Why is it important to protect Stonehenge?

Why is it important to protect Stonehenge?

The Stonehenge, Avebury, and Associated Sites World Heritage Site is internationally important for its complexes of outstanding prehistoric monuments. Together with inter-related monuments and their associated landscapes, they help us to understand Neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial and mortuary practices.

Is Stonehenge a protected site?

The individual sites within the property are protected through the Government’s designation of individual buildings, monuments, gardens and landscapes.

What is the most accepted purpose of Stonehenge?

There is strong archaeological evidence that Stonehenge was used as a burial site, at least for part of its long history, but most scholars believe it served other functions as well—either as a ceremonial site, a religious pilgrimage destination, a final resting place for royalty or a memorial erected to honor and …

How is Stonehenge protected now?

Preservation Status: Stonehenge now has a rope around it, restricting access so as to protect it from the millions of visitors who flock to it each year. An interpretive center with recorded informational headsets helps tourists learn what the archaeologists have been able to detect about Stonehenge.

Will Stonehenge be removed?

Stonehenge is expected to be stripped of its status if the two-mile tunnel is built on the site as planned. Unesco’s world heritage committee has told ministers that Stonehenge will be placed on its “list of world heritage in danger” – a precursor step to being stripped of its status – if the tunnel goes ahead.

Why is Stonehenge in danger?

Unesco has confirmed that Stonehenge could be stripped of its world heritage site status, over its concern that a road tunnel, backed by the government, would irreversibly damage an area of “outstanding universal value”.

Why is Stonehenge important to so many people?

Stonehenge continues to have a role as a sacred place of special religious and cultural significance for many, and inspires a strong sense of awe and humility for thousands of visitors who are drawn to the site every year.

How many improvement schemes are there for Stonehenge?

The A303 Stonehenge scheme is one of eight planned improvement schemes along the A303 /A358/A30 corridor. Highways England admit that the travel time benefits would not be achieved until all eight schemes have been completed. Only three schemes have been funded.

Are there any plans to widen the road to Stonehenge?

The current proposal, to widen and sink the road into a tunnel running for almost two miles, mostly about 600 metres south of the stones, was announced in 2014, although the basic idea goes right back to the 1990s.

Which is the best book on Stonehenge history?

T Darvill, ‘Towards the within: Stonehenge and its purpose’, in Cults in Context: Reconsidering Ritual in Archaeology, ed D A Barrowclough and C Malone (Oxford, 2007), 148–57. Read a full history of one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments, from its origins about 5,000 years ago to the 21st century.