Kingston Russell Stone Circle
The Kingston Russell Stone Circle (also known as the Gorwell Circle) is a stone circle that sits on a chalk ridge between the villages of Abbotsbury and Littlebredy in Dorset , England , and was probably built during the Bronze Age .
The Kingston-Russell circle is part of a stone circle tradition that spread primarily to parts of the British Isles and Brittany during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Ages (3300-900 BC) . The purpose of the monuments is unknown, although archaeologists believe they are religious sites.
A number of such circles have been constructed in Dorset from sarsen stone, which are smaller than the stones elsewhere. The oval Kingston-Russell is the largest circle in Dorset. It measures approximately 27.0 × 24.0 meters and contains 18 stones. Some are broken, and it is impossible to tell which fragments are originally bases and which were upper parts. The stones vary in size from 2.0 × 0.5 meters up to 1.0 × 0.3 meters. In 1980 it was said that a stone had been "added" to the circle in recent years.
The antiquarian John Hutchins (1698–1773) mentioned the circle in his posthumously published work The History and Antiquities of Dorset of 1774. Influenced by the ideas of the American antiquarian William Stukeley (1687–1765), Hutchins described the Kingston-Russell as a "Druidic circle "and attributed its creation to the Druids of the Iron Age .
The site has not been excavated or subjected to an in-depth archaeological study, but is a planned monument and has therefore been protected under the 1979 Act on Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas.
The destroyed burial chamber The Gray Mare and her Colts lies in the southeast. Hellstone is further east .
literature
- Aubrey Burl: The Stone Circles of the British Isles . Yale University Press, New Haven CT et al. 1976, ISBN 0-300-01972-6 .
Individual evidence
- ^ "Sarsen" is an abbreviation of "Saracen stone" in the Wiltshire dialect. "Saracen" was a common name for anything that was considered non-Christian, whether Muslim, pagan Celtic or otherwise.
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 41 ′ 18.7 " N , 2 ° 35 ′ 56.1" W.