- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
- Padres pitcher Musgrove needs elbow surgery
- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
- Boston beat Denver in NBA exhibition season opener, but Jokic says omens are good
- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
- Devine leads New Zealand to big win over India in Women's T20 World Cup
- Bosnia floods kill 16 people
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Prosecutors seek dismissal of rape charges against French rugby players
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- Bolivia's Morales says claims he raped a minor are a 'lie'
- MLB Reds hire two-time champion Francona as manager
- Daniel Maldini receives first Italy call-up for Nations League
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- Ancelotti points finger at Madrid's 'lack of intensity'
- Haiti reeling after 70 killed in gang attack
- Five Czech kids in hospital over TikTok 'piercing challenge'
- What happens next in Iran-Israel conflict?
- Country star Garth Brooks denies rape accusations
- Stubbs hits maiden century as South Africa make 343-4 against Ireland
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Odegaard injury has forced Arsenal to be 'different', says Arteta
- Ratcliffe refuses to guarantee Ten Hag's Man Utd future
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Mauritius to hold legislative election on November 10
- Britain qualify for America's Cup final after 60-year wait
- IMF asks Sri Lanka to protect hard-won gains
- Morata returns to Spain Nations League squad after injury
- Irish regulator to probe Ryanair use of facial recognition
- Public allowed to see video evidence in France mass rape trial
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- Under-fire Ten Hag 'together' with Man Utd hierarchy
- Guardiola talks of Man City love affair as financial hearing rumbles on
- De Bruyne out of Belgium Nations League squad
- Japanese trainer Yahagi hopes Shin Emperor achieves 50-year-old Arc dream
- UK's Starmer hails 'landmark' carbon capture funding
- As EU targets Chinese cars, European rivals sputter
- Bosnia floods kill 14 people
- Tennis world number one Swiatek splits with coach Wiktorowski
- Liverpool share responsibility for Nunez goal drought, says Slot
- Top EU court finds against FIFA in key transfer market ruling
- Top seed Sabalenka stunned by Muchova in Beijing last eight
- Tsitsipas gets revenge against Nishikori at Shanghai Masters
British Museum exhibition traces rise and fall of Stonehenge
A new exhibition on the Stonehenge stone circle in southern England sheds new light on its 4,500-year history, linking its declining influence to the Bronze Age population's discovery of metal working.
Opening Thursday at the British Museum in London, the exhibition called "The World of Stonehenge" traces the development of the UNESCO-protected site -- two concentric circles of huge stone blocks and lintels.
According to Celtic legends of the Middle Ages, the circle was magically created by the mythical magician Merlin.
Construction at the site was started during the Neolithic era by hunter-gatherers without metal tools and continued into the Bronze Age as metal working became widely established.
European metal workers arrived during the early Bronze Age, gradually superseding the local Neolithic population.
"Within a couple of hundred years, those people from Europe replaced the previous population by almost 95 percent," Neil Wilkin, the exhibition's curator, said.
As their culture and beliefs became dominant, Stonehenge lost its original purpose and became used as a cemetery, he added.
The exhibition shows numerous tombs from the time, as well as objects such as large gold necklaces made in France around 2300 BC.
The Nebra Sky Disc, the world's oldest surviving map of the stars, smelted in gold and bronze in 1600 BC in present-day Germany, is also featured.
Altogether there are more than 430 objects from the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland at the exhibition, which runs to July 17.
The British Museum also displays 14 wooden poles that were preserved for millennia under the sand of a beach in Norfolk, eastern England, until their discovery in 1998.
These are the remains of a wooden circle called Seahenge, on loan to the museum for the first time.
The 4,000-year-old circle once featured 54 oak piles arranged in a circle 6.6 metres in diameter, with a huge upturned tree in the centre, its roots facing skywards.
This circle would have been used for rituals in a similar way to Stonehenge, but was built five centuries later (2049 BC), using metal axes typical of the Bronze Age, said Wilkin, as the tradition of building such circles dwindled away.
"Seahenge is one of the last monuments of its type built in Britain. It's the very end of a long tradition that spans 1,000 years," he noted.
G.M.Castelo--PC