Re: A clean slate? (or should that be granite?) | Forum

Sanctuary May 6, 2011 18:42:20

Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:

StoneGloves wrote:

No, lowering the capstone isn't what we're suggesting. Using the 'stub tenon joint' as a pivot point is more like it. So all the energy of lifting and placing the capstone can be directed at the other end of the stone.

Hmmm, I like that less. All that effort creating the stub when you could be getting on with the job. You wouldn't make a stub if you were in a capstone-placing race would you?

I personally wasn't suggesting any particular way, just having a pivotal point to 'hang' it on so to speak. Remember this capstone is on a hell of a slope so a 'peg' to hold it in place was essential to just keep it there before adjusting it to its final position. Huge sloping weights will stabilise on the smallest of projections if the downward thrust is forcefull enough.

StoneGloves May 6, 2011 20:30:16

Replying to Sanctuary

Yes. In one of your photographs there is what appears to be a dinge in the underside of the capstone. Toward the mid-line, form the aperture. When I look at other pictures the lump and the round depression seem on completely different planes. But after looking at the two links that Tiompan posted, to other dolmens, then it seems obvious which upright pointed stone has been used to support the capstone and to provide a pivot. I guess our ancestors were predominantly right-handed, as we are, and that would be the easiest direction to shift it into place (anticlockwise). I need to read some online material about these structures, but am presently researching prehistoric gold-working techniques. (Dem hair rings!)

stonefree May 7, 2011 11:23:57

Replying to Sanctuary

Huge sloping weights will stabilise on the smallest of projections if the downward thrust is forcefull enough.[/quote]

Exactly so, and with such a huge mass of granite, once in position it would be unlikely to move so much as a few millimetres without a similar force being applied!