LONDON: At the centre of Stonehenge lies the ‘altar stone’, a hefty slab of sandstone whose origin and purpose have been among the famed megalithic monument’s enduring mysteries. A new analysis has revealed that this rectangular colossus took a remarkable journey to become part of one of humankind’s ancient wonders.

Its geochemical fingerprint is a perfect match for bedrock found in northeastern Scotland, researchers said on Wednesday, indicating that the Altar Stone — weighing an estimated six tons — was transported roughly 700-750 kilometres by Stonehenge’s creators to Salisbury Plain in southern England.

The findings left the researchers stunned. No stone from any other monument dating to that time period is known to have been transported such a distance. “We couldn’t believe it,” said Anthony Clarke, a doctoral student in geology at Curtin University in Australia and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature. The common belief for the past century had been that it had been sourced from Wales like some other Stonehenge large components.

The Altar Stone, recumbent rather than erect, is 4.9 metres long, a metre (3-1/4 feet) wide and half a metre (1-2/3 feet) thick. It is grey-green sandstone, though its rippled and weathered surface now has a red-brown colouration.

Transporting it such a distance — perhaps by both land and sea — suggests a degree of societal organisation among Britain’s Neolithic communities unexpected for the time when it was moved, thought to have been about 4,600-2,500 years ago, roughly contemporaneous with ancient Egypt’s great pyramids.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2024