Re: Bloody marvellous w/e! | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Stonehenge 181

Image by Chance

Good luck to the Stonehengineers

Steve Gray May 15, 2005 22:03:29

Replying to jimit

Just arrived back from Derby. I'll try to give a summary of both days.

Yesterday was quite cool with a strong wind, but it stayed fine and by the afternoon it had warmed up a little. The block arrived late and they took a long time with a crane getting it off the lorry and into the field. It was about 10:30 before we started doing anything with it. As you can see from the pictures, we dug three "rabbit holes" along each side to get the levers under the stone. We had to keep adding small stones under the levers as they became squashed into the ground at each attempt to lift. Eventually we got enough in to get the block slightly off the ground. Small packing pieces were inserted under the block and more stones under the levers until we reached a height where the first fulcrum logs could be inserted. You can follow the rest of the progress in the photo sequence.

We rowed a few strokes quite successfully and achieved a distance of 38 inches. However, we encountered a problem in that the "oars" kept slipping too far under the block. which made it very hard to manoeuver them. It was decided to make notches in the top of the oars to stop this happening, but that weakened them to the point that they began to split along their length.

The film crew were quite happy at that point, having seen the principle work successfully albeit only for a short distance. We completed the 38" in around 2 minutes, so that's equivalent to 32 yards per hour. I'm sure with practice we could easily get up to 100 yards per hour once the problem with the oars was solved.

Today the weather was gorgeous. Many of us got more than just a touch of the sun. We started by raising the block until it was level. This took a considerable amount of time because the site had a slope of 1 in 18 and we had to wait for Gordon to procure a quantity of different thicknesses of packing pieces. They ranged from plywood and floorboard right through to short lengths of railway sleepers. In fact it was early afternoon before the block was levelled and raised onto the first layer of support poles.

After that progress was more rapid, but even so, the lack of an adequate team meant that instead of a clean lift of the whole block at once, we had to proceed by lifting one side and then the other, which often meant repositioning levers, people and support poles. It probably took about three times longer than it would if we'd had enought people for the full lift.

By about 3:00pm, we had raised the block a total of 31.5 inches (80cm). Even though it was completely stable on it's base, we couldn't risk leaving it at this height in the field overnight, so it was decided that we needed to spend the rest of the afternoon dismantling what we had built. This was something of a disappointment, since otherwise we could probably have raised it at least another couple of feet or so in the time we had left.

It actually didn't take very long to get it down, but at least that left us time to pat each other on the back, drink a glass (or rather a plastic cup) of champagne each, and discuss plans for next time!

Congratulations to everyone who took part and commiserations to all of those who couldn't make it.

Steve

Moth May 16, 2005 00:02:45

Replying to Steve Gray

Nice one Steve. I'll post some pix on yahoo for everyone to see. I wasn't around yesterday for the 'rowing' but I can certainly say that the achievement of raising it today was very impressive!!! (It kinda 'looks' a lot higher than it 'sounds' from the measurement!)

Congratulations to Gordon & the other geniuses involved in thinking the stuff through!!!

Having been on the levers when dismantling it, it's amazing when you actually do it, how little real effort it took from 3-4 people on each lever to raise the 'stone'.

Well done Gordon!!! Can't wait for part 2!!!

love

Moth

jimit May 16, 2005 08:08:48

Replying to Steve Gray

A bit of a surprise re the stone......Gordon had asked for it to weigh roughly 10 ton but Steve calculated the weight at nearer 12 ton. The logs laid and secured top and bottom could have added another 1/2 ton.
When you consider we were a group of completely undiciplined amateurs not knowing exactly what we were doing, I think our achievements were stunning.
The camere crew were everywhere, strapping cameras to logs, getting closeups of straining bodies and interviewing nearly everyone in sight, the finished film will be facinating.

nigelswift May 16, 2005 09:09:18

Replying to Steve Gray

As someone who didn't do any of the lifting but just stood there, mouth agape, my impressions were these:

On both days, it was the last bit that mattered. Gordon had two things to prove - day one - that stonerowing worked, and day two - that a stone could be elevated quickly and efficiently by a small team. In both cases he was completely vindicated.

Most of day one was spent messing about (a lot of it was used by the heavy hauliers using their crane to put the thing on the ground!). A lot of time was then taken up getting the variables right - which levers, how long, which fulcrum, how many people etc. Towards the end of the day we'd figured a lot of it out and now know enough to iron everything out for next time. And it DOES work, like a dream. We now know that for sure because the few strokes we managed at the end, even without the optimum levers, were really smooth. It's an extraordinary site to see 12 tons rise up and move forward through the air and then settle gently a foot forward from where it was. I wonder who last saw it done?

Day two was also mostly spent learning. One of the major problems was the slope of the ground. It was vital that the stone was supported dead level so it wan't until lunchtime that enough adjustments had been made. (Next time, obviously, will be on level ground). Once that had been done and uniform logs could be inserted progress accelerated and the last two complete "lifts" of the level of the towers took only about half an hour. This is hugely significant as it shows that if the time hadn't run out the stone could then have been elevated to any height required and the towers would have remained perfectly stable. Bear in mind, the stone weighed as much as the Stonehenge trilithon lintels and not far off twice the weight of the outer circle lintels!

So in both cases, it's no longer a case of "can he" but "he has"! Huge congratulations to Gordon!