🚀 go-pugleaf

 > (sigh)
 >
 > Joe appears not to have appeased the whitespace demon on his posting, so
 > I can only respond to the portion after the lines:
 >
 >>  into a more
 >> unified and distinct image of the society which built Stonehenge. I would
 >> like to share my thoughts with you.
 >

Kevin, we don't have a "white space demon" on our system. I suggest you
ask your system administrator to exorcise it before you make any more
sacrifices to appease it. However, I will repost the article for you.


 > Anyway, having made a pilgrimage to Stonehenge just last month, and having
 > boned up a bit before hand, I submit the following commentary:

Kevin, do you really think boning up a bit is adequate to study this
problem? As I mentioned in the part of my article you probably missed, I've
seen reports and articles on Stonehenge over a period of two decades. My
first course in ancient history was in 1956. I have a friend with an
archaeology degree who says I know more about his field than he does, but
the thing that really began to bring it together for me was the study of
Celtic culture.


>>	To begin with, the layout of Stonehenge, as many scholars know, is
>> intimately connected with its location. The stones are placed in a way which
>> corresponds with certain alignments of the sun and moon which work only at
>> that latitude.
>>	A few years ago I read about a community in the United States which had
>> an exact replica of Stonehenge cast in concrete and constructed in their
>> town. Those people may have been disappointed to find that even though the
>> structure may have the correct orientation with respect to true north, the
>> alignments of the sun and moon which occur at Stonehenge don't occur at
>> other latitudes.

> A reproduction of Stonehenge at a different latitude will not work, but
> that *does not mean* that the site of Stonehenge is the only site at which
> such an observatory could be built, simply that, had it been built elsewhere,
> it would have been built slightly differently.

Kevin, I agree with you entirely on this point. Anyone who reads
Hawkins's "Stonehenge Decoded" can come up with that fact. I didn't want to
rewrite the book on the net. One unique fact about building at this latitude
was that the builders of Stonehenge got some very key alignments of the sun
and moon to occur at either 180 degrees from each other or at 90 degrees
from one another. This demonstrates that they had a good working knowledge
of some concepts of geometry. They knew what a right angle was and THAT KIND
OF ALIGNMENT COULD ONLY BE OBTAINED AT THAT LATITUDE!


>>	Furthermore, the site of Stonehenge was chosen for its broad open
>> planes, for the most part, unobstructed by trees and other irregularities of
>> terrain. But there is another complication which most visitors to Stonehenge
>> never notice. The land on that site is not exactly flat and level. It slopes
>> gently but fatally for any unsophisticated architect.

> The site is near Salisbury Plain, but it is not particularly flat.  If a site
> was to be chosen for "broad open planes" (sic) it would have been to the south
> and west of the actual site, which is in rolling hills.

Kevin, the site is ON SALIBURY PLAIN and it must be fairly flat or it
wouldn't have been named Salisbury PLAIN! The question can be quickly settled
by anyone who cares to look at the photographs in "Stonehenge Decoded",
"Beyond Stonehenge" or any other book that has pictures of the site.



>>	And so if the structure had been built without regard to leveling, the
>> alignments would not have worked and the whole project would have failed. 

> All of the allignments of which I am aware relate to the positions of
> celestial objects as they rise and set. It is the *edges* and spaces
> *between* the stones that are significant, not the hight or levelness.

Kevin, you seem to be implying that they relied on the natural horizon
for the sighting of sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset. In fact several
authors have pointed out that the natural horizon is a bit irregular. It rises
and falls and is obstructed by intermittant groves of trees. These authors
point out that the construction of an artificial horizon was necessary to
make accurate readings of these key risings and settings and so the builders
of Stonehenge built an artificial horizon. Midsummer sunrise is observed
over the TOP OF THE HEEL STONE. Another author suggested that the earthen
bank alongside the ditch once formed an artificial horizon because he saw
the need for such a mechanism. One author stated that the tops of the stones
were leveled for aesthetic reasons, but no one knows for certain all the ways
in which the stones were used by the builders, but I suspect that structures
were determined mostly by functionality and very little by aesthetics.



> The therory that Joe advances of the coracle (curragh) in the ditch as a
> leveling instrument is ingenious (not to say charmingly bizzare), but the 
> motivation he attributes does not seem to hold up.  Besides, it's windy up
> there, and any coracle small enough to fit in the ditch with a twelve foot
> mast on it would bob around quite a bit, if not blow over completely.

Kevin, I used the word "curragh" for a very good reason. "Curragh" or "corwgl"
is probably the word used by the builders of Stonehenge. "Coracle" is a
modern English corruption of the word. As far as the wind is concerned, we've
all seen sailboats at anchor with sails furled that stand up very nicely to
the wind. Fisherman still go to sea in curraghs every day and ride out Atlantic
storms that sink modern steel-hulled ships. Remember were talking your
basic stagnant ditch water here, no white caps or breakers! And I think it
really belittles the skills of those who built a place such as Stonehenge
to think that they couldn't hold a small boat steady with a couple of ropes
attached to the mast if it was ever necessary at all!

					J. M. McGhee