The British Museum is preparing a large exhibition dedicated to Stonehenge

A large exhibition that has never been done before and concerns the period in which Stonehenge was created plans for 2021 the British museum.

In that report 430 objects from 4000 BC to 1000 BC will be exhibited which will present this period of British history and the relationship that the people of that time had with the sky and the elements.

“In order to understand the purpose for which this great stone monument was built in the Salisbury Plain, it is important to take into account the modern world and the culture of those who built it,” said Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum.

Launched in February, The World of Stonehenge brings together items from a wide variety of British and foreign museums. At its core will be the Seahenge, a circle of 64 pillars of petrified wood, with an inverted oak in the center of which the roots rise into the sky. It was found preserved under water in Norfolk and for the first time will be a loan in an exhibition; more pillars will be exhibited than before as well as an important “gate” from which the pilgrims entered countless years ago.

“If Stonehenge is one of the most remarkable stone circles in the world, then Seahenge is its equivalent of wood. But it was only in 1998 that it was rediscovered, so it is relatively unknown, “said Jennifer Wexler, curator of the exhibition.

Items from Ireland, Germany and Italy will also be on display: from preserved jewelry to weapons. Among them, a gold hat decorated with solar motifs, a solid gold cloak and the beautiful Nebra Sky Disk, a metal disk depicting the night sky. Also objects from the tomb of Amesbury Archer – the tomb of a Bronze Age man who was called “Sagittarius” because of the arrowheads that were placed as gifts – in Wiltshire, near Stonehenge, but also from the site of Bush Barrow, including of the golden rhombus, one of the most important examples of goldsmithing in the early Bronze Age.

“It’s one exhibition for the people who erected the monument and worshiped it there, but it is also a narrative that transcends the Salisbury Plain, even Britain, and extends far into mainland Europe, ”says curator Neil Welkin. “The eternal mystery and significance of Stonehenge can only be understood by mapping the surrounding world that made it possible,” he added.