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00:00It's one of the most mysterious places in the world.
00:21A strange set of stones, arranged like no other,
00:26stand silently above the plains of southern England.
00:30Stonehenge.
00:41For centuries, no one knew who built it.
00:47According to medieval legend, it was the work of Merlin,
00:50the wizard of King Arthur's court.
00:56Later, credit for the construction went to the Romans.
01:00And then to an ancient pagan cult, the Druids.
01:08Only in recent years have archaeologists finally begun to discover who really built Stonehenge.
01:15And when.
01:16Scientists now believe that these stones were erected almost 4,500 years ago,
01:26long before King Arthur or the Romans, at the end of the Stone Age.
01:31It was an amazing achievement.
01:44Each of the colossal uprights weighs between 50 and 80,000 pounds.
01:50The stones are harder than granite.
01:58But most were carefully shaped and joined together, as if they were made of wood.
02:04And although the monument stands on sloping ground,
02:09a line of the horizontal stones, called lintels, runs almost perfectly level.
02:16All this was done in an age without machinery, without writing, and without any metal tools.
02:25Even after 15 years of studying the area around Stonehenge,
02:36archaeologist Julian Richards is still impressed by this ancient wonder.
02:41This is the biggest stone at Stonehenge.
02:44It's absolutely enormous.
02:46It towers over 20 feet above me, and there's eight feet of it buried in the ground.
02:52I get really fed up when people come to Stonehenge and say it's smaller than they expected.
02:57I mean, this is a massive stone.
02:59It used to have a pear standing there as well.
03:03That one, unfortunately, only buried four feet in the ground, fell over a couple of centuries ago.
03:08And these two stones, these two massive uprights, with a great lintel on top, form a trilithon,
03:16one of the biggest and most impressive elements of Stonehenge.
03:22The use of massive blocks, weighing up to 40 tons, is all the more remarkable,
03:28because there is no natural source for large stones anywhere near Stonehenge.
03:34In the Middle Ages, the mystery-inspired reports that the rocks were brought from Africa by an army of giants.
03:46Today, archaeologists have come up with a less romantic, but still impressive explanation.
03:55Twenty miles north of Stonehenge stands another stone circle, not as elaborate, but much larger.
04:03It's nearly a mile in circumference, and now encloses part of a town.
04:09This is Avebury.
04:11Incredibly huge stone circle, built before Stonehenge.
04:15But what it's got in common with Stonehenge is some of the rocks that it was made of.
04:19Sarsens, an incredibly hard sandstone, cemented together with silica.
04:25One of the hardest rocks that we know of in this part of England.
04:28Around Avebury, the valleys are littered with sarsen boulders.
04:34A few on the scale of Stonehenge still lie half-buried in the ground.
04:39Obviously, this is where they came to get the stone for Stonehenge.
04:42The only place around here where there's a supply of stones of the right sort of size.
04:47Roger Hopkins is a stonemason from Massachusetts who specializes in moving and shaping granite.
04:57For years, he's been amazed by the Stonehenge builder's mastery of hard stone.
05:01You know, looking at the site with all these stones in the way,
05:06it must have been a real chore to get these on a sled and get them out of this field.
05:11Well, I mean, they were using it as... I mean, it wasn't quarried.
05:14You didn't have to dig into solid rock to get this out.
05:17It would have just lain around all over the place.
05:19What's the contour of the terrain like between here and there?
05:23It varies quite a lot. There's a fairly flat river valley,
05:27and then a very steep hill to get you up onto Salisbury Plain,
05:32from where on it just undulates gently until you get all the way to Stonehenge.
05:36If Avebury was the source for the massive sarsens,
05:41how did the ancient builders transport them across 20 miles of rolling hills
05:46and erect them in the shape of Stonehenge?
05:53After centuries of mystery and debate, Julian and Roger are determined to find out.
05:59Their plan is to reconstruct the great trilithon of Stonehenge.
06:07But to pull it off, they'll need a little help.
06:15This small army of volunteers will provide the labor in an historic attempt
06:20to move and raise blocks exactly like those in Stonehenge,
06:25using Stone Age technology.
06:28We'll have to lift the end when we come to do it.
06:33Along with Julian and Roger, the team will be led by engineer Mark Whitby.
06:38The reality of taking two 40-ton stones and turning them on their ends,
06:42without using any machine power whatsoever, is quite a daunting task.
06:49I don't think people have really stopped to think about the problem at Stonehenge in a realistic way.
06:53All the theories are put together by people who haven't actually been faced
06:56with the practical task of doing it.
07:02One of the old theories is that the stones were moved on top of large rollers made of tree trunks.
07:08One, two, three, four!
07:12One, two, three, four!
07:14Keep going! Keep going! Keep going!
07:15And tests performed with concrete blocks, like this one weighing nine tons,
07:20have shown that rollers can work.
07:22One, two, three, four!
07:23One, two, three, four!
07:25One, two, three, four!
07:26One, two, three, four!
07:27But the biggest stones at Stonehenge were more than four times as heavy.
07:32This is a concrete replica of the largest stone at the ancient site.
07:38It's almost 30 feet long and weighs over 40 tons.
07:43So what are you going to do? Try and lift the front?
07:45We're just going to try and lift the front.
07:46Right at the front.
07:48Mark is convinced that such a huge weight would crush and flatten even the hardest wooden rollers.
07:54I watched people drag a boat up a beach and they had rollers there, but the rollers didn't rotate.
07:59They actually had grooves in them where the keel of the boat went over the top of them.
08:03And lo and behold, they were putting grease on that groove to make it slide.
08:09It's quite obvious things would rather slide.
08:11And if you get it greased, it's easier to make it slide than it is to make it roll.
08:17So instead of rollers, Mark has constructed a simple track made of two parallel lines of timbers,
08:24set into the ground.
08:26The 40-ton megalith sits on a wooden sled.
08:30The bottom of the sled is equipped with a keel,
08:33which keeps it centered on the track and prevents it from going off course.
08:37One, two, three, pull!
08:46To make it easier for the stone to slide, Mark has the rails of the track slathered with grease.
08:54In ancient times, the workers could have used animal fat, known as tallow.
09:01The team will attempt to pull the stone up a slight incline, typical of the terrain surrounding Stonehenge.
09:07It's going to be very hard work getting up the slope.
09:12We've got everybody lined up here to pull.
09:15And it's going to be, you know, very interesting to see whether they can do it.
09:20It's not going to be easy.
09:22In true engineering fashion, Mark has done some elaborate calculations.
09:27He's determined that it will take a minimum of 220 people to pull the weight uphill.
09:35Unfortunately, only 130 volunteers showed up.
09:39One, two, three, pull!
09:54Despite their efforts, the stone hasn't moved an inch.
09:58It's actually almost touching the edge.
10:02The liberal application of grease appears to have backfired,
10:06and the 40-ton stone is glued to the track.
10:10Take the strain of the rope!
10:12We've got a real sort of static friction, as I'd call it.
10:15It's stuck down with all the grease underneath it,
10:16and you've got to break that first of all before it will lose.
10:18Once you've broken that, we'll be off, hopefully.
10:23One, two, three, pull!
10:25One, two, three, pull!
10:29Mark will try just about anything to get the stone unstuck.
10:35That's what we're... Okay.
10:37No, but it's going to be...
10:40When they're pulling...
10:41When they're pulling.
10:42How many people have we got hanging around the back here?
10:46Why don't we all just get on the ropes up there?
10:48Try this on the back.
10:51Roger Hopkins is on hand to provide practical advice.
10:55He's the only one on the team with any first-hand experience moving large stones.
11:01He recommends breaking the suction by lifting the stone with levers.
11:10I think this will work. I think this will lift it up.
11:12That'll unstick it, and we should be away.
11:14But it's going to be... It's the job of unsticking it,
11:16which we've got to do now.
11:18We need to get it in further.
11:19Drop the... Drop this one here!
11:22This one here, drop it!
11:23Get them to pass the rope over and they pick up the outside.
11:26Get them to move more into a straight line?
11:28Yeah.
11:29In order to get things moving, project manager Mike O'Rourke has to get the pullers and the levers
11:35to work together.
11:37One, two, three, four!
11:56Suddenly, the levers do the trick.
11:58Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! It's going.
12:28Perfect. Absolutely brilliant. I mean, if anything, quite fast. I mean, do you think how far that would go in a day on that basis?
12:47In the end, Mark's system worked better than even he expected.
12:53But is there any evidence that the Stonehenge builders used a wooden trackway like this one?
13:01The method seems to be workable, but I just wonder, you know, if they would have bothered to build a trackway all the way from where Marlborough Downs is...
13:1025 miles? 25 miles, yeah.
13:13Well, I think the effort that you put into doing something like this certainly makes it a lot easier.
13:18I mean, the thing that bothers me is, having demonstrated that this works, you know, would we be able to find any trace of it in the ground?
13:26I don't think we would.
13:28As a result of weather and soil conditions in this part of England, combined with centuries of farming, very few of the tools and materials used in the construction of Stonehenge have survived.
13:46But we do know that parts of the countryside were once heavily wooded, providing plenty of timber for the Stonehenge builders.
13:56Jake Keene has spent years investigating Stone Age tools and technology.
14:05He believes that the ancient builders were extremely resourceful and exploited the forest for much more than timber.
14:20Using only stone and wooden tools, Jake carefully removes the bark from a common tree of the region, the small leaf lime.
14:35He then submerges the strips in a nearby stream and leaves them there for several weeks.
14:53After being in the mud for about six weeks...
15:03This is the smelly end product, which of course is the inner bark and the layers, baste layers have separated off.
15:14The little microorganisms have nibbled away at the gummy material and this is broken down into something like 10 or 12 separate ribbon-like layers,
15:26which is what we make string from, which is what we make string from.
15:31And we twist these together. They're very, very strong.
15:35I don't think there's probably any stronger plant fibre native to this island.
15:43Strong rope was essential for moving heavy stones.
15:46And with fibres like this, the ancient builders could easily have made rope capable of pulling the giant blocks of Stonehenge.
15:58But why did they bother to drag the stones over 20 miles to this shallow valley?
16:05No one knows why it was chosen, but there's evidence that this site was considered sacred centuries before Stonehenge was built.
16:17After excavating the area and radiocarbon dating the pieces of bone and charcoal found here,
16:23archaeologists have retraced a unique sequence of construction.
16:27The first monument was built over 5,000 years ago and contained no stones at all.
16:36It was a simple earthwork enclosure consisting of a circular ditch, a bank and 56 wooden posts dug into the ground.
16:46Over the next 400 years, a series of wooden buildings occupied the centre of the circle.
16:53Tiny fragments of the foundations remain.
16:58The first stones arrived around 2,600 BC,
17:03when the buildings were replaced by a double crescent of small pillars called bluestones.
17:10Just a hundred years later, the monument took on its final form.
17:15Thirty giant sarsens, each weighing about 25 tons,
17:20were neatly arranged in a ring about 100 feet across.
17:25Along their tops were placed 30 lintels forming a true circle 16 feet above the ground.
17:34Within the circle stood the largest stones.
17:37Five massive trilithons formed a horseshoe.
17:41The tallest towered 25 feet above the ground.
17:46The builders had never before attempted to raise stones on such a colossal scale.
17:53How did they manage to do it?
17:57Archaeologists discovered important clues when they excavated the soil around the largest stone.
18:05They found that it stood in a giant hole with almost a third of it underground.
18:12One side of the pit was slanted, indicating that the stone had been lowered into the ground at a steep angle.
18:21Remnants of deer antler revealed how the hole was dug out of the hard chalk.
18:28It would certainly have been possible to have dug a hole with an antler pick like this.
18:36It would take perhaps two people, three days maybe, to dig a hole of this size.
18:44With the 40-ton stone poised over the pit, can the team replicate the ancient feat of standing it upright?
18:51Mark Whitby has a plan.
18:55What we've got is one of the 40-ton uprights.
18:58And it's been dragged to a position where it's now ready to be toppled into the hole that we have in the ground.
19:04And the hole's pretty precise because it's exactly the same as the hole that they've got at Stonehenge.
19:09But the basic concept is we've put six tons now on the back of the stone by dragging it up these ramps.
19:16We've tied it together as a bundle.
19:18We've put it on a little greased chariot here, rather like we had for the big stone.
19:22And that's running on a very simple bearing down here.
19:26It's not nearly as heavy as the big stone.
19:28And we've got it tied back with a rope, which is lassoed right round the back here.
19:34And that rope's going to mean that when it travels a certain distance along this stone, it's going to stop.
19:39However, before it reaches that point, it will have passed this magic point at the centre of gravity.
19:44And we'll be inducing the force, which will make the whole stone start to turn.
19:49It'll happen slowly to begin with, and then it'll just go.
19:52Instead of moving the stone, the volunteers will pull a heavy weight that will tip the block.
19:59This is a good example of modern men trying to over-engineer ancient techniques.
20:07This is a bit over-elaborate, but I'm hoping it works.
20:12It'll save us a lot of work in the long run.
20:15Right, this is what we've been waiting for.
20:17There's one very, very important thing.
20:20When that stone starts to stand, do not rush to the stone.
20:25You must all stay back until the engineers have checked to see if it's safe.
20:29We can crawl all over it once, it's safe.
20:31But you mustn't, under any circumstances, come forward of where you are now.
20:35The safety of the workers is foremost in everyone's mind.
20:39But there are also fears for the stone itself.
20:42Three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two...
20:49The megalith could tumble out of control, or even break apart from the force of impact.
20:56Yes!
20:58I'm excited in one sense, and in another sense I wish I was a long way away.
21:02You know, it's, uh, we'll see, you know.
21:05Something's gonna happen.
21:08Mark realizes he's got just one chance to get it right.
21:13It's right.
21:14It's now or never.
21:15It's right.
21:16It's right.
21:17It's now or never.
21:20I'm an actor.
21:21If you know any, of you need to edge their legs.
21:22If you can him get fís just by make it so fast, you'll never lose.
21:23You'll never lose.
21:24You don't lose.
21:25You don't lose.
21:26I am atcity.
21:27It's on my oldанныеdat is on my ownentecost.
21:28You'll never lose.
21:29It's on my high enough portrayals.
21:30I am at rencontre what you do is on the other side of the town of my old Grukland,
21:32If you have a change, I was just a hit, I had anything to take off my own 모습 but I'll stay
21:33byggerca할 сильно.
21:34Yes!
21:35Oh!
21:36Well, I never knew that, I can't touch me either.
21:37But I'm out of nowhere.
21:38It's on my own time of death, yes.
21:39As you can have trouble ...
21:40Yeah!
21:50It's literally just dropped just as we planned it to drop and the only thing just slightly
22:06different is it's kicked out the back here but that's that's just better than we expected
22:11that means it's more upright and got less work to do you know tomorrow well this uh this really
22:18worked a lot better than we hoped for i think better than we both hoped right you know better
22:22than i hoped and i was hoping the most probably i think it was probably one of the most spectacular
22:28ways that one can think of getting a stone this size into a stone hole whether that was possibly
22:35a way that they did it we shall honestly never know um i heard comments that it was a perhaps
22:43an over-engineered approach um i'm not convinced about that i mean the people who built stonehenge
22:49were very sophisticated and were obviously capable of of thinking out grand schemes like that and
22:55carrying them through and i don't see why especially after you'd perhaps had a go with some smaller
23:01stones that somebody wouldn't have come up with an idea like this let's use the weight of some smaller
23:06stones to to help us move a bigger one so i don't find it completely implausible we shall never know
23:14is the answer of course i think we could all go home to a nice rest a little relief
23:24mark chose this method for tipping the stones because it required the least number of people
23:30no one really knows how many workers were used in the construction of stonehenge
23:35because there's so little evidence
23:41there are no written records from this period
23:46the houses and farms that once supported the workforce have by now completely vanished
23:58all that's left for archaeologists to find and study are pieces of pottery
24:02stone tools and bones but this meager evidence can give us some idea of what life was like in stone age england
24:144500 years ago
24:17the people were farmers moving from place to place in search of fertile soil
24:23they herded sheep and cattle and hunted for wild deer
24:33gradually as farming techniques improved the population grew providing the labor force for ambitious construction projects
24:43centuries before stonehenge communities started coming together to build large tombs
24:50one of the most impressive is over 340 feet long and has an entrance constructed of massive sarsens
24:58we've got one of the earliest examples here of the ability to construct with huge stones
25:04massive sarsens dragged from the surrounding downs some placed upright others like this one here
25:11placed on top of them as cap stones almost giving an idea of what stonehenge was going to be like when it was built with uprights and horizontal lentils
25:20but here these massive stones forming effectively boxes parts of a chambered tomb
25:26it's effectively a house of the dead five stone chambers lie on either side of this passage and in these were
25:35found the remains of 47 individuals buried over a period of perhaps 25 generations
25:41what's very interesting is the way that the bodies came into this tomb not all of them as as completely fleshed bodies
25:56but some of them just as collections of bones with hints that they might have been buried elsewhere for a while
26:02they might have been exposed for animals and the elements to remove the flesh from the corpses
26:07brought in here as a bundle of bones when the tomb was opened up and we get hints as well that there
26:14was a rearrangement of the bones skulls placed in one corner long bones in another the other bits and
26:20bobs tidied off to one side and one thing i find fascinating is that there are some bits that aren't
26:26aren't all there there there aren't quite enough heads to go around around the time that stonehenge was
26:41built burial practices were changing abandoning the large communal tombs important individuals were buried
26:51alone under circular mounds of earth called round barrows
26:59over 300 of these tombs still remain within two miles of stonehenge
27:07inside each one is a single body surrounded by a few prized possessions
27:13it's obvious society's changing at the time that the stonehenge that we know today was built i mean
27:22there aren't the communal burials with lots of people put into one burial mound instead every hilltop around
27:29here is covered with individual burial mounds round barrows and each one of those is the burial place of
27:36somebody rich and powerful they had to be to be buried this close to stonehenge and of all these barrows
27:44the most important the richest person of the lot appears to be buried in this one
27:52excavated about 180 years ago i mean he's still he's still in there the bones were recorded as being of a
28:00tall and robust man but the excavators at that time weren't interested in the in the bones themselves they
28:05left the burial where it was what they were interested in was the objects and that's what gives us a clue as
28:11to just how powerful this person was this person was buried with some absolutely incredible gold objects
28:20a breastplate a belt buckle
28:27pure gold finely hammered and etched
28:30other graves revealed more treasures gold earrings and buttons bronze daggers and spears
28:42four thousand years ago these objects adorned the richest and most powerful people
28:49and these ancient lords and ladies chose one location above all others as their final resting place
28:56the hills surrounding stonehenge in the midst of this enormous cemetery the circle of stones was like a great
29:09cathedral standing guard over the graves of its wealthiest patrons
29:13a great place
29:30back at the construction site the crew is contemplating its next major task
29:34the enormous concrete block is standing in the hole at a steep angle of 70 degrees
29:45the team now has to pull it just 20 more degrees to vertical
29:50but this will turn out to be a much greater challenge than mark would be ever expected
29:54well this would have been a distinct problem he's getting these things perfectly vertical
30:01we've not solved that one have we
30:05oh we got the weight of this one
30:10to maximize the workers efforts mark has erected two huge timber poles
30:16attached by ropes to the top of the stone
30:18the 90 volunteers will pull on another set of ropes that is tied to the top of the timbers
30:36with this arrangement mark hopes the poles will act like giant levers multiplying the force of the
30:42pull and making it much easier to move the stone upright one two three pull
30:55mark put a lot of thought into his plan but apparently not quite enough
31:00while these teams keep steady
31:04the upright poles are dangerously unstable
31:07and more time and energy is spent struggling to avoid a catastrophic collapse than actually moving the stone
31:16hold it mike
31:18get your teams at the front to slack it off and these teams put it back
31:32that team's not pulling hard enough that team right that team
31:37mark is forced to admit that his plan is flawed
31:40and agrees to tie the poles into a giant a-frame a much more stable arrangement
31:45but i think getting into a bit of an a-frame one would be we might be able to make something of it
31:50but it proves there's some value in that
31:53we should have an a-frame
31:54so we can maybe by making an a-frame concentrate our efforts and pulling it forward
32:11why didn't you think of that before
32:24we probably did but somehow got lost to the translation
32:27i know we've had all sorts of ideas and there's one of these ones
32:30yeah we should have stuck with but we somehow thought that things might be better than they really would be
32:37but an entire day has been lost
32:41mark and the team will have to wait until tomorrow to see if the a-frame works
32:45the original builders of stonehenge experienced their own share of setbacks
33:03along with moving and raising the stones every block had to be carefully shaped
33:10the horizontal lintels were secured at the supporting stones by unusual mortise and tenon joints
33:17a large projection on top of each upright had to fit precisely into a hole on the underside of the lentil
33:28with only stone tools pounding out the holes must have been an excruciatingly slow and tedious job
33:38i think it's likely that the uprights would have been in place with the tenons
33:42worked on the top of them before the the fine work took place on the lintel that would have involved
33:48pounding out these massive mortise holes i mean this would have taken weeks to do i would imagine
33:54the biggest of them holds about 18 gallons of water but clearly they didn't always get it right
34:01because on this side there's the start of a couple of other mortise holes so clearly they started here
34:08turned it over and worked them on this side and i would have hated to be the person who told the
34:13workers that they got it wrong and they got to turn it over and start all over again i don't think
34:18you'd have been very popular one two three four one two three let's just leave it we let it go
34:27no let it go seems a shame to let it go now that it's up there i know it's all right all right
34:31all right after yesterday's disappointments mark's own popularity is suffering a bit
34:38there's a bit of me which is i'd like to try putting stones up not timbers up yeah
34:44today he's hoping to redeem himself with a new and improved a-frame yeah i reckon that we should
34:49really just get another means of getting these poles up because otherwise we would get totally
34:52frustrated he uses a model to calculate how many people will be needed to finally get the stone vertical
34:58i've got the the stone to 70 degrees which as far as i'm concerned is the most difficult bit all
35:03we've got to do now is just get it through the next 20 degrees to vertical and what i'm going to do is
35:07going to use this a-frame we've made the a-frame so it's strong in this direction it's not going to fall
35:12over this way but we've made it so it's an a-frame which is a lever a great big lever and it's pivoting
35:18at the point of the ground here we're pulling with all the people we've got on the top of the frame here
35:23attached the ropes which are pulling from the stone to the a-frame to the point about a quarter of
35:31the way up the height the overall height of the lever the effect of that is that when the people pull
35:37here i can multiply the pulling force that they achieved by a factor of form now let's just look at
35:44how many people may be required to do the job i've got weights on the end of here this is a 50 gram weight
35:51that's approximately equivalent to 50 people pulling i'm now going to add another 20 to this team
35:58that's 70 and then another five to that that's 75 in total
36:06and i've got my stone to vertical
36:10but what if there were no a-frame okay let's imagine we were to do the brute force approach
36:17let's imagine we're to pull this thing to vertical without the a-frame
36:23i've got 75 on here let's just add a few people to this let's just add 200 more people to this team
36:29i haven't got 200 people let's just add them though let's imagine we've got them and see if
36:33we can do the job with 275 no we can't let's add another 50 this is 325 people pulling now
36:44and still not managing let's add another 10 to that that's 335 people and away it goes
36:53that's the amount we would have needed to pull and we just haven't gotten
36:55the full-size a-frame is up and ready to go but as usual roger hopkins isn't satisfied with the
37:04construction a proper a-frame should be built with a cross member one-third of the way up
37:10lashed in securely to keep it from racking
37:12uh you i don't think you're out of the woods yet and i think the a-frame you know probably should
37:19be in a lot closer so that we have a little bit more leverage with it and then we would just run
37:24the rope right over the top and pull the sucker over i think this is a good example of engineering
37:30learning some field experience well i think you're absolutely right there's no doubt we did a lot of
37:35things wrong yesterday we should have planned the a-frame to begin with absolutely you know absurd we
37:39haven't we still haven't agree with you got the best a-frame in the world but we've got something
37:43of an a-frame and i believe that's going to work well okay i wish you luck i just don't think
37:49that a-frame's going to hold together the way she's rigged
37:53all right let's see if we can shift that stone
38:13keep going keep going keep going come on
38:20one two three
38:35yeah it's all right you say go on you're pulling
38:39the proper way to have done this right from the beginning was that when we had the motion just
38:44keep on pulling whenever we've tipped up large stones we always try to keep the momentum going
38:50because it's it's a lot of work any other way i get a feeling these neolithic people were probably
38:57a lot handier with these tools than we are i'm sure of that certainly a-frames yeah
39:05remind me to get you the boy scout
39:06you might want to read it despite roger's concerns mark forges ahead with the operation
39:16and roger has nothing to do but retreat to the sidelines
39:19one two three five one two three four one two three four one two three one two
39:38The A-frame, although a bit precarious, makes a difference, and the monolith inches its way to vertical.
40:08It's all right, don't worry, don't worry.
40:15Slow and steady!
40:384,000 years ago, the Stonehenge builders had to raise and precisely position 40 of these huge blocks.
40:47The whole monument was symmetrically arranged around a central axis that runs through the entrance and down the middle of a processional avenue.
40:58It points directly to the spot on the horizon where the Sun first appears on June 21st, the summer solstice.
41:13Every year on this day, the Sun rises above the Heelstone, a sarsen boulder that stands near the entrance.
41:27Six months later, on December 21st, the shortest day of the year, the Sun sets on the opposite side of the circle, between two uprights of the now fallen central trilithon.
41:45Some people believe that Stonehenge is also aligned with the moon and the stars and can help predict eclipses, but none of these theories are proven.
41:56It is possible that the circle of stone served as a kind of crude calendar, alerting farmers to important events in the annual growing season.
42:11Most likely, Stonehenge was built as a temple, a special place for the community to gather, to perform sacred rituals and to honor their gods.
42:31In the 20th century, a modern cult of Druids adopted the temple as their own and used it as a stage for elaborate solstice ceremonies.
42:41But in the 1970s and 80s, their pagan services were gradually overwhelmed by hippies, drugs and the international press.
42:59To protect the monument, British authorities now close Stonehenge on the summer solstice.
43:11Barbed wire and armed guards keep everyone away from the ancient stones, including archaeologists.
43:20It's June the 21st, the summer solstice.
43:24It should, I suppose, be a beautiful day with the sun rising up over the hillstone, but it's raining.
43:29It's actually quite cold and miserable now.
43:32It's a place that I want to be at the midsummer.
43:39I feel somebody really ought to be here.
43:42But it's not a very spiritual experience.
43:46I think it could be, and it obviously was to the people who built it.
43:50I mean, forget all the engineering and forget the calculations and the big stones.
43:55I mean, this is the culmination of all that effort.
43:59This is why people dragged those stones those great distances and put them up.
44:03They were building a temple, and they're building a temple that is important,
44:08certainly at this time of the year, possibly at another time of the year in the winter.
44:12Clearly there was a tremendous amount of feeling on most people's part.
44:23The ancient builders needed this motivation when they faced their final challenge,
44:29raising the nine-ton lintel 23 feet to the top of the uprights.
44:34The traditional idea is that the smaller stone was raised slowly
44:39with large wooden levers and a timber crib.
44:43Turn again, turn again.
44:45Roger is eager to show how well this can work.
44:48Well, of course, we're going to get those out.
44:49Then we can maneuver it around.
44:51Lift, lift, lift.
44:59With each lift, thick pieces of timber are slid underneath the stone.
45:06Coming through.
45:10Okay?
45:12Yeah, that's good.
45:13Ease off.
45:15Yes!
45:17Little by little, the pile of timber grows.
45:19And, according to the theory, will gradually lift the stone to the top of the uprights.
45:29A little more.
45:31Good.
45:33Relax, relax, relax.
45:34I think it's clear it would be a perfectly feasible way of getting the lintel up, which is the nice thing about it.
45:42I mean, really, this is a textbook way, and bigger timbers would be useful.
45:47Well...
45:48And maybe they wouldn't have been quite so regular in size, which might have been a bit of a problem.
45:53Mark thinks the operation is too slow, and at a height of 20 feet would become too precarious.
45:58Same A-frame and the ropes again, and the same...
46:02He wanted to raise the lintel up a large ramp made out of earth.
46:06But, unfortunately, British safety officers insisted that he use steel scaffolding instead.
46:11Underneath all the scaffolding stands the 40-ton stone.
46:19A second identical upright has been raised beside it.
46:23And, together, the two stones will form the base of the trilithon.
46:27I mean, is this how you think that they did it, then, at the time they built Stonehenge?
46:32Well, Julian, it's quite simple.
46:33If you look over there, you'll see my big pile of earth.
46:35You know, do you see it?
46:36Torque everywhere.
46:37It's a pile of earth.
46:38I've just put some timbers on it, and we're walking up the pile of earth, and we're dragging the stone up the pile of earth.
46:43So, you know, that's what it is, Julian.
46:45It's, you know, ancient technology, can't you see?
46:49Well, yeah, no, so perhaps it's the scaffolding that confuses me a bit.
46:52Oh, well, you've got to put your blinkers on at this point, Julian.
46:55I must admit, I find this a 20th-century engineer's approach to how to get the lintel up.
47:01I mean, personally, I'm happier with the timber crib.
47:05It seems less intrusive into the monument at the time, and it seems a lot less elaborate than this somehow.
47:14You know, perhaps 4,000 years ago, yes, I still think there was a lot of preparation went into things,
47:19but there would have been a willingness to accept that perhaps that stone would have inched its way up over a period of a week.
47:26We've tried one method.
47:27We can see that.
47:28Yeah.
47:29Let's try another method and see how it goes.
47:30Yeah.
47:34Ready?
47:35Rob?
47:36Since the A-frame works so well in raising the stone to vertical, Mark will use it again to drag the lintel up the ramp.
47:52One, two, three, pull!
47:55One, two, three, pull!
47:58One, two, three...
47:59To allow the volunteers to rest between pulls, the top of the ramp is equipped with a log that's supposed to act as a brake,
48:07preventing the lintel from sliding backwards.
48:11No!
48:12No, don't you!
48:13Look!
48:14I've got to!
48:16But after a couple of big pulls, it's clear that the brake is not working.
48:21Take it!
48:22Okay, hold it!
48:23Hold it there!
48:24Right!
48:25You've got to release these back down.
48:26This isn't working here at all.
48:30Yeah, look, you know, just let these ropes right off.
48:32Okay?
48:33Right off.
48:34As soon as the volunteers stop pulling, the lintel descends to the bottom of the ramp.
48:38Okay, let's tie this down.
48:40Steady!
48:41One, two!
48:48It turns out that the riggers have wound the rope the wrong way around the log.
48:53Thankfully, the problem is easily fixed.
49:00One, two!
49:01And when the volunteers renew their efforts, the lintel starts to make its way up the ramp.
49:06One, two!
49:07Three!
49:08Pull!
49:09Like the ancient stones, the bottom of the lintel is equipped with two large mortise holes, which must fit exactly over the projections, or tenons, on top of the uprights.
49:24To ensure that the stones are properly aligned, the final phase of the operation must be performed slowly and precisely.
49:42Nice and easy.
49:43Nice and easy.
49:44Nice and easy.
49:45Nice and easy.
49:46Nice and easy.
49:47Hey!
49:48Whoa!
49:49Whoa!
49:50Whoa!
49:51Whoa!
49:52Nice!
49:53Yes!
49:54That's quite frightening.
49:55Your heart's still pumping.
49:56Yeah!
49:57I was thinking...
49:58Whoo!
49:59Yeah!
50:00Sweet!
50:01That's right!
50:02Yes!
50:03Whoo!
50:04Whoo!
50:05The volunteers are thrilled, but Mark is in no mood to celebrate.
50:10We're so close.
50:11It needs about three inches this way, then we're there.
50:14As he feared, the mortises and tenons are not lined up.
50:18Whoa!
50:19Look, look, why don't we just rock this end?
50:21Yeah.
50:22I'm sure we're almost there.
50:23The lintel must somehow be repositioned.
50:27It's going.
50:28It's going.
50:29Luckily, Roger brought along his levers.
50:32Keep that up and we'll, you know, slowly but surely, we'll make it.
50:37It's going.
50:38It's going.
50:39It's going.
50:40Come on!
50:41Yes!
50:42Yes!
50:43Yes!
50:44Yes!
50:45It takes some time, but finally the lintel slides down into position.
50:50There.
50:51It's supposed to leave it!
50:53Whoa!
50:54Whoa!
50:55Whoa!
50:56Yeah!
50:57Yeah!
50:58Yeah!
50:59The trilithon is complete.
51:01I think these Stone Age men were pretty ingenious.
51:14You learned an awful lot of respect for them as a result of being handed two forty-ton stones
51:19240-ton stones and one 9-ton stone and asked to sort of stand them on their ends and put the 9-ton on top
51:25and i think i probably got nearer to thinking like he might have thought at the time
51:29than anybody has for a long time and that's very nice a very nice feeling that gives you to
51:35enter into the sort of soul of somebody as a result of seeing what they've built
51:41they were pushing the envelope of their technology they were taking things that
51:47they had seen work and applying them to a massive job that was advancing their technology and by
51:55doing so probably advancing their status in their community we haven't got the final answer you know
52:07we can't say this is how it was done what we've demonstrated is how it could be done and we've
52:12tried to be as real to the time that the stonehenge that stonehenge was built as possible
52:19in archaeology you can answer some questions about stonehenge when it was built something
52:25about the society that built it and this has answered some of the questions about the task
52:30the engineering how you motivate people how you organize people but
52:33but there's always going to be mystique about stonehenge
52:48now log on to another lost empire ancient egypt at nova's website navigate the tunnels tombs and
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53:45next time on nova a modern day team struggles to reconstruct the legacy of the inca on secrets of lost empires
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