Stonehenge Complete (Fourth Edition)

“All you ever wanted to know about Stonehenge is catalogued in this humorously written,beautifully illustrated book.” ―The Economist

For the fourth edition of this classic account, Christopher Chippindale has revised and expanded the story to include the most up-to-date theories and discoveries.

People have puzzled over Stonehenge for centuries, speculating and dreaming about it, drawing and painting it, trying to make sense of it. Here is the story of the one real Stonehenge, as well as the many unreal Stonehenges that archaeologists, tourists, mystics, astronomers, artists, poets, and visionaries have made out of it.

New studies in the last decade have revolutionized our knowledge of the complex sequence of structures that make its celebrated profile, in particular indicating that the monument is decidedly older than was once thought. Moreover, as Chippindale shows, we know now that the main alignment at Stonehenge was not in fact on midsummer sunrise but rather on midwinter sunset.

286 illustrations, 13 in color

Christopher Chippindale is Reader in Archaeology and a curator for British collections at the Cambridge University Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.