Bluestone Henge - Stone circle or stone oval?

Bluestone Henge – Stone Circle or Stone Oval?

A new  digital reconstruction of the monument, discovered by the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2009 suggests that the circle of Welsh blue stones found at the Southern terminus of the avenue may well have been oval, and not round. If this is correct, it echoes the layout of the Bluestone oval at the centre of Stonehenge.
Henry Rothwell, Creative Lead at Heritage Data Solutions explains;

"The model was created as part of the forthcoming smartphone app ‘Journey to Stonehenge’. When we built the first wire-frame of the circle we ended up with a fairly standard circular representation. We were using a low level aerial image taken by Adam Stanford. It showed the full extent of the excavation, including the socket holes of the bluestones, into which the Stonehenge Riverside Project team had placed upturned black buckets. Luckily Adam was on hand and, after having cast an eye over the wireframe, pointed out a bucket on the far right, which had been missed out of the model. Initially we tried expanding the circumference of the circle to make it fit, but that made it far too large – so we settled on an oval, which lined up perfectly. We ended up with a configuration which is very similar to the Bluestone oval in the centre of Stonehenge. If this interpretation is correct, it adds an intriguing angle to the relationship between the monuments that lie at each end of the Avenue."

Bluestone Henge stone 'oval'. Image copyright HDS/Aerial-Cam.

The shape of Bluestone Henge is still open for re-interpretation however, as most of the monument was not excavated, but left for future generations to explore.

For the full story of the Bluestone Henge excavation see: http://www.digitaldigging.co.uk/features/blue-stone-henge/blue-stone-henge-press-release.html

For more details of the ‘Journey to Stonehenge’ app see: http://www.journeytostonehenge.co.uk/

For more examples of Adam Stanford’s heritage images see: www.adamstanfordphotography.co.uk

Heritage Data Solutions: http://www.heritagedatasolutions.co.uk/