³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Early Bronze Age timbers from the Seahenge monument are being prepared to go on display at Lynn museum next Easter.

The wooden circle which dates back to 2049 BC was discovered by a nature warden on the beach at Holme-next-the-Sea, near Hunstanton, when the peat dune covering them was washed away by winter storms in 1999.

More than 40 of the 56 ancient oak posts are now at Gressenhall, near Dereham, as conservation experts from the Norfolk Museums And Archaeology Service put together the internationally important exhibition.

Seven years' work

All the timbers from Seahenge have undergone seven years of painstaking work both at Flag Fen, near Peterborough, and more recently at Portsmouth's Mary Rose Trust.

On site at Holme, the ring was nearly seven metres in diameter, with each two-metre high post crowded around a huge upturned stump in the middle.

To start with the central post will not join the display, said area museums officer Dr Robin Hanley.

"The conservation process for the stump will take a lot longer because it's such a massive piece of timber - something like two tonnes," he said.

The relics have been cleaned, soaked in a wax-like substance and freeze-dried. While individual mounts are being built for each timber, the posts are being stored in body-style bags.

New gallery

The new gallery at the King's Lynn museum is being split into different areas to feature a full-size reconstruction of what Seahenge would have looked like in the Bronze Age, the original timbers and a display on the study and preservation work.

The removal of the 4,000-year-old monument from Holme sparked protests from some locals and Druids, but experts argued that the excavation was necessary to protect the exposed timbers from the elements.

There were also concerns that an influx of sightseers would frighten away the area's birds.

There was further controversy when a chainsaw was taken to the central stump to find out the circle's age.

But the sample gave archaeologists a chance to discover vital details using a combination of carbon dating, tree ring technology - a process known as dendochronology - and mathematics.

"We want people to gain information from the sampling that went on," said Dr Hanley.

"The analysis of the tree ring data that the cuts produced have given us a wealth of information about where the trees came from and indeed told us that the trees were cut down in the spring 2049 BC."

Bronze Age insight

The study work also brought to light crucial information about life in the Bronze Age due to a number of cuts in the wood.

"When this monument was constructed we were at the very beginnings of the Bronze Age," said Dr Hanley.

"It was thought that bronze tools were pretty rare, but the study of the axe marks showed that something like 50 different axes were used to create this monument."

While Seahenge's discovery has unearthed a wealth of information, experts still do not know for sure why the circle was built.

One thought though is that it could have been used during the burial of important people, with a body laid out on the upturned stump to decompose before being committed to the ground.