Stonehenge

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Stonehenge itself remains a steadfast observer of the world, watching the seasons change from summer to fall to winter to spring and back again thousands of times over. But it also bears witness to movements in the heavens, observing the rhythm of the Moon and, more noticeably, the Sun.
For most parts of the year, the sunrise can't even be seen from the centre of the monument. But on the longest day of the year, the June 21st summer solstice, the rising sun appears behind one of the main stones, creating the illusion that it is balancing on the stone.
This stone, called the "Heel Stone", sits along a wide laneway, known as the Avenue, that extends from the northeast corner of the main monument. The rising Sun creeps up the length of the rock, creating a shadow that extends deep into the heart of five pairs of sarsen stone trilithons -- two pillar stones with one laid across the top -- in the shape of a horseshoe that opens up towards the rising sun.
Just as the Sun clears the horizon, it appears to hover momentarily on the tip of the Heel Stone. A few days later, on midsummer's day, the sun will appear once again, but this time, it will begin to move to the right of the heel stone. The same phenomenon happens again during the winter solstice, only it's in the opposite direction and a sunset. But both indicate a change of season.
But who would have needed to make this connection between Earth and Sun. The first builders, who may have just started farming the land, might have needed to know when the seasons were about to change. At a later phase in its development, Stonehenge may have been used as some sort of temple, or it could have been an astronomer's tool, used to judge the movements in the heavens.
"Nobody really knows at all what [Stonehenge] was intended for," says Christopher Witcombe, a professor of art history at Sweet Brian College in Virginia and an authority on Stonehenge.
"The fact that it was built over a long period of time makes it difficult to know if it maintained the same function over the time period or not."
But this doesn't mean there aren't a « mai multe referate din Engleza