Bonus Blog Post

During this semester, I have found the topic on Stonehenge to be the most interesting and informative to me. I already had some previous knowledge on Stonehenge but much of this knowledge was filled with blanks and misinformation so digesting the facts given to me on Stonehenge helped fulfill my desire to learn more about it and to learn actual credible information instead of what I usually come across on the internet.

I don’t know if I would claim Stonehenge to be the most important site that we studied, as I do not really know how to rank the significance of the site based on importance compared to the others but to me it stood out the most and meant the most to me. It is also one of the sites that has captured the attention of millions of people and captivated their attention. Before we talked about Stonehenge more in depth I knew that it was one of the Seven Wonders of the World and I thought this had to do with the amount of information we did not have on it. In other words, I have always been told the human populace knew nothing of the origins and only had guesses. After learning of the different theories in class I was glad that Merlin had been brought up because this is where some of my knowledge of Stonehenge stems from. I’ve always been interested in medieval topics and Merlin is one of my all time favorites.

One idea that really stuck out to me though was the theory from John Webb. John Webb claimed it was a Roman structure that had been built on the land. The timing made sense to me because Rome was in existence before Common Era. The circular and pillar like construction resembled Roman architecture in my mind and it seemed much more plausible than the theory of the Devil having made it to confuse humans.

Learning about each phase of construction kept my interest peeked and I am oddly satisfied to have learned that the people living in this area at the time used it very commonly as a cremation cemetery. One thing that always seems to fascinate me is the traditions and rituals people have surrounding death and the celebration of life. Symbolic representation of both is present at the time and we see this in the construction of Woodhenge that is though to be representative of the land of the living, while Stonehenge is representative of the land of the dead.

It is disappointing that the majority of my previous knowledge was filled with so much misinformation. The main lesson I learned from this is to always consider the source of whatever information I am given.