Thousands of druids, revellers and the simply curious witnessed a cloud-obscured sunrise at Stonehenge on Monday during an annual pilgrimage to the site to celebrate the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
Wiltshire police said 19,000 people converged on the ancient circle of 20-tonne stones on Salisbury Plain in southern England, where they partied through the night until the sun rose over the Heel Stone just before 0400 GMT.
A police spokesman said 11 people were arrested, mostly for minor drink and drug offences.
Druids, a pagan religious order dating back to Celtic Britain, are drawn to Stonehenge on the longest day of the year, about 160km (100 miles) west of London, because they believe the stones are a centre of spiritualism.
Stripping away some of the mystery surrounding the site, British newspapers reported on Monday that archaeologists have unearthed 4,000-year-old skeletons of men who helped transport the massive stones from west Wales.
"For the first time we have found the mortal remains of one of the families who were almost certainly involved in this monumental task," said Andrew Fitzpatrick of Wessex Archaeology.
The site is open to the public throughout the year but the solstice allows revellers a rare opportunity to touch the massive stones and walk among them.
This year's crowd numbers were down from a record 28,000 who braved chilly temperatures at the site last year.
Scholars say the circle was built between 3000 and 1600 BCE as a temple, burial ground, astronomical calendar or for a variety of spiritual and earthly purposes.
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