71 replies to this topic

[stonecarver]

Stonehenge is comprised of a number of features, incuding earthern banks, a ditch, post-holes, stone-holes, and the various stone settings (if we ignore 'the Avenue').

There have been various arguments and counter arguments about where the stones we see there today came From, and the method by which they got there. The large Sarsen Stones (a type of sandstone), are thought to originate from an area not far north of Stonehenge, but the so-called 'bluestones' (an antiquarian misnomer in itself), some people argue, come from Wales (the Presli mountains). Alternatively, the bluestones were found locally, transported by glacial action. Or...

In any case... why would Anybody bring stones from another part of the country? and why cross a major estaury when there is a simpler over-land route?

What do you think....???

[shiny]

" Why would Anybody bring stones from another part of the country?"            Could it be that the ancients had a thing for the colour blue?  Bluestones,  Woad,  even " Blue John"  stone  which is multicoloured?

[Stone Lover]

Or maybe the colour "blue" held something more significant to them.  That the blue stone was more powerful when they were praying etc.... just a thought

[Jimit]

Trouble is they don't look "blue" I have a keyring pendant made from spotted dolerite which comes from a quarry in the Preseli Hills. Its overall colour is black/dark grey with white flecks. In some lights it looks more "green" than "blue".
Jim.

[shiny]

hmm!......................    I just googled  "Spotted dolerite", and found the following........ Oxford Journal of Archaeology Vol. 25, Page 29, Feb 2006,....To put it in a nutshell............Axes, axehammers and battleaxes, 11 Stonehenge monoliths, and potential sources outcrops in Preseli were all tested, and suggest the possibility of a source of Spotted Dolerite outside Preseli .

     http://www.blackwell...1...d dolerite"

[kevin.b]

As this thread is in the megalithic side I will not say too much.
But please remember that what your eyes see,
and what things may look like and respond to in other lights may be far different?
I believe the specific type of stones and materials used will have been sought out.
Their particuler qualities and above all chirality , will have been of the utmost importance?
The people who survived the last ice age may well have had an understanding of natural materials
left over from previous civilizations on this planet, they will have had nothing else but basic tools
and an understanding of how these differing materials can be employed to manipulate a light that we cannot see.
I believe the simple embankments and ditches will have been the first constructions
with further better additions by way of stones following along later as their numbers grew.
Without considering this specific quality and reason for construction, you are hampering yourselves from understanding what the sites are about.
Why all this knowledge was lost is strange, other than a further depletion of numbers ?
You asked" what do you think"
So this is what I think and because of what I detect, I have further deduced,
it is difficult for me therefore not to post when such a question is asked,
I am not trying to cause upset or anything, I honestly detect this very subtle form of light,
precisely where the megaliths were sited.
Kevin

[stonecarver]

Now we opened the discussion properly.... and I'm pleased somebody has noticed... that the 'bluestones'... only 'Appear' to be blue, and they were given that epithet by Antiquarians (their 'apparent' colour hasn't changed much if At All in the last couple of hundred years).

They were Not blue, when they were erected. They are not all the same type of stone. There are four main types of rock (at Stonehenge) which the antiquarians termed bluestones. They are:-

dolerites, spotted dolerite, rhyolite, volcanic ash.

Other stones (such as the 'Altar stone') are other types, such as sandstone.

In 1923, H.H. Thomas went to Wales in search of rocks which might match those at Stonehenge... and found them near Presli... and so the Welsh connection was underpinned. But was it really their source?

Not to put too fine a point on it... the single biggest source of 'bluestone' axes in the British Isles, Is Langdale in the Lake District. Now, there, we have volcanic ash (Langdale Tuff), which is Truly blue-grey in colour... and yes, the colour of That particular rock-type certainly was One of the reasons those axes were so highly prized, and distributed throughout Britain in the Neolithic.

Have we been looking in the wrong direction all this time? Were the bluestones in fact, from Cumbria? where all those rock-types outcrop (as well as in Wales)? and was Thomas a member of the secret order of Druids? (therefore his choice of Wales as the source of the bluestones might not be impartial?).

[shiny]

Sorry, I dont get this, according to Jimit, Spotted Dolerite is "black/dark grey with white flecks" . On another thread is a picture of the flake found at Woodhenge last week, which is creamy coloured with bluish flecks.

                                                http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=161

[Jimit]

I've asked the authors of the site for clarification. My sample is polished though.
Jim.

[stonecarver]

Now we begin to appreciate the problem...

[kevin.b]

So WHO'S polishing his dolerite then?
Polishing it that much that it turns blue?
I will stop now before my post turns too blue.
Kevin

[Pete G]

The pieces Jimmit and I have are from the quarry that Colin Shearing now owns in Presceli.
I will ask Josh Pollard at Woodhenge tomorrow what the official line is on the type of bluestone found there.
I have to admit I have never seen a piece like it.
I have several fragments of bluestone found along the Stonehenge avenue.
Most are grey until you wet them then they turn blue and the spots start to show through.
PeteG

[Pete G]

Josh Pollard confirmed to me today that it is spotted dolorite.
Another piece the size of a cricket ball came up this afternoon,
PeteG

[MissD]

I don't see a problem with them transporting the stones from Wales to be honest. Or anywhere else, if there are any likely candidates.  If you look at the 'Bluestone circle' at stonehenge then you will find that the stones are placed in opposition, rhiolite opposite rhiolite, dolerite opposite dolerite etc.  These stones were obviously more than just stones, they meant something,  and if they can expend the effort to drag those ginourmous sarcens, shape them and raise them, then  I can easliy see them dragging stones from wales too. Give then sizes of the trilithons, particularly the grand trilithon, I would imagine that the effort expended on them both would have been pretty much equal. Plus, it would seem some bluestones have been used elsewhere in a dressed form, so where ever they came from they already had enough significance for them to be more and re-set.  When it comes to building Stonehenge, I don't think 'practicality' was uppermost in their thoughts somehow.

[BuckyE]

Don't forget the--supposedly medieval--legend that Merlin moved the Giant's Dance from elsewhere. Given that Stonehenge's construction is unique, and along with Avebury many times the size of anything else in Britain, it must have been an  important "ritual center" of some sort. It wouldn't be surprising if the "bluestone" ring was an existing ring elsewhere before it was moved to Stonehenge. And was appropriated as a spoil of conquest, or assimilation, or as a gift of an important tribe, or who knows what?

In other words, the stones might have been important to the Stonehenge builders for other reasons than their composition. Think social as well as physical.

And I can't resist: Stonehenge comprises many things, it's not comprised of them. The thread title is correct usage, the opening sentence of the original post isn't. I'm such a pedant.