is an
overview of the situation from the dawn of the Neolithic period until the bronze
age.
The decline of the hunter
gatherer lifestyle is charted and the beginnings of agriculture. Hunter gatherers thrived in Europe from the
end of the Ice Age to 6000 years ago.
Farming connected Britain to Europe, after the surrounding landmass called
Doggerland subsided beneath the North Sea about 8000 years ago. Farming allowed Britons to become
self-sufficient at a time when seasonal migration routes, hunting grounds, and
relations, were being cut off.
Tools such as stone hand
axes, maces, and clubs were originally made from flint and stone. The exhibition details how such artifacts
were produced and offers us many examples of them including a stone axe still
retaining its wooden handle. The stone
was quarried using deer’s antlers as picks.
An important quarry was at Grimes Graves in Norfolk where 2000 tonnes of
chalk were removed.
A great transformation
occurred about 4,500 years ago when metalworking was introduced from the near
continent. The first metal axe heads
were made from copper but then it was discovered that adding one tenth of tin
to copper produced a tougher alloy, bronze.
Copper was mined in north Wales, but the source of tin was Cornwall (in
fact, in The Histories, Herodotus refers to Britain as the ‘tin
isles’). In some parts of Europe where
copper and tin resources were scarce, such as Scandinavia, stone weapons and
tools persisted for much longer.
Another unique henge
structure presented in the exhibition is Seahenge built around 2049 BC. Seahenge consisted of 55 oak posts
surrounding an oak stump with its roots going upwards. It is believed that Seahenge was a place of
communal worship. Seahenge suddenly
appeared from a salt marsh in 1998. It
was discovered by archaeologist Rose Ferraby who also completed drawings and
paintings of the site and a sound piece ‘half/life’ created in
conjunction with Rob St. John. The work
consists of different sounds like the fizz of surf or wind on a metal
floodgate.
Tougher metal axes and
tools meant that activities like ship building, house construction, and weapon
manufacture became easier and the end products much more robust and
durable. This also meant that warfare of
an increasingly violent, large scale, and bloody kind became much more prevalent
than formerly. The exhibition details
the new bronze shields, helmets, breast plates, and weapons being used by
warriors throughout the bronze age.
Britain tended to be more conservative than the near continent and
continental standards and styles more progressive. For instance, by the time the Romans arrived,
the Britons shock weapon of choice was still the light two horse, two-man
chariot. Their continental cousins in
Gaul had long abandoned the chariot in favour of heavy cavalry.
The purpose of Stonehenge
and henges generally was as a solar calendar for the shadows of the standing
stones were at their longest and shortest at the summer and winter
solstices. Newgrange, in the Boyne
Valley near Dublin, is a Neolithic passage tomb built before the pyramids were
constructed in Egypt. On the shortest
day the Neolithic hunter gatherers observed the light penetrating the inner
stone passageway and chamber which were aligned so that the sun flooded the
inner chamber. With the advent of
advanced metalwork, not only in bronze but also in goldsmithing, objects like
gold torcs, lanulae, and sun discs began to replace famous religious sites like
Stonehenge.
The most important object
in the exhibition is the Nebra Sky Disc from eastern Germany, thought to be
bronze age, dating from about 1650 BC, and, if so, the oldest known depiction
of the cosmos. It functions as a
calculator used to reconcile the solar and lunar calendar. The Nebra Sky Disc depicts the Pleiades (also
known as the Seven Sisters), the full moon, and the crescent moon. A rule derived from ancient Babylonian texts
states that a leap month should be added each third year if a crescent moon, a
few days old appears next to the Pleiades in the springtime sky. The provenance of the Nebra Sky Disc is that
it was uncovered by two looters in Sachsen Anhalt, east Germany in 1999. They sold the item on, but the state
eventually learnt of its existence and recuperated the item when parties
attempted to sell it at the price of 700,000 DM. The piece has been authenticated as being
very old, but some researchers believe that it may be iron age and that it is
not as old as the artifacts, bronze swords, chisels, and bracelets, discovered
in the same hoard. However, this is
contested by other archaeologists. Interestingly the Nebra hoard was found buried separately and not in a gravesite of a notable leader or warrior. The community it belonged to clearly believed that it was too important to be connected to any individual. They clearly hoped that their artifact would one day be discovered for the community it belonged to had clearly succumbed to some existential foe, possibly of a military nature but more likely plague.
The British Museum’s
World of Stonehenge exhibition offers interesting, even miraculous artifacts, a
driven, compelling narrative, and even quite a few creepy skulls and bones to
create a shamanistic experience.
Discover your inner shaman by visiting the British Museum for this
terrific exhibition.
Paul Murphy, the British
Museum, April 2022
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