Stonehenge May Have Healed Sick, Injured
Stonehenge has a new age ? and a new purpose. It’s long been understood that the Neolithic stone circle on Salisbury Plain in southern England was an observatory tuned to the summer solstice and the positions of the stars. But new excavations led by a pair of British archaeologists show that it was also a healing center, a sort of pagan Lourdes for chronically ill and crippled pilgrims from across western Europe. “Stonehenge would attract not only people who were unwell, but people who were capable of [healing] them,” Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University told the BBC. The dig by Darvill and fellow archaeologist Geoff Wainwright also may reset the timeline of the Stonehenge site.
