Original subtitles

Secrets Of Lost Empire - 1x01

It's one of the most mysterious places in the world.

A strange set of stones,

arranged like no other,

stands silently above the plains of southern England.

Stonehenge.

For centuries, no one knew who built it.

According to medieval legend,

it was the work of Merlin, the wizard of King Arthur�s court.

Later, credit for the construction went to the Romans,

And then to an ancient pagan cult, the Druids.

Only in recent years

have archaeologists finally begun to discover

who really built Stonehenge -

and when.

Scientists now believe

that these stones were erected almost 4,500 years ago -

long before King Arthur or the Romans

at the end of the Stone Age.

It was an amazing achievement.

Each of the colossal uprights

weighs between 50,000 and 80,000 pounds.

The stones are harder than granite.

But most were carefully shaped and joined together -

as if they were made of wood.

And although the monument stands on sloping ground,

a line of the horizontal stones -

called lintels -

runs almost perfectly level.

All this was done in an age without machinery,

without writing,

and without any metal tools.

Even after 15 years of studying the area around Stonehenge,

archeologist Julian Richards is still impressed by this ancient wonder.

This is the biggest stone at Stonehenge.

It's absolutely enormous.

It towers over 20 feet above me,

and there's eight feet of it buried in the ground.

I get really fed up when people come to Stonehenge

and say it's smaller than they expected.

I mean this is a massive stone.

It used to have a pair standing there as well.

That one,

unfortunately only buried four feet in the ground,

fell over a couple of centuries ago.

And these two stones, these two massive uprights

with a great lintel on top, form a trilithon,

one of the most...

the biggest and most impressive elements of Stonehenge.

The use of massive blocks, weighing up to 40 tons,

is all the more remarkable,

because there is no natural source for large stones

anywhere near Stonehenge.

In the Middle Ages,

the mystery inspired reports

that the rocks were brought from Africa

by an army of giants.

Today, archaeologists have come up with a less romantic,

but still impressive, explanation.

20 miles north of Stonehenge stands another stone circle,

not as elaborate, but much larger.

It's nearly a mile in circumference

and now encloses part of a town.

(Richards:) This is Avebury,

incredibly huge stone circle, built before Stonehenge,

but what it�s got in common with Stonehenge,

is some of the rocks that it was made of �

sarsens,

an incredibly hard sandstone, cemented together with silica,

one of the hardest rocks that we know of in this part of England.

Around Avebury, the valleys are littered with sarsen boulders.

A few on the scale of Stonehenge

still lie half buried in the ground.

Obviously, this is where they came to get the stones for Stonehenge.

The only place around here where there's a supply

of stones of the right sort of size.

Well, this is just the random...

Roger Hopkins is a stonemason from Massachusetts

who specializes in moving and shaping granite.

For years, he's been amazed

by the Stonehenge builders' mastery of hard stone.

You know, looking at this site, with all these stones in the way,

it must have been a real chore

to get these on a sled and get �em out of these fields.

I mean, they weren't using it as...

I mean, it wasn't quarried.

You didn't have to dig into solid rock to get this out,

it would have just lain around all over the place.

(Hopkins) What's the contour,

the terrain like between here and there?

It varies quite a lot.

There's a fairly flat river valley,

and then a very steep hill to get you up onto Salisbury Plain,

from whereon it just undulates gently

until you get all the way to Stonehenge.

If Avebury was the source for the massive sarsens,

how did the ancient builders

transport them across 20 miles of rolling hills

and erect them in the shape of Stonehenge?

After centuries of mystery and debate,

Julian and Roger are determined to find out.

Their plan is to reconstruct the Great Trilithon of Stonehenge.

But to pull it off,

they'll need a little help.

This small army of volunteers will provide the labor

in an historic attempt to move and raise blocks

exactly like those in Stonehenge,

using Stone Age technology.

(Whitby) We'll have to ... We'll have to lift the end when we're going to do it

Yeah, yeah.

Along with Julian and Roger,

the team will be led by engineer Mark Whitby.

The reality of taking two 40-ton stones

and turn them on their ends

without using any machine power whatsoever,

it's quite a... quite a daunting task.

I don't think people have really stopped to think

about the problem at Stonehenge in a realistic way.

All the theories are put together by people

who haven't actually been faced with the practical task of doing it.

Here, Swap that...

One of the old theories

is that the stones were moved on top of large rollers

made of tree trunks.

One, two, three!

(all grunt)

One, two, three! It's going!

Keep going!

And tests performed with concrete blocks -

like this one weighing nine tons -

have shown that rollers can work.

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, stop!

But the biggest stones at Stonehenge

were more than four times as heavy.

This is a concrete replica

of the largest stone at the ancient site.

It's almost 30 feet long and weighs over 40 tons.

So what are you going to do? Try and lift it?

You're just gonna try and lift the front? One at the front...

Mark is convinced that such a huge weight would crush

and flatten even the hardest wooden rollers.

(Whitby) I watched people drag a boat up a beach,

and they had rollers there, but the rollers didn't rotate.

They actually had grooves in them

where the keel of the boat went over the top of them.

And, lo and behold, they were putting grease on that groove

to, uh... to make it slide.

And it's quite obvious things would rather slide,

and if you get it greased,

it's easier to make it slide than it is to make it roll.

So instead of rollers

Mark has constructed a simple track

made of two parallel lines of timbers set into the ground.

The 40-ton megalith sits on a wooden sled.

The bottom of the sled is equipped with a keel

which keeps it centered on the track

and prevents it from going off course.

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

To make it easier for the stone to slide

Mark has the rails of the track slathered with grease.

In ancient times, the workers could have used animal fat

Known as tallow.

The team will attempt to pull the stone up a slight incline,

typical of the terrain surrounding Stonehenge.

It's going to be very hard work getting up the slope.

We've got everybody lined up here to pull

and it's going to be...

you know, very interesting to see whether they can do it.

It's not going to be easy.

In true engineering fashion,

Mark has done some elaborate calculations.

He's determined

that it will take a minimum of 220 people to pull the weight uphill.

Unfortunately, only 130 volunteers showed up.

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

Despite their efforts,

the stone hasn't moved an inch.

It's actually almost touching the edge...

The liberal application of grease appears to have backfired

and the 40-ton stone is glued to the track.

Take the strain of the rope!

(Whitby) We've got a real,

sort of, static friction as they'd call it,

it's stuck down with all the grease underneath it.

And you've got to break that first for it to move.

Once you've broken that, We'll be off... Hopefully.

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three...

Mark will try just about anything

to get the stone unstuck.

That's all, baby, ok...

No, but it's gonna be...

... with that pulling...

...when they're pulling...

How many people have we got hanging around the back here?

Why don't we all just get on the ropes up there?

Roger Hopkins is on hand to provide practical advice.

He's the only one on the team

with any firsthand experience moving large stones.

He recommends breaking the suction

by lifting the stone with levers.

That's great, beautiful.

Get the wedges in.

I think this'll work.

I think this'll lift it up.

That'll unstick it and we should be away.

But it's gonna be... It's the job of unsticking it which we've got to do now.

We need to get it in further.

Drop it! Drop this one here!

This one here, Drop It!

(Whitby)Get them to pass the rope over...

Get them to move more in a straight line. Yeah.

In order to get things moving, project manager Mike O'Rorke

has to get the pullers and the levers to work together.

Pull!

(banging, counting and yelling)

Suddenly, the levers do the trick.

Pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

It's going.

(workers cheering)

Perfect, absolutely brilliant.

I mean, if anything, quite fast.

I mean, you think how far that would go in a day

on that basis.

In the end, Mark's system worked better than even he expected.

But is there any evidence

that the Stonehenge builders used a wooden trackway like this one?

(Hopkins) The 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? There's...

25 miles.

25 miles? Yeah.

Well, I think the effort

that you put into doing something like this

certainly makes it a lot easier.

I mean, the thing that bothers me is

is having demonstrated that this works, you know,

and would, would we be able to find any trace of it in the ground?

I don't think we would.

As 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.

But we do know that parts of the countryside were once heavily wooded

providing plenty of timber for the Stonehenge builders.

Jake Keen has spent years investigating Stone Age tools and technology.

He believes that the ancient builders were extremely resourceful

and exploited the forest for much more than timber.

Using only stone and wooden tools

Jake carefully removes the bark from a common tree of the region -

the small leaf lime.

He then submerges the strips in a nearby stream

and leaves them there for several weeks.

(Keen) After being in the mud for about six weeks,

this is the smelly end product,

which, of course, is the inner bark.

And the layers...

bast layers have separated off.

Uh... The little microorganisms have...

nibbled away at the gummy material

and, uh, this is broken down into...

something like ten or twelve separate ribbon like layers.

Which is what we make the string from,

and, uh, if we twist these together,

they're very, very strong.

I don't think there's probably any stronger plant fiber

native to this island.

Strong rope was essential for moving heavy stones,

and with fibers like this,

the ancient builders could easily have made rope

capable of pulling the giant blocks of Stonehenge.

But why did they bother to drag the stones

over 20 miles to this shallow valley?

No one knows why it was chosen,

but there's evidence that this site was considered sacred

centuries before Stonehenge was built.

After excavating the area and radiocarbon dating

the pieces of bone and charcoal found here,

archeologists have retraced a unique sequence of construction.

The first monument was built over 5,000 years ago

and contained no stones at all.

It was a simple earthwork enclosure,

consisting of a circular ditch, a bank,

and 56 wooden posts dug into the ground.

Over the next 400 years,

a series of wooden buildings occupied the center of this circle.

Tiny fragments of the foundations remain.

The first stones arrived around 2600 BC,

when the buildings were replaced

by a double crescent of small pillars, called "bluestones".

Just 100 years later,

the monument took on its final form.

Thirty giant sarsens,

each weighing about 25 tons,

were neatly arranged in a ring,

about 100 feet across.

Along their tops were placed 30 lintels,

forming a true circle,

16 feet above the ground.

Within the circle stood the largest stones.

Five massive trilithons formed a horseshoe.

The tallest towered 25 feet above the ground.

The builders had never before attempted

to raise stones on such a colossal scale.

How did they manage to do it?

Archaeologists discovered important clues

when they excavated the soil around the largest stone.

They found that it stood in a giant hole,

with almost a third of it underground.

One side of the pit was slanted,

indicating that the stone had been lowered into the ground at a steep angle.

Remnants of deer antler revealed

how the hole was dug out of the hard chalk.

It would certainly have been possible to have dug a hole

with an antler pick like this.

It would take,

perhaps, two people three days, maybe, to dig a hole of this size.

With the 40-ton stone poised over the pit,

can the team replicate the ancient feat of standing it upright?

Mark Whitby has a plan.

What we've got is one of the 40-ton uprights.

And it's been dragged to a position

where it's now ready to be toppled

into the hole that we have in the ground.

And the hole is pretty precise

because it's exactly the same as the hole that they've got at Stonehenge.

The basic concept is we've put 6 tons now

on the back of the stone by dragging it up these ramps.

We've tied it together as a bundle.

We've put it on a little greased chariot here,

rather like we had for the big stone.

And that's running on a very simple bearing down here.

It's not nearly as heavy as the big stone,

and we've got it tied back

with a, with a rope,

which is lassoed right around the back here.

And that rope's gonna mean

that when it travels a certain distance along this stone, it's gonna stop.

However, before it reaches that point,

it will have passed this magic point of the center of gravity.

We'll be inducing the force which will make the whole stone start to turn.

It will happen slowly to begin with,

and then it will just go.

Instead of moving the stone,

the volunteers will pull a heavy weight that will tip the block.

This is a good example of modern man

trying to over-engineer ancient techniques.

This is a bit over elaborate,

but it...

I'm hoping it works.

It would save us a lot of work in the long run.

Alright. This is what we've been waiting for.

There's one very, very important thing.

When next stone starts to stand,

do not rush to the stone.

You must all stay back until the engineers have checked to see if it's safe.

We can crawl all over it once it's safe,

but you mustn't, under any circumstances, come forward of where you are now.

The safety of the workers is foremost in everyone's mind,

but there are also fears for the stone itself.

Three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two...

The megalith could tumble out of control, (Pull!)

or even break apart from the force of impact.

Yes!

I'm excited in one sense

and in another sense I wish I was a long way away.

You know... it's...

we'll see... you know...

something's going to happen.

Mark realizes he's got just one chance to get it right.

It's now or never.

Slow.

Slow!

Slow!

Slow, slow, slow!

(creaking) There we go! Slow!...

(cheering)Yeah!

Ah...!

Brilliant!

It's OK! One! Two!

Well, let's have a look...

It literally just dropped just as we planned it to drop.

And the only thing that is slightly different is it's kicked out the back here,

but that's, uh,

that's just better than we expected.

That means it's more upright

and we've got less work to do,

you know, tomorrow.

Well, this...

this really worked a lot better than we...

had hoped for... I think better than we both hoped for, right?

...better than I hoped...

... and I was hoping the most probably.

I think it was probably one of the most spectacular ways

that one can think of getting a stone this size

into a stone hole.

Whether that was possibly a way that they did it,

we shall honestly never know.

Um...

I've heard comments that it was...

uhm, a perhaps an over-engineered approach.

Um...

I'm not convinced about that.

I mean, the people who built Stonehenge were very sophisticated,

were obviously capable of...

thinking out grand schemes like that and carrying them through.

And I don't see why,

especially after you'd perhaps had a go with some smaller stones

that somebody wouldn't have come up with an idea like this:

"Let's use the weight of some smaller stones to help us move a bigger one."

So, I don't find it completely implausible -

we shall never know is the answer, of course.

I think we can all go home to a nice rest �

yeah! -

and a little relief.

Mark chose this method for tipping the stones

because it required the least number of people.

No one really knows how many workers were used

in the construction of Stonehenge,

because there's so little evidence.

There are no written records from this period.

The houses and farms that once supported the workforce

have by now completely vanished.

All that's left for archaeologists to find and study

are pieces of pottery,

stone tools and bones.

But this meager evidence can give us some idea

of what life was like in Stone Age England,

4,500 years ago.

The people were farmers,

moving from place to place in search of fertile soil.

They herded sheep and cattle

and hunted for wild deer.

Gradually, as farming techniques improved, the population grew,

providing the labor force for ambitious construction projects.

Centuries before Stonehenge,

communities started coming together to build large tombs.

One of the most impressive is over 340 feet long

and has an entrance constructed of massive sarsens.

We've got one of the earliest examples here

of the ability to construct with huge stones.

Massive sarsens dragged from he surrounding downs,

some placed upright,

others,

like this one here,

placed on top of it as cap stones,

almost giving an idea of what Stonehenge was going to be like

when it was built with uprights and horizontal lintels.

But here, these massive stones forming,

effectively boxes, parts of a chambered tomb.

It's effectively the house of the dead.

Five stone chambers lie on either side of this passage

and in these were found the remains of 47 individuals

buried over a period of perhaps 25 generations.

What's very interesting is the way that the bodies came into this tomb.

Not all of them as...

as completely fleshed bodies,

but some of them just as collections of bones

with hints that they might been buried elsewhere for a while,

they might have been exposed

for animals and the elements to remove the flesh from the corpses,

brought in here as a bundle of bones when the tomb was opened up.

And we get hints as well,

that there was a rearrangement of the bones �

skulls placed in one corner, long bones in another �

the other bit and bob tidied off to one side.

And one thing I find fascinating is that

there are some bits that aren't all there.

There aren't quite enough heads to go around.

Around the time that Stonehenge was built,

burial practices were changing.

Abandoning the large communal tombs,

important individuals were buried alone,

under circular mounds of earth, called round barrows.

Over three hundred of these tombs still remain within two miles of Stonehenge.

Inside each one is a single body,

surrounded by a few prized possessions.

It's obvious society's changing at the time

that the Stonehenge that we know today was built.

I mean, there aren't the communal burials

with lots of people put into one burial mound.

Instead, every hill top around here is covered with individual burial mounds, round barrows.

And each one of those

is the burial place of somebody rich and powerful.

They had to be,

to be buried this close to Stonehenge.

And of all these barrows,

the most important, the richest person of the lot,

appears to be buried in this one.

Excavated about 180 years ago,

I mean, he's still...

he's still in there.

The bones were recorded as being of a tall and robust man,

but the excavators at that time weren't interested in the bones themselves.

They left the burial where it was.

What they were interested in was the objects

and that's what gives us a clue

as to just how powerful this person was.

This person was buried

with some absolutely incredible gold objects.

A breastplate.

A belt buckle.

Pure gold,

finely hammered and etched.

Other graves revealed more treasures:

gold earrings and buttons,

bronze daggers and spears.

4,000 years ago, these objects adorned the richest and most powerful people.

And these ancient lords and ladies chose one location,

above all others, as their final resting place:

the hills surrounding Stonehenge.

In the midst of this enormous cemetery,

the circle of stones was like a great cathedral,

standing guard over the graves of its wealthiest patrons.

Back at the construction site,

the crew is contemplating its next major task.

The enormous concrete block is standing in the hole

at a steep angle of 70 degrees.

The team now has to pull it just 20 more degrees to vertical.

But this will turn out to be a much greater challenge than Mark Whitby ever expected.

Well, this would have been a distinct problem �

getting these things perfectly vertical.

Well, we've not solved that one, have we?

No.

I've got to weigh this one.

To maximize the workers' efforts,

Mark has erected two huge timber poles,

attached by ropes to the top of the stone.

That's fine,

they won't slip down now.

This is the bit we've been waiting for.

Can you all come over here please? All volunteers...

The ninety volunteers will pull on another set of ropes

that is tied to the top of the timbers.

With this arrangement,

Mark hopes the poles will act like giant levers,

multiplying the force of the pull,

and making it much easier to move the stone upright.

One, two, three, pull!

Pull!

One, two...

Mark put a lot of thought into his plan,

but apparently not quite enough.

...while these teams keep steady. There's still...

That team's got to take up some slack...

The upright poles are dangerously unstable,

and more time and energy is spent struggling to avoid a catastrophic collapse

than actually moving the stone. One, two...

... three, pull - hold t.

Mike!

You've got to get your team to the front to slack it off and these teams put it back.

(One, two, three, pull!)

That team's not pulling hard enough ...

that team ...

right, that team.

Mark is forced to admit that his plan is flawed

and agrees to tie the poles into a giant A-frame,

a much more stable arrangement.

But I think...

get it into a bit of an A-frame and would be

and we might be able to make something of it,

but it proves there's some value in that.

We should have an A-frame.

Perfect!

Right!

Now lash it together.

That is simple like...

Simple as that. (men laugh)

Why have you decided to use an A-frame now?

Because we should have always had an A-frame, basically.

It's fairly obvious that an A-frame is more stable,

and what we've got is a problem of them all falling down sideways,

and we're having to use too much energy

or effort in terms of these people

to hold the thing up on the left and the right flanks.

So we could maybe, by making it an A-frame,

concentrate our efforts on pulling it forward.

Why didn't you think of that before?

I probably did, but somehow it got lost in the translation somewhere.

I know we've had all sorts of ideas,

and this is one of those ones that we should have stuck with,

but we... somehow thought that things might be better than they really would be.

But an entire day has been lost.

Mark and the team will have to wait until tomorrow

to see if the A-frame works.

The original builders of Stonehenge experienced their own share of setbacks.

Along with moving and raising the stones,

every block had to be carefully shaped.

The horizontal lintels were secured to the supporting stones

by unusual mortise-and-tenon joints.

A large projection on top of each upright

had to fit precisely into a hole

on the underside of the lintel.

With only stone tools,

pounding out the holes must have been an excruciatingly slow and tedious job.

I think it's likely

that the uprights would have been in place

with the tenons worked on the top of them

before the fine work took place on the lintel.

That would have involved pounding out these massive mortise holes.

I mean, this would have taken weeks to do, I would imagine.

The biggest of them holds about 18 gallons of water.

But clearly they didn't always get it right

because on this side,

there is the start of a couple of other mortise holes.

So, clearly, they started here,

turned it over

and worked them on this side.

And I would have hated to be the person

who told the workers that they got it wrong

and they've got to turn it over and start all over again.

I don't think he'd have been very popular.

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

Hold it � let's just leave it, leave.

We let it go?

Yeah. Let it go.

Seems a shame to let it go now that it's up there.

I know. I know. It's all right...

After yesterday's disappointments,

Mark's own popularity is suffering a bit.

We were close!

I'd like to try putting stones up, not timbers up.

Yeah.

Stones are a lot easier. Just...

Today, he's hoping to redeem himself with a new and improved A-frame.

I reckon that we should really just get

another means of getting these poles up, otherwise people get...

He uses a model to calculate how many people will be needed

to finally get the stone vertical.

I've got the stone to 70 degrees as far as I'm concerned is the most difficult bit.

All we've got to do now

is just get it through the next 20 degrees to vertical.

And what I'm going to do is gonna use this A-frame.

We've made the A-frame

so it's strong in this direction. It's not going to fall over 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 in a point of the ground here �

we're pulling with all we've got on the top of the frame here.

Attach the ropes that are pulling from the stone

to the A-frame

to the point about a quarter of the way up �

the height, the over-all height of the lever.

The effect of that is that when the people pull here,

I can multiply the pulling force that they achieve by a factor of four.

Now, let's just look at how many people may be required to do the job.

I've got weights on the end of here.

This is a 50 gram weight �

that's approximately equivalent to 50 people pulling.

And now I am going to add another 20 to this team �

that's 70.

And then another...

five to that � that 75 in total.

And I've got my stone to vertical.

But what if there were no A-frame?

Okay.

Let's imagine we were to do the brute force approach.

Let's imagine we're to pull this thing

to vertical without the A-frame.

I've got 75 on here.

Let's just add a few people to this.

Let's just add two 200 more people to this team �

I haven't got two hundred people,

let's just add them, though,

let's imagine we've got them,

and see if we can do the job

with 275 �

no, we can't.

Let's add another 50.

This is 325 people pulling now.

They're still not managing.

Let's add another 10 to that, that's 335 people �

and away it goes.

That's the amount we would have needed to pull and we just haven't got them.

The full-size A-frame is up and ready to go.

But as usual, Roger Hopkins isn't satisfied with the construction.

A proper A-frame should be built with a cross member at one third of the way up

lashed in securely to keep it from racking.

Uh, I don't think you're out of the woods yet.

And I think the A-frame,

you know, probably should be in a lot closer

so that we have a little bit more leverage with it.

And then we would just run the rope right over the top

and the pull the sucker over.

I think this is a great example of engineering learning some field experience.

Well, I think you're absolutely right.

There's no doubt we did a lot of things wrong yesterday.

We should have planned the A-frame to begin with - it's absolutely absurd that we haven't.

We still haven't � I agree with you � it's not the best A-frame in the world,

but we've got something of an A-frame and I believe that's going to work.

Well, I wish you luck.

I just don't think that A-frame's going to hold together the way she's rigged.

Right! Let's see if we can shift that stone.

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

Go on! One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull! It's moving!

Keep going, keep going, Keep going, come on!

Come on!

It's moving! Yes!

One, two, three, pull!

Try and get it in flush.

One, two, three, pull!

Stop!

Go on!

Keep it up!

Yeah. It's all right to say "go on" � they're pulling!

Though the proper way to have done this right from the beginning

was that when we had the motion to just keep on pulling.

Whenever we tipped up large stones,

we always try to keep the momentum going

because it's a lot of work any other way.

I've got a feeling these neolithical people were probably

a lot handier with these tools than we are.

I am sure of that.

Certainly, A-frames.

Yeah. (they laugh)

Remind me to get you the boy scout manual �

you might want to read it.

Despite Roger's concerns, Mark forges ahead with the operation.

And Roger has nothing to do, but retreat to the sidelines.

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

It's going! It's going!

Is that coming up here? All right.

That's it.

Slowly.

Brilliant!

Come on! Come on!

The A-frame -

although a bit precarious �

makes a difference,

and the monolith inches its way to vertical.

Slow and steady.

(Cheering)

4,000 years ago,

the Stonehenge builders had to raise

and precisely position 40 of these huge blocks.

The whole monument was symmetrically arranged

around a central axis that runs through the entrance

and down the middle of a processional avenue.

It points directly to the spot on the horizon

where the sun first appears on June 21st,

the summer solstice.

Every year on this day,

the sun rises above the Heel Stone,

a sarsen boulder that stands near the entrance.

Six 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.

Some 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.

It is possible that the circle of stones served as a kind of crude calendar,

alerting farmers to important events in the annual growing season.

But most likely, Stonehenge was built as a temple,

a special place for the community to gather,

to perform sacred rituals,

and to honor their gods.

In the 20th century,

a modern cult of Druids adopted the temple as their own,

and used it as a stage for elaborate solstice ceremonies.

But in the 1970's and 80's,

their pagan services were gradually overwhelmed by hippies,

drugs,

and the international press.

To protect the monument,

British authorities now close Stonehenge on the summer solstice.

Barbed wire and armed guards

keep everyone away from the ancient stones,

including archaeologists.

It's June 21st, the summer solstice,

which should, I suppose, be a beautiful day

with the sun rising up over the heel stone, but it's raining.

It's actually quite cold and miserable now.

It's...

it's a place that I wanted to be at the midsummer.

Um...

I feel somebody really ought to be here,

but it's not a very spiritual experience.

Um...

I think it could be and it obviously was to the people who built it.

I mean, forget all the engineering and forget the calculations and the big stones.

I mean...

this is the culmination of all that effort.

This is why people dragged those stones those great distances and put them up.

They were building a temple

and they were building a temple that is important,

but certainly at this time of the year,

possibly at another time of the year in the winter.

Clearly, there was a tremendous amount of feeling on most peoples' part...

The ancient builders needed this motivation

when they faced their final challenge:

raising the nine ton lintel

23 feet to the top of the uprights.

The traditional idea

is that the smaller stone was raised slowly

with large wooden levers and a timber crib.

Roger is eager to show how well this can work.

Of course we're going to get those out.

Then we can maneuver it around.

Lift, lift, lift, all right.

With each lift,

thick pieces of timber are slid underneath the stone.

Comin through.

OK?

Yeah, that's good.

Ease off.

Yes!

Little by little, the pile of timber grows,

and, according to the theory,

will gradually lift the stone to the top of the uprights.

(Hopkins) A little more...

Good.

Relax, relax, relax.

Whoa! Yeah!

I think it's clear

it would be a perfectly feasible way of getting the lintel up

which is the nice thing about it.

I mean, when it really �

this is the text book way

and bigger timbers would be useful,

and maybe they wouldn't have been quite so regular in size,

which might have been a bit of a problem.

Mark thinks the operation is too slow

and, at a height of 20 feet, would become too precarious.

He wanted to raise the lintel up a large ramp made out of earth,

but unfortunately,

British safety officers insisted that he use steel scaffolding instead.

Underneath all the scaffolding, stands the 40-ton stone.

The second identical upright has been raised beside it,

and together, the two stones will form the base of the trilithon.

Is this... Is this how you think that they did it then at the time they built Stonehenge?

Well, Julian, it's quite simple.

If you look over there,

you'll see my big pile of earth �

you know, do you see it?

Chalk everywhere? It's a pile of earth.

I've just put some timbers on it

and we're walking up the pile of earth,

we're dragging the stone up the pile of earth.

So, you know, that's what it is Julian, it's...

you know...

it's ancient technology � can't you see?

Well, yeah. Perhaps it's the scaffolding that confuses me a bit.

Well, you've got to put your blinkers on at this point, Julian. (It's...)

I must admit, I find this

a 20th century engineer's approach to how to get the lintel up.

I mean, personally, I am happier with a timber crib.

It seems less intrusive

into... into the monument at the time.

Um...

And it seems a lot less elaborate than this somehow.

You know, perhaps 4,000 years ago �

yes, I'm still...

I still think a lot of preparation went into things �

but there would have been a willingness to accept

that, perhaps, that stone would have inched it's way up over a period of a week.

We tried one method,

we can see that. Yep.

Let's try another method and see how it goes. (To see how it works.)

Ready...

rope!

Since the A-frame worked so well in raising the stone to vertical,

Mark will use it again to drag the lintel up the ramp.

... two, three, pull!

One, two...

One, two, three...

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

One, two, three, pull!

To 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,

preventing the lintel from sliding backwards.

No, don't you...

Look!

But they can't. They'll pull the scaffold over.

But after a couple of big pulls,

it's clear that the brake is not working.

Okay, hold it!

Hold it there.

Right!

We've got to release these back down.

This isn't working, at all.

Yeah.

Look, just let these ropes right off, okay?

As soon as the volunteers stop pulling,

the lintel descends to the bottom of the ramp.

Ready!

Put up!

It turns out that the riggers have wound the rope the wrong way around the log.

Thankfully, the problem is easily fixed.

One, two...

And when the volunteers renew their efforts,

the lintel starts to make its way up the ramp.

One, two, three, pull!

Like 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.

To ensure that the stones are properly aligned,

the final phase of the operation must be performed slowly and precisely.

Nice and easy. Nice and easy.

Hey!

Whoa!

Whoa!

That was quite frightening.

My heart is still pumping!

The volunteers are thrilled,

but Mark is in no mood to celebrate.

It needs about three inches this way...

As he feared,

the mortises and tenons are not lined up.

Whoa!

Look, look. Why don't we just walk this in?

I'm sure we're almost there.

The lintel must somehow be repositioned.

It'S going!

(Hopkins:) It'S going.

Luckily, Roger brought along his levers.

Keep that up, and we'll, you know, slowly but surely we'll make it.

It's going, it'S going, come on!

Yes, yes, yes!

It takes some time,

but finally, the lintel slides down into position.

That's it. Whoa!

The trilithon is complete.

I think these Stone Age men were pretty ingenious.

We learned an awful lot of respect for them

as a result of being handed

two 40-ton stones and one 9-ton stone

and asked to sort of stand them on their ends and put the nine ton on top.

And I think I probably got nearer to thinking

like he might have thought at the time

than anybody has for a long time,

and that's very nice.

It's a very nice feeling that gives you to...

enter into the, sort of, soul of somebody

as the result of seeing what they've built.

They were pushing the envelope of their technology.

They were taking things that they had seen work

and applying them to a massive job

that was advancing their technology

and, by doing so,

probably advancing their status in their community.

We haven't got the final answer.

You know, we can't say "this is how it was done".

What we've demonstrated is how it could be done.

And we've tried to be as real

to the time that Stonehenge was built as possible.

Archaeology can answer some questions about Stonehenge,

when it was built,

something about the society that built it.

And this has answered some of the questions about the task �

the engineering,

how you motivate people, how you organize people, but...

there is always going to be a mystique about Stonehenge.

Converted into subtitles by m06166