Scale-model test shows Stonehenge's sound was trapped inside the circle

November 04, 2026EnglandArchitectureShare

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Key facts

• Professor Trevor Cox of the University of Salford built a 1/12-scale model of Stonehenge and found that sound generated inside was reverberated back into the centre rather than carried outside the monument.
• Paul Devereux and John Wilsdoncroft separately worked on Stonehenge's acoustics about 15 years before this lecture, concentrating on the bluestones.
• Their work concluded that bluestones from the Preseli Hills in West Wales were brought to Stonehenge because they could be rung like bells.
• A Preseli Hills village tradition called people to church with bluestones instead of brass bells until the 18th century.
• The model result implies any sound-based ceremony at Stonehenge would have been restricted to those inside the circle.

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