Post date: Jun 21, 2012 11:39:7 AM
STONEHENGE, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JUNE 21, 2012) (ITN) - Despite grey skies that blocked the sunrise, hundreds turned out to celebrate the summer solstice at Britain's ancient site of Stonehenge on Thursday (June 21).
Hundreds gather at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice, despite grey skies and rain.
The revellers partied through the shortest night of the year, and celebrated the start of the longest day.Stonehenge druid Frank Somers said it was moving that so many people came to join the celebrations despite the weather.
"Imagine all these people in a very good mood turned out in wind and rain to celebrate the turning of the season. The sun still rose, we just didn't see it, but the mood is here and it's really touching that people would still come," he said.
The Stonehenge site is spread over 2,600 hectares of land, the famous stone circle at the centre surrounded by a landscape consisting of more than 350 burial mounds.
The history of the site dates back to 3100 BC when native Neolithic people started the construction using tools made from deer antlers. Stones were brought some 385 kilometres to the site around 2,100 BC. A century later they were erected into the pattern we can see today.
Academics are still divided on whether Stonehenge was a temple, a burial ground or an astronomy site, and nobody knows for sure how the massive stones, weighing between 20 and 45 tons each, were made to stand up and placed on top of each other.