To put this in perspective if each of the stars below equals 70 years (an arbitrary human lifetime) click down for a british perspective!
* You - Yes you who watch TV, Listen to music on your ipods, surf the net and fly around the world in great jet powered aluminium tubes.
* 1930 - Grandads/Great Grandads time - Steam trains - World conflict - Atomic bombs - Grammaphones - Black and white TV - You remember the Queen when she was still just a cute looking princess.
* 1860 - The Empire is expanding into Africa, the middle-East, South-East and now East-Asia and China, canals being used to transport goods, you will live through the first world war, see a Zeppeline, horses are still in use on farms and English society is still very class concious. You might live long enough to see women get the vote, long overdue shift towards female equality of the pre-roman times.
* 1790 - If you are born now then you might well serve under Admiral lord Nelson fighting the French on a great sailing ship like 'Victory' aged 15!
* 1720 - You could sail to adventure with the great english 'Pirate' captains, or if Scottish you might like to invade England with Bonny Prince Charlie. You might get to see some Druids, the first openly practised Druidry re-emerging after centuries of obscurity in England. Try not to get involved in the American war of independance, we loose that one!
* 1650 - Hey, for the first time you can drink tea, careful you might start a craze! There's finally a decent ships clock making navigation easier, you could travel to the new settlement of New Amsterdam (New York) and the fashion for men is to wear long curly wigs over long hair (scratch scratch). You'ld be advised to not be in London on your 16th year, it burns down, and lifes been hard for some time already due to the great plague, a rotton time to be born!
* 1580 - English seaman Francis Drake returns to Plymouth, England, in the Golden Hind, becoming the first British navigator to sail the earth. Bravo!
* 1510 -
* 1440
* 1370
* 1300 - The hundred years war (or series of wars) kicks of between England and France.
* 1230
* 1160 - If legend be true go to Nottingham and thence to Sherwood to meet Robin hood, these are interesting times, avoid getting involved in the madness of the crusades.
* 1090 - A fairly miserable existance under Norman (French) rule, Castles everywhere and not much in the way of justice for the common people
* 1020 - Now its the turn of the Anglo Saxon rulers to defend against viking and then Norman invaders, sadly to loose in 1066 keep your longbow handy!
* 950
* 880
* 810
* 740
* 670 - By now the high status families are all Christian, but many other folk stay true to the older beliefs, just don't be too obvious about it.
* 600 - People in England start to adopt the language of the Saxon invaders but life goes on largely as before, you might enjoy living in these times if you're not a Christian
* 530 - Saxons invading our shores, taking more and more of our land - Gildas the monk, writes about darkage Britain and the situation that gave rise to the legend of Arthur. The legendary King Arthur and the Druid Merlin lead the defence of the realm
* 460 - Fairly bad times, you have to hope your Chieftan is good and your spear hand is steady.
* 390 - You get to celebrate the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain, unfortunately that leaves a power vacuum so lots of petty fighting between tribes
* 320 -
* 250 -
* 180 - Stable Co-existance, but you are not free, you might like to go north or west and join the free Celts there. Or you could put on Roman affectations, build ugly square houses and wait it out.
* 110 - Romano-Celtic period - Pay your taxes and live under cruel roman rule - Druids must go into hiding or flee to Ireland / Scotland
* 40 - You are a freeborn Celt - You may live through the Roman Invasions and Iceni led revolt, maybe even fighting beside queen Boudicca or defending the Druid Isle of Mona.
* 30BC
* 100 BC
* 170 BC
* 240 BC
* 310 BC
* 380 BC
* 450 BC
* 520 BC
* 590 BC
* 660BC
* 730 BC
* 800 BC
* 870 BC
* 940 BC
* 1010 BC
* 1080 BC
* 1150 BC
* 1220 BC
* 1290 BC
* 1360 BC
* 1430 BC
* 1500 BC
* 1570 BC
* 1640 BC
* 1710 BC
* 1780 BC
* 1850 BC
* 1920 BC
* 1990 BC
* 2060 BC - Job finished - ready to inspire the world!
* 2130 BC - Bluestones added
* 2200 BC
* 2270 BC
* 2340 BC
* 2410 BC - The great Sarcen stone circle and horseshoe of mighty triathlons are added
* 2480 BC
* 2550 BC - The inner circles of wood are replaced with stone, station stones are added (18 year lunar cycle markers)
* 2620 BC
* 2690 BC - Further inner circles of wood are added
* 2760 BC - Someone adds 56 wooden posts (perfect for a moon phase and lunar ecylpse calculator, is this just coincidence?)
* 2830 BC
* 2900 BC
* 2970 BC - Work starts on Stonehenge - Well a mighty ring ditch and mound enclosure with and entrance axis facing northeast towards the mid summer sunrise.
* 3040 BC - Somebody had a very bright idea!
The average weight of a Sarsen stone used to build Stonehenge is 26 tons (ten tons MORE than the average weight of any one stone used to build the pyramids of Egypt)
The larger sarsen stones were brought from a quarry 29 kms (about 15 miles) away from the site where Stonehenge was erected (whereas the stones used to build the Great Pyramids were quarried at the site of their construction).
It is estimated that it would take 1000 men to haul one stone, but they were clever folk and may well have worked out more economic means of moving them we haven't yet worked out.
The smaller bluestones used to build Stonehenge, were quarried from mountains in Wales, 217 kms (100 miles) away.
A wall of earth and a ditch, 320 feet in diameter, surrounded Stonehenge, inside of the wall, thirty blocks of sandstone each 13 1/2 feet or 4 meters above the ground and weighing about 28 tons average, stand this is the Sarsen Circle, and is about 108 feet (33 metres) in diameter, Then within are 60 blue stones, of around 4 tons average weight. Inside of these, 2 horse shoe forms were built, one inside of the other.
By way of a comparitive reference a 747 Jumbo Jet is 70.66m (231ft 10in) in length and would park within the ditch enclosure with 89 feet to spare, the Inner Sarcen circle of stones has a diameter roughly half the length of a 747 ! Another way to visualise the size of stonehenge is to think how many london double decker buses would fit parked nose to tail within the circular ditch enclosure, ten could park like this, with 4 buses almost fitting inside the great sarcen circle of stones.