The Georgia Guidestones are a huge granite monument located on a hilltop in Elbert County, Georgia, USA. It is sometimes referred to as the "American Stonehenge," a title that has been applied at times to a number of other structures. A message comprised of ten guides or commandments is inscribed on the monument in eight modern languages, and a shorter message is inscribed at the top of the structure in four ancient scripts.
The monument is almost twenty feet tall, and made from six granite slabs that weigh more than 100 tons. One slab stands in the center, with four arranged around it. A capstone lies on top of the five slabs, which are astronomically aligned. A hole was drilled in the Center Stone so that the North Star could be visualized through it at any moment. An additional stone tablet, which is set in the ground a short distance to the west of the monument, provides some clarifying notes on the history and purpose of the Guidestones.
The origin of the monument is shrouded in mystery because no one knows the true identity of the man, or men, who commissioned its construction. All that is known for certain is that in June 1979, a well-dressed, articulate stranger visited the office of the Elberton Granite Finishing Company and announced that he wanted to build an edifice to transmit a message to mankind. He identified himself as RC Christian, but it soon became apparent that was not his real name. He said that he represented a group of men who wanted to offer direction to humanity, but to date, almost two decades later, no one knows who RC Christian really was, or the names of those he represented.
Several things are apparent. The messages engraved on the Georgia Guidestones deal with four major fields: governance and the establishment of a world government, population and reproduction control, the environment and man's relationship to nature, and spirituality.
The messages are engraved in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the monument from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian.
A shorter message appears on the four vertical surfaces of the capstone, again in a different language and script on each face. The explanatory tablet near the Guidestones identifies these languages or scripts as Babylonian Cuneiform, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and provides what is presumably an English translation: Let these be guidestones to an age of reason.
A few feet to the west of the monument, an additional granite tablet has been set level with the ground. This tablet identifies the monument and the languages used on it, lists various facts about the size, weight, and astronomical features of the stones, the date it was erected, and the sponsors of the project. It also speaks of a time capsule buried under the tablet, but the positions on the stone reserved for filling in the dates on which the capsule was buried and is to be opened are missing, so it is not clear whether the time capsule was ever put in place. The tablet is with one edge to each of the cardinal directions, and is inscribed such that the northern edge is the top of the inscription.
