Stonhenge revisited

[Neil Schneider]

Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, says: "Few archaeologists
ever consider practical issues like moving stones. Gordon's ideas
fascinate because they come from an understanding of lifting and moving
things, rather than from theories dreamt up at a desk.

Similar "msyteries" have been solved by having practical people,
builders, engineers, etc. have a go at them.

Rolling stones

A carpenter's new theory on how Stonehenge came about could roll away
old theories on Britain's megalithic monument, finds Patrick Weir

   Tuesday November 30, 2004
The Guardian

For more than 20 years, Derbyshire carpenter Gordon Pipes has been
striving to find an answer to a 4,000-year-old question that still
confounds archaeologists; namely how, without roads or wheels, did
Neolithic man transport 80 sarsen stones, each weighing an average of
30 tons, 20 miles from the Marlborough Downs to Salisbury Plain to
construct Stonehenge? The site also comprises 98 blue stones, each
weighing six tons, from the Preseli Mountains in Wales. The question of
how these were conveyed over land - it is agreed they must have been
ferried in boats along the Severn Estuary and River Avon - is also
unanswered. But Pipes is convinced he has found the solution.

"What fired my imagination was a book about the stone statues on Easter
Island by Norwegian scientist Thor Heyerdahl," he explains. "Working
out how the ancients were able to move such heavy megaliths became an
obsession.
...

"In terms of Stonehenge, theories that one stone could have been
dragged a mile a day by 700 men using rope and wooden rollers seemed as
viable to me as alien involvement. The rollers wouldn't have taken the
weight and the physical effort required would have been super-human.

"It occurred to me that a megalith could be picked up, moved a short
distance, put down and moved again. Further research suggested this
would be quicker, require less manpower and negate the need for muscle
power. Also, the initial inertia the body experiences when attempting
to drag large stones, is all but nullified."

...

http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,5500,1361976,00.html


-- 
Neil Schneider                              pacneil_at_linuxgeek_dot_net
                                           http://www.paccomp.com
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