The Sanctuary

51.411111111111 - 1.8313888888889Koordinaten: 51 ° 24 ' 40 " N, 1 ° 49' 53 " W

The Sanctuary is a Neolithic about 3000 BC dated cult place near the Avebury Henge. Today, The Sanctuary is located on the A4 ( highway ) between Avebury and Silbury Hill. The first written mention of the cult place was made in 1668 by Samuel Pepys. This associated with The Sanctuary Stonehenge, but in reality it is part of cult equipment to Avebury. UNESCO declared Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites, including The Sanctuary heard in 1986 a World Heritage Site.

Today the sanctuary is completely destroyed and only concrete markers still show the positions at which once have found stones and wood piles. The Sars stones and wooden posts were arranged in seven concentric circles. The outermost circle has about the diameter of the stone circle of Stonehenge. The stones are estimated at a height of about 1.5 m. The amount of wood piles is unknown and it is not clear whether they were free or were part of a structure. The stones were used as building material and the positions of the wooden piles were determined only during excavations in the 1930s. The destruction of the building in 1723 was so sustained that Maud Cunnington had to search extensively in the 1930s after the cult place before excavation could begin.

On etchings from the 16th century is to see that The Sanctuary was linked to the West Kennet Avenue, which is the running in the direction of West Kennet Long Barrow Stone Avenue.

Today, science assumes that The Sanctuary was a burial site, as an unusual number of human remains were found on the premises. It is thought that they put the dead to rotting in The Sanctuary and later some of the bones as part of a death cult again took home. Some of the bones exhibit traces of fire, so it is believed that at times even cremations have been carried out.

The antiquarian William Stukeley called The Sanctuary as the head of the stone serpent, which he claims to have discovered in Avebury and the surrounding stone avenues. Today it is considered to have been a misinterpretation, since Stukeley to verrannte in his later work in the Druids theory and its interpretations are not considered serious. W. Stuckeley however, made ​​some drawings and maps of the system on which the positions of the stones are noted.