Thousands celebrated the winter solstice at England's Stonehenge

Many of them were dressed up and had gathered before dawn on the shortest day of the year. When the sun rose, the crowd cheered and danced.

"We are coming out of the darkness and into the light again," one participant told the BBC.

The thousands-of-years-old monument in southwest England attracts visitors every year who see it as a spiritual experience.

Stonehenge has a clear astronomical orientation and was built partly to follow the first rays of the sun at the summer solstice.