Stonehenge 181
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Stonehenge

Stone Shifting

nigelswift N
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?”

G GordonP
GordonP Aug 19, 2003 11:40:06
Replying to nigelswift

Hi Nigel

For a 10 ton stone I had in mind something like this, 20ft long, 3ft 6ins wide and 2ft deep. Something like that would make a spectacular erection (no laughing ladies) in concrete. At 157lbs per cubic foot that makes just over 10 tons. Apparantly concrete weighs about the same per cubic foot as the sarsen stone according to the archaeologists and has been used before in archaeological experiments. However if we use natural stone and all we could get was a big 10 ton boulder we could use a sort of timber raft to rest the stone on and lever the raft along.

Larch levers, I used larch on advice from the timber merchant, maybe he had plenty available, but any of those you mentioned would probably work. I'm a bit dubious about ash though , it may be to flexible. Oak would be good but might be heavy. We should test some different timber before deciding. I chose 20ft as the length because I thought that was about as long as one man could handle, after doing the experiment I now think that might be a bit long. We should test different lengths also. Whatever we use should,I think, be green.

Regarding the head height business. After each lift the lever needs to be lifted clear of the fulcrum log to reposition for the next lift, this means that the end of the lever nearest the stone actually rests on the groud during repositioning. When this is done the lever moves along the track at the same rate as the stone without the need to stop the rowing action.

Fibreglass? I do hope your joking, people already think I'm mad.

Regards Gordon

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