Why Stone Age Japan And Ancient Britain Were Both Lands Of The Rising Sun

They were separated by thousands of miles and the two sets of builders could not conceivably have met or swapped notes, but intriguing parallels between Stonehenge and Japanese stone circles are to be highlighted in an exhibition at the monument on Salisbury Plain.

- Steven Morris

The exhibition will show that ancient people in southern Britain and in Japan took great trouble to build stone circles, appear to have celebrated the passage of the sun, and felt moved to come together for festivals or rituals.

Circles of Stone: Stonehenge and Prehistoric Japan, will flag up similarities between the monuments and settlements of the middle and late Jomon period in Japan and those built by the late neolithic people of southern Britain - and point out some of the differences.

The featured Jomon period sites date from 2,500BC to 1,500BC and construction of the stone circle at Stonehenge began about 2,500BC.

The exhibition will include 80 striking objects, some of which have never before been seen outside Japan. Key loans announced today include a flame pot, a highly decorated type of Jomon ceramics, with a fantastical shape evoking flames.

Such pots were produced in Japan for a relative short period, perhaps only a few hundred years.