stonecarver, on 26 October 2006, 5:12, said:
Ok guys.... Assuming they COULD have devised some system for moving the stones... whether it be by land or by sea, whether by sledge, roller, or Other device... (nobody here seems to doubt that they Could have devised a system)...it was only in the 20th century that Thomas decided the bluestones might be from Wales...
What I find Very interesting, is that earliest historical account of the stones at Stonehenge, says that they came from Ireland !
The account given by Galfridus Monemutensis in his Historia Regium Britanniae c1136 states that the ancient Britons went to Ireland to seize "The Giant's Round" (Stonehenge) from Mount Killarus, and brought it back and set it up in Wiltshire.... where it still stands today...
Now, archaeology deals with facts (hopefully), but it's interesting that the earliest account we have suggests that the stones come, not from Wales, but from Ireland... where there are indeeed types of 'bluestone' which archaeologists have confused with Welsh bluestones...
Galfridus Monemutensis, (pen name of Geoffrey of Monmouth), wrote when the trail was some 3,000 years cold. He was quite a character in his own right, (
Wikipedia on Geoffrey of Monmouth), from which I quote:
Quote
Next was Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), the work best known to modern readers. It purports to relate the history of Britain, from its first settlement by Brutus, a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, to the death of Cadwallader in the 7th century, taking in Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain, two kings, Leir and Cymbeline, later immortalised by Shakespeare, and one of the earliest developed narratives of King Arthur. Geoffrey claims to have translated it from an ancient book written in Welsh, although few take this claim seriously. Much of it is based on the Historia Britonum, a 9th century Welsh-Latin historical compilation, Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum and Gildas's 6th century polemic De Excidio Britanniae, expanded with material from Roman histories, Welsh legend, genealogical tracts, and Geoffrey's own imagination.[4]It contains little trustworthy historical fact, and many scholars are tempted to agree with William of Newburgh, who wrote around 1190 that "it is quite clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying, or for the sake of pleasing the Britons."
It's not that there isn't dolorite in Ireland. But Stonehenge was built over hundreds of years, as the evidence would have it; and the sarsens pretty clearly came from nearby. Bluestone of Irish origin is possible, but of the eleven tested so far, all have been close matches to the Preselian.
Could you introduce a report saying otherwise?
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