Avebury
Sign in to saveAlso known as Avebury Stones, Avebury henge and stone circles, Avebury stone circle
Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in south-west England. One of the best-known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.
Key facts
- Ancient site.name
- Avebury
- Ancient site.image
- Wiltshire-Avebury.jpg
- Ancient site.caption
- Avebury henge, stone circle and village overview
- Ancient site.map_type
- United Kingdom Wiltshire
- Ancient site.relief
- yes
- Ancient site.map_caption
- Map of Wiltshire showing the location of Avebury
- Ancient site.location
- Wiltshire, England
- Ancient site.type
- Monument
- Ancient site.material
- Sarsen
- Ancient site.built
- Neolithic
- Ancient site.ownership
- National Trust
- Ancient site.management
- National Trust
- Ancient site.designation1
- WHS
- Ancient site.designation1_date
- 1986 (10th session)
- Ancient site.designation1_number
- 373
- Ancient site.designation1_criteria
- i, ii, iii
- Ancient site.designation1_type
- Cultural
- Ancient site.designation1_partof
- Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- henge
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Located in
- Avebury
- Owned by
- National Trust
- Operator
- National Trust
- Official website
- www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/avebury
- Image
- Avebury pure gold.jpg
- Significant event
- archaeological excavation
Show 10 more facts
- heritage designation
- scheduled monument
- Commons gallery
- Avebury
- different from
- Avebury
- Commons category
- Avebury Stone Circles
- maintained by
- National Trust
- native label
- Avebury
- time period
- Neolithic
- director of archaeological fieldwork
- Stuart Piggott
- studied by
- Alexander Keiller
- OS grid reference
- SU1024769967
via Wikidata · CC0
~50 min read
Encyclopedic overview
32 sectionsContents
- Location and environment
- Mesolithic and Neolithic history
- Mesolithic
- Early Neolithic
- Late Neolithic
- Construction
- Henge
- Outer Stone Circle
- Inner Stone Circles
- The Avenue
- Purpose
- Comparable Sites
- Archaeological excavations
- 1800s
- 1908–1922
- 1934–1939
- 1969–1982
- 2003
- Development after the Neolithic
- Iron Age and Roman periods
- Early Mediaeval period
- Late Mediaeval period
- Early Modern period
- Victorian period and early 20th century
- Post World War II
- Contemporary Paganism and the New Age movement
- Controversial theories
- See also
- References
- Footnotes
- Bibliography
- External links
Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in south-west England. One of the best-known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.
Constructed over several hundred years in the third millennium BC, during the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, the monument comprises a large henge (a bank and a ditch) with a large outer stone circle and two separate smaller stone circles situated inside the centre of the monument. Its original purpose is unknown, although archaeologists believe that it was most likely used for some form of ritual or ceremony. The Avebury monument is a part of a larger prehistoric landscape containing several older monuments nearby, including West Kennet Long Barrow, Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Avebury” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Gallery (34)
On the map
3 mapped locations