Backyard Stonehenge: This Norman, Oklahoma man built an exact replica of the original on a 1/9th scale
NORMAN, Okla. (KFOR) — The original stones are so mysterious, somewhere around 5,000 years old, huge, stacked vertically and bridged with other immense boulders.
There are stone circles like this all over the British Isles and even Europe.
Their intended use is up for debate.
Some archeologists think Stonehenge might have been a place for healing or to worship ancestors.
But Jack Beller has his own ideas.
“I got so fascinated with it. ‘I thought, ‘I think I can build one of those.'”
It’s been several years since he looked out on his two acres of yard and thought it would be cool to recreate the famous Stonehenge for himself.
“I laid out a pattern of it in my yard,” he recalls, “and started digging holes and putting stones in.”
We know his own construction techniques required a wheel barrow and a little math.
He continues, “I actually had to get a compass and lay out the lines.”
Beller’s stonehenge is on a 1/9th scale to the original near Wiltshire in southern England.
He points out, “the real one is 108 feet across, and this is 12 feet across.”
But it’s plenty big for the youngest of his 12 grandchildren.
“If they’re small,” he smiles, “you have to lift them in and out.”
He doesn’t use his stonehenge for any kind of religious ceremonies, even though his ‘heel’ stone still lines up with the sun perfectly on the solstice.
“In Oklahoma, the sun rises in line with this stone,” he says, pointing.
Another ‘heel’ stone lies 23 degrees north to indicate where the original Stonehenge ‘heel’ stone lies.
The house behind his monument might not last as long as these carefully arranged rocks.
Future archeologists might even debate why it’s here.
“It would take a bull dozer to knock it down,” he laughs.
If you crouch low as the summer sun rises in the East, you can almost pretend you’re there, from a back yard in Central Oklahoma to an ancient, sacred place that still inspires whoever sees it.
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