The exhibition which opens on Thursday, dubbed "The World of Stonehenge", traces the evolution of the site in southern England, made up of two concentric circles of monoliths carved into columns and lintels.

It ranges from the stone tools used by hunter-gatherers before its construction, to Celtic legends which, in the Middle Ages, attributed its creation to the magician Merlin the Enchanter.

Unable to "bring back Stonehenge", a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986, the museum has chosen to explore the complex world that saw it born and then wither on arrival, 4,000 years ago. , of humans who used metals and lost interest in the site.

"In about 200 years, they have replaced almost 95% of the previous population", including their culture and their beliefs, Neil Wilkin, curator of the exhibition, explained to AFP on Tuesday.

The oldest known sky map, dated 1600 BC, a piece from the new exhibition "The World of Stonehenge", is presented by an employee at the British Museum, in London, on February 14, 2022 Daniel LEAL AFP

Stonehenge lost its original use to become a cemetery.

The exhibition presents several examples of burials, alongside objects such as large gold necklaces made in France around 2,300 BC or the "Nebra celestial disc", the oldest representation of the cosmos in the world. , made in gold and bronze in 1600 BC in modern Germany.

At the center of the exhibition, which until July 17 brings together more than 430 objects from the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Switzerland, stand 14 preserved wooden poles for millennia under the sand of a beach in Norfolk, eastern England.

These are the remains of "Seahenge", also nicknamed "Stonehenge of the sea", discovered in 1998 and never loaned before for an exhibition: 54 oak piles arranged in a circle 6.6 meters in diameter, inside of which was a huge overturned tree with the roots towards the sky.

An employee dusts off a stone dated to 2500 BC.

AD, a piece from the new exhibition "The World of Stonehenge" at the British Museum, London, February 14, 2022 Daniel LEAL AFP

This monument would have been used for rituals, such as Stonehenge, whose monoliths were carved at a time when metal tools did not exist.

"Seahenge" was built five centuries later (2049 BC), using metal axes typical of a Bronze Age that marked the end of these constructions, explained Neil Wilkin.

"Seahenge is one of the last monuments of its kind to be built in Britain, it's the very end of a long tradition that spans 1,000 years," he said.

© 2022 AFP