Exhibit uncovers secrets of ancient past
Kansas City’s celebrated Union Station is hosting the premier in the Americas of an exhibition that sheds light on mystifying, millennia-old secrets. “Stonehenge: Ancient Mysteries and Modern Discoveries” reveals new information from researchers about the legendary prehistoric monument. The international traveling exhibit opened May 25 and runs through Sept. 29.
WHO built Stonehenge and HOW? WHAT was its purpose? WHEN was it made at the remote Salisbury Plain in south central England?
“This new exhibition allows guests to explore and experience all of those questions and encounter the very latest that science is revealing,” said Union Station CEO George Guastello in a statement.
The exhibit takes up 15,000-square feet in six galleries on Level C. Visitors can view 23 interactive videos; explore Stonehenge’s native setting; and learn about the prehistoric monument’s builders, how they constructed and used it, and how modern science enables researchers to continually uncover more of the story.
Dating back to 3000 B.C., Stonehenge is among the world’s most impressive megalithic monuments, according to UNESCO, because of the size of its megaliths and sophisticated concentric plan and architectural design. (The largest stone, or menhir, measures 13 feet high and seven feet wide.) In 1986, UNESCO designated Stonehenge, along with nearby Avebury and other associated spots a World Heritage site.
Stonehenge covers 10.4 square miles. At its heart are circles of menhirs. The outer circle consists of five sarsen sandstone trilithons (large vertical stones) crowned by lintels (horizontal stones). Inside the sarsen circle are a circle and a horseshoe arrangement of smaller bluestones (spotted dolerite rocks).
Scientific analysis reveals that the sarsen stones, weighing between four and 28 tons each, came from at least 20 miles away, and the bluestones, each weighing two to four tons, came from a staggering 150 miles away. It would have taken 200 people several months to drag the sarsens on wooden sleds to Stonehenge and 30 or more people six months to transport each bluestone from the Preseli Mountains in Wales.
“The degree of organization suggests a complex social structure,” reads an exhibit caption.
One of the latest theories is that Stonehenge’s builders transported the stones so far to bring a bit of home with them. Analysis of genetic data from skeletons shows that the monument’s makers originally came from Europe’s Low Countries. They had deep ancestral roots to Asia and were known as Beaker people for the bell-shaped pots they made and buried with their dead.
While Stonehenge appears to have symbolized the entire cosmos in its eternal order, an exhibition caption read, it was in fact the largest cemetery in Britain at the time. Some people traveled great distances to bury loved ones there. Archeologists think Stonehenge was built as a monument incorporating ideas about the cosmos, not as a precision tool for astronomical observation.
More than 300 ancient artifacts excavated from Stonehenge on display include animal bones, arrowheads, daggers, pins, pot sherds, scrapers, the skeletal remains of a Beaker man, tools, a wrist guard and more. Half of artifacts in the exhibit have never before traveled out of Europe.
“Stonehenge: Ancient Mysteries and Modern Discoveries” is the result of almost 20 years of painstaking and unprecedented excavation and analysis drawing on 19-plus different scientific disciplines.
“With the use of cutting-edge technology, we now have answers to questions that have mystified for thousands of years,” said Union Station board chairman Ramón Murguía. “Visitors will be captivated and experience this in a personal and hands-on way.”
