The Slaughter Stone or Sacrificial Stone at Stonehenge

The Slaughter Stone - Photo taken on a recent Stonehenge
special accces tour

The Slaughter Stone - Lying within the entrance is an un-worked and now recumbent stone, stained a rusty red caused by rainwater acting on iron, and known as the Slaughter Stone. This stone is about 21-ft long, and although it was originally upright, it is now fallen and has now sunk so deep that only its upper end shows. Hawkins (3) makes note that while all the other stones were either bluestone or sarsen, the so called slaughter-stone is 'of fine-grained pale green sandstone, containing so many flakes of mica that its surface, wherever freshly exposed, shows the typical mica glitter'.


This stone seems to have come from the Cosheston Beds, composed of old red sandstone, at Milford haven on the coast of Wales, some 30miles to the southwest of the Prescilly quarries and is another example of the specific selection of stones by the builders of the European megaliths.

Stonehenge has three different types of stone in the overall structure: Over 80 5-10 ton 'Bluestones'' from Wales, The huge 20-50 ton Sarsens from 20km north near Avebury and the mica-sandstone 'Slaughter stone'.

Visit Stonehenge and find out if the slaughter stone really was used for human sacrafice or just Victorian romanticism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/feb/17/netnotes.sallybolton
http://www.stonepages.com/england/stonehenge.html
http://www.stonehenge-stone-circle.co.uk/stonehenge-rituals.htm
http://www.stonehengetours.com/

Stonehenge Tour Guide