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Stonehenge 181

Image by Chris Collyer

Stone Shifting

GordonP Aug 18, 2003 16:10:29

Replying to nigelswift

Nigel,
Sooner or later we will need someone from the academic world, tell your son OK.
I am in Derby right in the centre of the country, so I can cover a large area, although I will probably have to visit whatever site we use on several occasions before the actual experiment.
Some thoughts on what we will need.
The site.
A stone. ( I think 10 tons would be ideal to start with, preferably of a similar shape to the sarsens)
Levers, these should be recently felled green wood. I used Larch last time and it worked well.
Support logs and fulcrum logs. (anything log shaped)
Like you said, once we have got the hang of moving the stone we can do a demo for the academics and perhaps gain their support for the erection experiment.
Regards Gordon

nigelswift Aug 19, 2003 09:16:38

Replying to GordonP

Gordon,

OK, he’ll contact them today.

“A stone similar in shape to the sarsens”… not sure what shape that would be, but I guess you’d get more bangs for your buck with tall and thin rather than short and fat. Might be easier to handle as well?

“Recently felled larch levers”… one thought, apparently the predominant trees of the time would have been “oak, lime, birch and ash, plus beech (in the South) and Scots Pine (in the North). Would any of these be suitable, and easily obtainable ? I’m wondering about nitpicking academics. On the other hand, at least you know your larch works. I’d hate the experiment to consist of a series of loud cracks!

I was intrigued to see that the block you moved was about the same weight as a Stonehenge bluestone, and that for that you used 20 ft long levers. Much of the Stonehenge Avenue, said by many to be the route of the bluestones, is 40 ft wide (but more in the earlier stages, where it’s steeper and might need longer levers?). Hmmm. Also, you say your technique involves lifting the levers above head height. If you’d had parallel banks and ditches like the Avenue has, mightn’t you have found the process even easier? OK, it’s just a bit of mad raving and someone will point out a fallacy, but what the hell, I enjoy it.

To continue the raving, wouldn’t the whole experiment be sexed-up, to an irresistible extent so far as film companies go, if in addition to the main experiment we also rowed a very light fibre glass sarsen replica along the Stonehenge Avenue? Hahahaha! I’d pay to take part in that. It’d be great when the English Heritage Jobsworths arrived… “’ere what are you lot doin’ then?”