LONDON (AFP) — Academics hope they may be about to crack the puzzle of why Stonehenge, the circle of giant stones in south-west England which has inspired mystery and wonder for nearly 5,000 years, was first built.
One theory is that it was designed as a place where pilgrims went in search of healing for the sick -- a kind of prehistoric version of Lourdes, the Christian pilgrimage site in southern France.
Scientists are hoping that a new technology will help them to make a breakthrough during a major excavation at the UNESCO World Heritage Site, which looms over Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.
"This excavation is the first opportunity to bring the power of modern scientific archaeology to bear on a problem that has taxed the minds of travellers and archaeologists since medieval times," said Timothy Darvill, head of Bournemouth University's archaeology department, one of the dig's leaders.
In around 2,600 BC, hundreds of men arranged 80 giant standing stones on Salisbury Plain, where there was already a 400-year-old stone circle.
Around two centuries later, even bigger stones were brought to the plain.
Today, only 40 percent of the originals remain. But around 850,000 visitors per year come to marvel at the 17 stones which are still intact.
The biggest stones came from a quarry some 30 kilometres (18 miles) away, while some of the others come from a range of hills in south-west Wales, a 250 kilometre journey away.
-- Stonehenge remains 'a puzzle, a riddle' --
Nobody knows how they were transported -- although studies suggest that it could have taken up to 600 men to move them -- or how the massive stone lintels were put on top of the stones, which are up to seven metres (22 feet) tall.
The sheer magnitude of the feat has prompted scores of outlandish claims about how Stonehenge might have been built.
In the Middle Ages, some believed that Merlin, a wizard in the legend of King Arthur, was behind Stonehenge. More recently, extra-terrestrial involvement has been suggested.
But the experts are more interested in finding out why, rather than how, the stones were put in place.
Some think it may be a prehistoric observatory, because it faces where the sun rises for the summer solstice; others moot a druidic sacrificial temple, but druids did not even exist when it was built.
"It's a puzzle, a riddle," Darvill admitted. His own theory is that "Stonehenge was a healing temple, a kind of prehistoric Lourdes," although he does not yet have direct evidence to back this up.
There are some details which support his theory: a string of bodies are buried around the circle, most of which were diseased.
Furthermore, in the centre of the circle were more than 80 bluestones from a Welsh quarry, of which a handful remain.
"Until medieval times, the bluestones were believed to have a healing power," Darvill said.
It is the bluestones which the experts are focusing on for the dig, the first inside the stone circle since 1964.
Liam Wolley, a Bournemouth University archaeology student who is helping with the excavation, said he was helping to look for fragments of the stones in order to analyse them and see if they had been chipped off the main stones so people could wear them as a sort of talisman.
"It's pretty exciting," he added.
The dig itself is expected to last around two weeks and it could take up to six months to analyse the materials which they find.
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