A 90-year-old man living in Florida has returned a piece of Stonehenge he took from the prehistoric site more than 60 years ago.
Robert Phillips took the piece of the 5,000-year-old monument in 1958 when he was working for Van Moppes, a diamond cutting company that removed three stone cores from the rock after cracks had been discovered and metals rods were being inserted.
Phillips, who was born in Britain, kept one of the cores, 3-feet-long, and displayed it in his office, taking it with him when he left the firm in 1976 and again when he moved to Florida. He now lives in Aventura, near Miami.
Just before his 90th birthday last year, Phillips said he wanted to return the stone to English Heritage, which oversees Stonehenge. His sons traveled to Stonehenge last year to return the piece.
“Our father has always been interested in archaeology and he recognized the huge importance of the piece of the monument in his care. It was his wish that it be returned to Stonehenge,” his son Lewis said.
English Heritage said the returned piece could help determine the original location of the sarsen stones. The site’s smaller bluestones were brought from the Preseli Hills in Wales, but the origin of the sarsen stones is unknown.
“The last thing we ever expected was to get a call from someone in America telling us they had a piece of Stonehenge. We are very grateful to the Phillips family for bringing this intriguing piece of Stonehenge back home. Studying the Stonehenge core’s ‘DNA’ could tell us more about where those enormous sarsen stones originated,” English Heritage’s curator Heather Sebire said in a statement.
The other two Stonehenge cores are still missing.
