Standing stones, orthostats, liths, or more commonly megaliths (because of their large and cumbersome size) are solitary stones set vertically in the ground and come in many different varieties.Some Standing Stones or Menhirs have been built around in buildings which often have some early or current religious significance. One example is the South Zeal Menhir, which in South Zeal Devon, formed the basis for a 12th Century Monastery built by lay monks, which in later years and to current date became the Oxenham Arms Hotel at South Zeal. The South Zeal Standing Stone remains in place in the ancient snug bar at the Oxenham.
Standing stones are usually difficult to date, but pottery found underneath some in Atlantic Europe connects them with the Beaker people; others in the region appear to be earlier or later however.
Where they appear in groups together, often in a circular, oval, henge or horseshoe formation, they are sometimes called megalithic monuments. These are sites of ancient religious ceremonies, sometimes containing burial chambers.
Famous quotes containing the words standing and/or stone:
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“With his great white strong cold squares of teeth
And his little eyes of stone ...”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)