Maybe one day I’ll get to visit Stonehenge, I’ve always wanted to ever since getting into books about mysterious phenomenon when I was a kid – you know those large In Serach of knockoff coffee table books from the 80’s and 90’s full of articles on Bigfoot, aliens, The Bermuda Triangle, and of course Stonehenge. I lived for stuff like that – of course these books were largely silly on how they talked about the popular Neolithic stone circle (It’s obviously aliens Ya’ll!) For right now, though, going to Stonehenge is not really in the cards – So I was VERY excited to do the next best thing this summer in Kansas City – a new traveling museum exhibition full of artifacts from the chalky hills of The Salisbury Plain.

This exhibit was held at a large train station / exhibition hall in Downtown Kansas City called Union Station – at any given time, about 2-3 times a year, they host traveling exhibits such as Pompeii, Titanic, or King Tut that draw large crowds. I actually brought members of the previous Kindred I was a member of in as a group at a discounted price, this was awesome, as paying basically half-price made everyone very happy.

‘Mysterious’, ‘awe-inspiring’, ‘magical’, ‘sacred’ and ‘eternal’ are some of the words used to describe Stonehenge. Scholars and visitors alike have puzzled over this unique prehistoric monument for centuries. After years of excavation and thanks to ground-breaking advances in science and archaeology we are closer than ever to understanding Stonehenge.

Stonehenge: Spirit and Science of Place looks to over 400 original artifacts and the latest cutting-edge scientific research to answer questions about this iconic, mysterious World Heritage Site. The exhibition tracks the development of Stonehenge as a special place in the landscape, and explains the origins of the monument while illuminating the lives of the people behind it.

Visitors will leave the exhibition with new revelations into what Stonehenge meant to the people who built it … and what it means to the world today.

The exhibition is a cooperation with the UCL Institute of Archaeology, Wiltshire Museum, the Salisbury Museum, English Heritage and The National Trust and was curated by Prof. Mike Parker Pearson and Dr. Beatrijs de Groot from the UCL, London.

– From the exhibit’s webpage

Upon Entering the exhibition area, visitors were greeted with a brief introduction video laying out what we were about to see. Large “stone columns” lifted up and we were ushered into the huge multimedia exhibit hall consisting of videos from the contributing scientists that curated the exhibit, artifacts including rocks and bone fragments (just to mention a few), and items such as mannequins that showed what the people that built Stonehenge could have looked like. One particular highlight of mine was a film in which an actress portrayed one of the builders discussing her reasons for helping, and spiritual significance she felt in the process. This video was VERY powerful, and really set the tone of the exhibit – a look at the people behind Stonehenge Vs The stones themselves.

It was interesting to note that the main theory presented by the curators was that the Stones were a place of worship, and aided with ancestor worship as well as being a calendar and burial ground. I was surprised that this was seen as a “new take” on what the stones were, and makes me want to really read some other scholarship on the site to see what the consensus generally is.

Here are some photos of the exhibit:

Perhaps, my only quibble with the exhibit was that the possible spiritual significance of the site was not elaborated much on, which was one of the things I was fairly interested to see their take on. Granted, with no records left behind, anything is pure speculation. I’m just glad they didn’t talk about aliens the whole time!

Museum Partner has a number of other traveling exhibitions that might be of interest to fellow Heathens – 3 of which are Viking related and another Celtic. Let us all hope / Pray that one of them come to Kansas City (for me because I’m selfish!) or a place you live near!