Submitted by Sean Williams on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 18:03
Stonehenge leaps out from its West Country surroundings like Liberace in a dole queue, so it’s no surprise that Britain’s grandest prehistoric monument has been the focus of a myriad projects since the dawn of archaeology. So what is Stonehenge’s archaeological history? And what light has centuries of excavation shed on the enigmatic treasure?
Richard Colt Hoare led the first recorded excavations at Stonehenge in 1798
9 December 1758
Sir Richard Colt Hoare was an English antiquarian, artist, traveler, and archaeologist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
He was a descendent of Sir Richard Hoare - the Lord Mayor of London and the founder of the family banking business.
Richard Colt Hoare led the first recorded excavations at Stonehenge in 1798 and again in 1810. They excavated the trilithon and a fallen slaughter stone, which they stood up.
Colt Hoare also excavated almost four hundred barrows on Salisbury Plain and identified, recorded and published his findings on many other sites. As the three-age system had not been introduced he was not able to date his finds and so could not easily interpret them in a recognised manner.
Hoare lost his wife in 1785 and to distract himself from grief he decided to travel. He travelled extensively through Europe, visiting and exploring archaeological sites, filling a portfolio of drawings of the most interesting objects he saw.
Colt Hoare's most important work was The Ancient History of North and South Wiltshire which he wrote between 1812 and 1819. He also contributed to eleven volumes of the History of Modern Wiltshire between 1822 - 1844.
