Stonehenge Decoded: Secrets Revealed

Release Date: May 2008

Watch Date: May 1 – May 2, 2023

 

    This is a forty-four minute documentary, so the fact that it took us two full evenings to watch it is pretty surprising, and almost disappointing? But don’t worry. Because I have a good excuse. We got a kitten on the thirtieth. On the first we temporarily fostered her brother for an evening, due to a miscommunication, and on the second I had a cold and Bob’s brother kept bothering him for help with something – and if you know Bob he’ll drop anything for his brothers – so there were multiple thirty minute long pauses what felt like every second. We started calling it the documentary that would never end, and joked that this would be the only one we watched all month. But somehow, we got through it, and hopefully things will be calmer over the next few days.

    Of course, I’m still sick, we still have a kitten and two young kids and a dog, so that’s unlikely.

    This is a pretty mediocre documentary, which doesn’t really decode anything. Stonehenge won’t ever be decoded. But it’s pretty common knowledge now-a-days that Stonehenge had something to do with the solstices, and was part of a bigger complex that did not survive. So what documentary is, really, is taking other prehistoric complexes from the same time period and using them to help contextualize what Stonehenge might have been. Which isn’t bad, and it’s how archaeology is done, but it’s not really what’s on the tin, now is it?

    It’s also a documentary about one single archaeologist’s theory on the religious rituals that may have been practiced at Stonehenge – and look, I’m not saying the guy hasn’t done a lot of research on the topic, but the way it’s presented just comes across as ‘this is what it was’ and there’s no real way to know it. He’s telling a very interesting story, sure, and maybe it’s true, but it just feels like conjecture. Now it’s scientifically backed conjecture, but as they don’t show any real evidence other than the fact that he’s digging up another complex nearby that could be connected and we know that these prehistoric complexes had something to do with the summer and winter solstice. Which is fine. But again, it’s not really officially decoding anything.

    But, Stonehenge is one of those eternal mysteries, just like ‘how did the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids?’ It’s fun to ask and contemplate, and let’s be honest, if you had the answer, you’d probably regret knowing the truth instead of getting to have fun with all the theories we can come up with.

    Stonehenge Decoded is going to let you down if you’re looking for a lot of really solid information on Stonehenge, especially because there’s probably a lot more recent and up-to-date documentaries available on the market. But for just a fun start to a National Geographic binge watch? It suffices. It at least sets the tone. A lot of facts everyone already knows, and some interviews with experts. I can get behind that.