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 Head To Head The Modern Antiquarian Stonehenge and its Environs Forum | Start a topic | Search |
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| Poor Littlestone said "please tell me more" and nobody responded. OK, I'll tell you as much as I know or have inferred... The following extract is from "FREEMASONRY TODAY" "Isaac Newton was a friend of William Stukeley and Desaguliers and all three influenced the early development of English Freemasonry in opposition to William Anderson, author of the famous Constitutions, who criticised those who saw God as no more than simply a clockmaker or architect." So it's clear that they were more than just good friends. Stukeley also liked to be known as the Arch-Druid and was heavily into the "revival" of Druidism in England. He was also an Anglican minister, but clearly saw no conflict of interest and actually preached Druid ideas from his pulpit on Sundays. Newton was interested in everything and may have been involved in this too, but I have no evidence of it at the moment. Isaac Newton was some 45 years older than Stukeley and already a famous man, so was probably something of a father figure to Stukeley. Stukeley wrote a biography of Newton and it is to him that we owe the anecdote of the apple falling on Newton's head. Given Stukeley's interest in ancient monuments and Newton's interest in mechanics, I can't imagine that they would not have talked about how large stones could have been moved. Stukeley was not averse to a spot of plagiarism and Newton may not have cared anyway. To him the idea of using a lever would have been so obvious that he would not have regarded it as a significant breakthrough. He may also have "given" the idea to Stukeley as one masonic brother to another. Stukeley finishes his description with an enigmatic quotation in Latin, but omitted the last word that I have included in brackets: "Sunt mihi, pars montis, vivo pendentia saxo [antra]" The complete quotation is from Ovid's Metamorphosis. It's difficult stuff to translate out of context as it follows on from the previous sentence. Literally it is "Are me, part mountain, live hanging rock cave". The closest I can get is "[I now abide] on this part of the mountain in a cave under the living rock". If there are any Latin scholars out there who can improve on this I'd be interested to hear. Anyway the fact that Stukeley omitted the word "antra" (cave) changes the meaning somewhat. He was fairly obviously making a pun on "pendentia saxo" (hanging rock), since (as Nigel says) his drawing clearly shows the stone suspended by ropes from levers. Maybe it was a little joke, something that Newton would have instantly recognised, just as we sometimes append a smiley to an email. And that's as much as I know ATM. Reply | with quote |  27th June 2005ce 10:15 In reply to: Re: Stukeley's 'Stonehenge' (Littlestone) |
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