Page 276 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1510-144° B-c-] T/ie Amber R°ute 223
of continuously linteled uprights and an inner horseshoe of im­

mense capped pylons. This monument was to stand for all time,
to the glory of the lord, the sun, and as witness to the might of
the British princes.
And indeed, when, on midsummer day in this year of the
middle of the fifteenth century b.c., the monument stood com­
plete and consecrated, it was an imposing sight even to those

who had seen the great temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir
al-Bahri. Five times the height of a man rose the central trili-
thon, and on either side two further trilithons graded downward.

STONEHENGE, AS IT MUST HAVE APPEARED WHEN RECONSTRUCTED
AND ENLARGED BY THE WEALTHY BRONZE-AGE KINGS OF SOUTHERN
BRITAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY B.C.

Around them ran the colonnade of the outer circle, framing with
its pillars the downs that rose on every side, downs dotted with
the burial mounds, new and old, of those who had desired—
and been able to afford—to be buried within sight of the great
sun temple.

It was no little thing to have assisted at the building of Stone­
henge, as the old sea captain would tell his grandnephews in the
years to come. In the village on the Swedish fjord the retired

captains formed, in fact, an exclusive club (as they do in the
villages of Norway at this day). The village boys, who still