Re: All up in the air again... | Forum

Stonehenge 181

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Stone shifting 5

Steve Gray Sep 18, 2003 00:21:00

Replying to nigelswift

You have to accept that they raised the lintels to a height of 24 feet in order to put them ontop of the uprights. That requires either an enormous ramp or a wooden crib. If they used a ramp for the lintels then it's reasonable to suppose that they would have used them for the uprights too. But if they used a crib for the lintels then why should they not have used them for the uprights?

In order to use a ramp for stone rowing, it either needs to be over 40 feet wide, or you must build three ramps (one for the stone and one for each line of rowers).

I think if the evidence categorically says that ramps were used, then we should quietly forget about raising a trilithon and just stick to moving stones around. However, from what I have seen so far, it seems that a bit of compacted chalk in a hole is being extrapolated into a whole ramp theory.

nigelswift Sep 18, 2003 01:17:39

Replying to Steve Gray

“But if they used a crib for the lintels then why should they not have used them for the uprights?” Maybe they did. It’s a 50% call, without evidence. The BBC didn’t call it that way, and we ought to know if that was pure chance or evidence-based.

It’s probably not the moment for me to be justifying the ramp, but since you brought it up the ramp only has to be stone-width, plus the fulcrum logs, and the rowers can be easily accommodated on simple wooden slopes well away, or they might be able to stay low to an extent, I don’t know.

I also just don’t know whether this is wrongly extrapolated evidence (3 mentions and some shading on a map is all I’ve seen) or why, if it isn’t, you’d think the whole exercise wasn’t worthwhile. I didn't think it mattered which way it turned out.

About finding an expert - as you say it will probably depend who we ask, and if they disagree then fair enough we have to take a line, but surely it's worth making sure we aren't about to do something that EVERY expert disagrees with? As I now seem to be thought to be of the Chalk Ramp Party (quite wrongly actually, as I've tended to think rowing up a low log ramp felt good, so this evidence may confound my ideas too) I'm probably not the one to check it out. If no-one else thinks it's worthwhile then the issue will peter out.