1. Carved in stone

Few places have so many versions of their origin as Stonehenge. People have suggested many ideas of its true purpose: an ancient (\(1\))  (OBSERVE), a giant calendar, a place of pilgrimage, or even a landing site for UFOs. Experts, however, think Stonehenge was the centre of a ritual landscape. This idea fits with the many (\(2\))  (BURY) places that surround the stone circle. The only thing we know for sure about Stonehenge is its age: construction began about \(5,000\) years ago and continued for (\(3\))  (ROUGH) \(1,600\) years.

 

Mount Rushmore is one of the world’s largest stone sculptures. Finished in \(1941\), it shows four important American (\(4\))  (PRESIDE) carved into the granite of South Dakota’s Black Hills. The faces, from left to right as you look at them, are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Each face is about \(18\) metres high. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, started the work by using dynamite to blast the rough shapes of the rulers’ features out of the rock.

 

The Great Sphinx of Giza was cut from a limestone hill in Egypt nearly \(5,000\) years ago. A famous legend says the Sphinx appeared in a dream to the young Prince Thutmose and promised him the throne if he cleared the sand that covered its body. Thutmose did this and later became pharaoh. It is (\(5\))  (LIKE) we will ever find out exactly why the Sphinx was built. However, some (\(6\))  (HISTORY) think this \(20\)-metre-high, almost \(75\)-metre-long lion with a human head was meant to guard Pharaoh Khafra’s pyramid.

 

Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, is famous for its moais — huge stone statues found across the island in the South Pacific. There are about \(900\) of these figures scattered around the island. No one knows for sure what the moais (\(7\))  (PRESENT). Some researchers think they were part of a religion connected with the dead and that the statues show former chiefs or ancestors who were honoured. Most moais are made from tuff, which is compressed (\(8\))  (VOLCANO) ash. Many of them are very large: some reach up to ten metres in (\(9\))  (HIGH) and weigh more than eighty tonnes. These facts make the statues both impressive and (\(10\))  (MYSTERY). One of the biggest questions is how the islanders moved such heavy statues to their final places. Scientists have suggested many methods, but there is no definite answer.