Research Catalog

Title

Great stone circles : fables, fictions, facts / Aubrey Burl.

Author

Burl, Aubrey.

Publication

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [1999], ©1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

199 pages : illustrations; 28 cm

Summary

• Archaeologist Aubrey Burl, for more than thirty years a specialist in the study of stone circles, selects a dozen attractive and evocative rings for close examination. Each of the twelve sites illuminates a particular archaeological question - the purpose of stone circles, their construction, age, distribution, design, art, legend and relation to astronomy.
• Burl asks, and offers sometimes surprising answers to questions about Stonehenge: how were its bluestones transported from south-west Wales, why was its Slaughter Stone not used for sacrifice, and why is Stonehenge - the most British of stone circles - not a stone circle and not British?
• To conclude his account of the strange subtleties of stone circles, Burl reconstructs the social history of Swinside in the Lake District, describing the builders, their way of life, and the ceremonies they performed inside their lovely ring.

Subjects

• Stone circles > England
• England > Antiquities
• Megalithic monuments > England
• Stonehenge (England)

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Pt. 1. Fables, Fictions and Facts. Ch. 1. The Rollright Stones, Oxfordshire. Ch. 2. Long Meg and Her Daughters, Cumbria. Ch. 3. Stanton Drew, Somerset. Ch. 4. A Cornish Quartet. Ch. 5. Woodhenge, Wiltshire -- Pt. 2. Stonehenge. Ch. 6. Stonehenge, Wiltshire. Ch. 7. Transportation or Glaciation? Ch. 8. The Heel Stone. Ch. 9. The Slaughter Stone. Ch. 10. The Sarsen Horseshoe -- Pt. 3. The Making of a Stone Circle. Ch. 11. Swinside, Cumbria.

ISBN

0300076894

LCCN

98034056

OCLC

• 39695679
• ocm39695679

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries