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NEW YORK: Stonehenge has long been a mystery. No one is absolutely sure how it was created and what it was used for. Theories abound from mythical Merlin and the Druids, to a healing center, burial tomb or a religious site.
Many believe that the stones’ astronomical alignments signify that it was a major place of pagan worship, where ceremonies were performed within the circular slabs and at ground level.
However, historian, art critic and former director of some Britain’s most important museums, Julian Spalding, has come up with a theory, which would challenge the validity of all previous ones.
He has suggested that religious ceremonies at the site were not conducted at surface level, but in a circular, wooden building on top of the stones, which could have been reached by a ramp or stairway.
However, because it was made of wood, the pagan church has inevitably rotted away and with it has gone any obvious signs of its existence. Even so, a few well-known facts could be construed to support his arguments.
For example, archeologists have recently discovered that the stones once formed a perfect circle, rather than being left unfinished, as some imagined. That could lend some support to Spaldings theory of a raised circular temple.
