Era 6: Phase 3: 2400-1600BC Sarsen circle
Sarsen Circle
Sarsen Horseshoe
Transporting the Sarsens
Shaping the Sarsens
Carpentry Techniques
Erecting the Sarsens
Erecting the Lintels
The design, transport and construction of the Sarsen Circle was one of the greatest achievements of prehistory.
Sarsen Circle
The Sarsen Circle, about 30m in diameter, consisted of 30 uprights, each weighing about 25 tonnes, topped by a continuous ring of 30 lintels weighing about 7 tonnes.
Sarsen Horseshoe
The inner sanctum of the monument, possibly originally hidden from the outside, consisted of a horseshoe arrangment of five Sarsen Trilithons each consisting of a pair of huge uprights, weighing up to 45 tonnes, topped by a massive lintel.
Transporting the Sarsens
 | The only sarsen rocks available were from the Marlborough Downs 30 kilometres to the north.
They could have been transported on log rollers or rails, pulled by hundreds of people across the Wiltshire downland to the site of the temple. |
Shaping the Sarsens
Sarsen is a very hard rock and can only be shaped with other sarsen rocks. The giant Sarsens were deliberately shaped to exaggerate the feeling of perspective. The uprights taper towards the top with a broad base, much like a tree-trunk, and this is the very first architectural use of perspective in Britain, and adds to the physical impact of the monument. It gives a better foundation and a crude optical illusion of height. The lintels of the outer circle are also shaped to form a circuit.
Carpentry Techniques
The use of carpentry techniques applied to stone is quite unique. The stones themselves are shaped as you would timber uprights and the lintels are placed on top of the uprights using woodworking techniques called mortice and tenon joints.
The uprights probably had to be worked down after they had been put into position to produce the tenon joint and to level the lintels into a circle.
There is also a ridge and groove arrangement where the end of one lintel meets the beginning of the next.
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Erecting the Sarsens
This method was probably used to erect the stones. A pit was dug in the chalk, with one side vertical and the opposite a sloping ramp. A row of wooden stakes was driven in against the vertical side to stop the chalk being crushed. The stone was moved until its toe was over the hole and its centre of gravity just behind the lead roller. The outer end was levered up, dipping the base into the hole, until the stone over-balanced and came to rest in a leaning position. Counter weights could also have been used to topple the stone. Next, with levers supported by timber packing, it was raised a few inches at a time and held in place while the packing was rebuilt closer to the stone. Finally it was pulled upright. To raise a stone of the outer circle of sarsens would need about 200 people.
To help adjust the stones to vertical, their bases were dressed to a blunt point on which the mass could more easily pivot. When the final adjustment had been made, the hole was rapidly packed with stones, including discarded hammers.
Erecting the Lintels
A ramp of earth or wood could have been used to haul the lintels to their resting place on the bumps or tenons of the uprights.
But it has been widely accepted - that a scaffolding of timbers, along with the use of levers and wedges, could have been used. Indeed, this was tried at Stonehenge in the raising of a repaired lintel some years ago.
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