Author | Edward Rutherfurd |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Historical novel |
Publisher | Century Hutchinson |
Publication date | 7 May 1987 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Pages | 1145 pp (first edition) |
ISBN | 0-7126-1447-8 |
OCLC | 15591802 |
Sarum (also titled Sarum: The Novel of England) is a work of historical fiction by Edward Rutherfurd, first published in 1987. It is Rutherfurd's literary debut. It tells the story of England through the tales of several families in and around the English city of Salisbury, the writer's hometown, from prehistoric times to 1985. [1]
The main families of Sarum include:
The story covers major points of British history. The following chapter listing parallels major periods and events :
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli.
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England, with a population of 40,302, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately 20 miles from Southampton and 30 miles from Bath.
The Ring of Brodgar is a Neolithic henge and stone circle about 6 miles north-east of Stromness on Mainland, the largest island in Orkney, Scotland. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.
Amesbury is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is known for the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge which is within the parish. The town is claimed to be the oldest occupied settlement in Great Britain, having been first settled around 8820 BC. The parish includes the hamlets of Ratfyn and West Amesbury, and part of Boscombe Down military airfield.
The River Avon is in the south of England, rising in Wiltshire, flowing through that county's city of Salisbury and then west Hampshire, before reaching the English Channel through Christchurch Harbour in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole conurbation of Dorset.
Silbury Hill is a prehistoric artificial chalk mound near Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire. It is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site. At 39.3 metres (129 ft) high, it is the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe and one of the largest in the world; similar in size to some of the smaller Egyptian pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex.
Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, South West England, is the now ruined and deserted site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury. Situated on a hill about two miles north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest records in the country. It is an English Heritage property and is open to the public.
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches would have served defensive purposes poorly, henges are not considered to have been defensive constructions. The three henge types are as follows, with the figure in brackets being the approximate diameter of the central flat area:
Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.
Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England. It lies 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, just north of Amesbury in Wiltshire. The henge is the second-largest Late Neolithic palisaded enclosure known in the United Kingdom, after Hindwell in Wales.
Edward Rutherfurd is a pen name for Francis Edward Wintle. He is best known as a writer of epic historical novels that span long periods of history but are set in particular places. His debut novel, Sarum, set the pattern for his work with a ten-thousand-year storyline.
Michael Parker Pearson, is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles, Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial. A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, he previously worked for 25 years as a professor at the University of Sheffield in England, and was the director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. A prolific author, he has also written a variety of books on the subject.
Francis Manning Marlborough Pryor is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages in Britain. He is best known for his discovery and excavation of Flag Fen, a Bronze Age archaeological site near Peterborough, as well as for his frequent appearances on the Channel 4 television series Time Team.
Robin Hood’s Ball is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, approximately 5 miles (8 km) northwest of the town of Amesbury, and 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) northwest of Stonehenge. The site was designated as a scheduled monument in 1965.
Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) in Wiltshire, England. The WHS covers two large areas of land separated by about 15 miles (24 km), rather than a specific monument or building. The sites were inscribed as co-listings in 1986. Some large and well known monuments within the WHS are listed below, but the area also has an exceptionally high density of small-scale archaeological sites, particularly from the prehistoric period. More than 700 individual archaeological features have been identified. There are 160 separate Scheduled Monuments, covering 415 items or features.
Stonehenge is an ancient stone monument in England.
The prehistoric landmark of Stonehenge is distinctive and famous enough to have been frequently referenced in popular culture. The landmark has become a symbol of British culture and history, owing to its distinctiveness and its long history of being portrayed in art, literature, and advertising campaigns; and in more recent media formats such as television, film, and computer games. This is in part because the arrangement of standing stones topped with lintels is unique: not just in the British Isles, but in the world.
Stonehenge has been the subject of many theories about its origin, ranging from the academic worlds of archaeology to explanations from mythology and the paranormal.
The Wiltshire Museum, formerly known as Wiltshire Heritage Museum and Devizes Museum, is a museum, archive and library and art gallery in Devizes, Wiltshire, England. The museum was established and is run by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (WANHS), a registered charity founded in 1853. After the purchase of an old grammar school the museum was opened in 1873. Subsequently, it expanded into two Georgian houses on either side and still occupies this location today.
Bluestonehenge or Bluehenge is a prehistoric henge and stone circle monument that was discovered by the Stonehenge Riverside Project about 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. All that remains of the site is the ditch of the henge and a series of stone settings, none of which is visible above ground.