Stonehenge at Summer Solstice
The sun rises over Stonehenge on the summer solstice, aligning with the monument's main axis as it has for thousands of years.
Built and rebuilt in stages between roughly 3000 and 1500 BC, Stonehenge began as a simple earthwork enclosure before Neolithic and early Bronze Age builders raised its famous sarsen stones — some weighing over 20 tons and hauled from Marlborough Downs 30 kilometers away — and its smaller bluestones, transported an extraordinary 200-plus kilometers from the Preseli Hills of Wales. Its axis is aligned so the midsummer sun rises directly over the Heel Stone and the midwinter sun sets in the opposite direction, a precision that suggests the monument tracked the solar year, though whether it served as calendar, temple, cemetery, or all three remains one of British prehistory's enduring puzzles.
CC BY-SA 2.0 — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
