The mystery of Stonehenge 'solved'

The mystery of Stonehenge may finally have been solved by researchers who say it could be linked to ancient Egypt.

The theory is that the site was created as an ancient calendar to help people know the time of year.

The formation of the stones acted as a physical representation of the year, allowing people to keep track of days, weeks and months.

But it wasn't the sort of calendar we're used to in the modern world. Instead, it was based on something called a Solar calendar.

The Solar calendar was used by the ancient Egyptians and follows the movement of the sun. Weeks were ten days long and there were more months than we are used to today.

What is Stonehenge?

It's a circle of massive stones, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, in the south west of England.

It's thought to have been built in prehistoric times, with the stones being put up about 2,500 BC.

People go to the site at certain times of year, during the summer and winter solstices, when the sun lines up with gaps in the stones.

What does the research say?

The research was done by historian Professor Timothy Darvill, from Bournemouth University.

He said that it's possible that the formation of Stonehenge was influenced by ancient Egypt because they used the solar calendar as their official way of telling the time of the year.

The solar calendar works using the Winter and Summer solstices, when the sun is framed by the same stones every time.

"The proposed calendar works in a very straightforward way," Darvill said.

"Each of the 30 stones in the sarsen circle represents a day within a month, itself divided into three weeks each of 10 days."