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thesweetcheat T
thesweetcheat Dec 16, 2010 19:56:46
Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:
Yes I see your point, getting someone to flesh out the whys and wherefores of a speculation could be useful in helping to discount/corroborate a theory - but of course, the bigger the thing gets, the more it needs to tie in at various points with actual evidence - else you end up with Discworld! (Is that how you spell it?)

This rang a big bell with me: "may never have been "fixed" to the surface in a way that would leave an archaeological record".... So what are we to make of Stukeley, called a liar for centuries for drawing the Beckhampton Ave so long, proved not a liar over six stones, but no record yet found of the others. Was he drawing relatively small stones placed on the surface that left no marks when removed?

I suspect we won't ever really know, but if the other remaining stones are indicative, I would think the "missing" ones would have been fairly big, even if not as big as what's left. That's assuming it was an entirely stone avenue of course :-)

Stukeley's work is so tantalising because he was there in relatively modern times, and much of what he definitely did see isn't there any longer. But the problem comes that it's sometimes difficult to separate those times when he was drawing what he saw (but we can't see because it's gone since his time) and those times when he was drawing his own speculative reconstructions.

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Dec 17, 2010 07:58:25
Replying to thesweetcheat

thesweetcheat wrote:
nigelswift wrote:
Yes I see your point, getting someone to flesh out the whys and wherefores of a speculation could be useful in helping to discount/corroborate a theory - but of course, the bigger the thing gets, the more it needs to tie in at various points with actual evidence - else you end up with Discworld! (Is that how you spell it?)

This rang a big bell with me: "may never have been "fixed" to the surface in a way that would leave an archaeological record".... So what are we to make of Stukeley, called a liar for centuries for drawing the Beckhampton Ave so long, proved not a liar over six stones, but no record yet found of the others. Was he drawing relatively small stones placed on the surface that left no marks when removed?

I suspect we won't ever really know, but if the other remaining stones are indicative, I would think the "missing" ones would have been fairly big, even if not as big as what's left. That's assuming it was an entirely stone avenue of course :-)

Stukeley's work is so tantalising because he was there in relatively modern times, and much of what he definitely did see isn't there any longer. But the problem comes that it's sometimes difficult to separate those times when he was drawing what he saw (but we can't see because it's gone since his time) and those times when he was drawing his own speculative reconstructions.

Yes but he was a serious man nevertheless and I think others in the past have been unfair on only picking out what they consider to be correct and the rest left to his supposed vivid imagination. I feel that if he says the BA extended further than what we are calling a cove then he was probably right to a certain extent, maybe completely. I have to admit to thinking 'fingers up' to all the brainy buggers in the past who said the BA didn't exist...only in his mind!
And it is interesting that there are quite a few bronze age? burial mounds in the vicinity of Fox Covert where the avenue is believed to have concluded (if S was correct) as it would leave you with a similar situation as seen at the Sanctuary but without a major trackway present (that I know of anyway).

N nigelswift
nigelswift Dec 17, 2010 08:20:01
Replying to thesweetcheat

thesweetcheat wrote:
But the problem comes that it's sometimes difficult to separate those times when he was drawing what he saw (but we can't see because it's gone since his time) and those times when he was drawing his own speculative reconstructions.
Sure. But on page 68 of Stukeley Illustrated it shows his "View near the spot of the termination of the Beckhampton Avenue" and he both writes and draws "the track of the Avenue" and shows only 4 (prostrate) stones. That seems like he recorded what he saw and didn't embellish it.
I'm sure there WOULD have been a pretty old track there as a long distance track terminates just behind his viewpoint I think, so it would be bound to carry on to the henge. I'm inclined to think his illustration on that occasion was as close to a photograph as he could manage.

What that doesn't tell us though is whether his "track" was an Avenue (stones or no stones) If I was building a stone Avenue I might get a bit peed off at the extreme ends and just mark it with pebbles.