Stonehenge forum 180 room
Image by pebblesfromheaven
Stonehenge

Amesbury Archer — How Art Made the World BBC2 Mon

close
more_vert
Moth M
Moth May 25, 2005 15:18:50
Replying to Littlestone

I've quite enjoyed the programme, but not sure of its 'value' in terms of good solid education.

As you guys say, it's certainly made some spectacular leaps without any evidence or any real evidence - this just being the latest. This and its habit of only telling 'half a story' both in terms of stuff like not mentioning earlier phases of Stonehenge, and in terms of not fully explaining some bits make it hugely frustrating.

And I do wish people wouldn't insist on presenting theory as fact!!!!! (It's the only thing I don't like about some bits of Julian's megalithic books, too!) There's nowt wrong with sticking a 'probably' or a 'may have' in here & there - it doesn't harm credibility to peeps that don't know much about the subject and GAINS it with peeps that know a bit!!!!

love

Moth

P PeterH
PeterH May 25, 2005 16:30:04
Replying to Moth

Yes - it was very disappointing compared with the first two programmes, but then he is an art historian and not an archaeologist. I was put off by all the Nurenburg rally stuff featuring GW and then we jump to the Ambresbury archer and suddenly Stonehenge is a presidential podium! Daft to suggest that any single leader built Stonehenge - impossible to do in any single lifetime. Then there was the assertion that he was the first leader to suss out that you needed to wear gold braid to impress the plebs. And the certainty that the plebs all wore animal skins - that isn't true of Bronze Age people is it? Got fed up with it and when he started on about Alexander the Great and switched off.

L Littlestone
Littlestone May 25, 2005 16:58:34
Replying to Moth

>As you guys say, it's certainly made some spectacular leaps without any evidence or any real evidence - this just being the latest. This and its habit of only telling 'half a story' both in terms of stuff like not mentioning earlier phases of Stonehenge, and in terms of not fully explaining some bits make it hugely frustrating.<

Well said Moth. Another slightly irritating statement he (Spivey) made was that the Amesbury Archer crossed the Channel in a dug-out canoe or coracle. My maritime knowledge is practically zero but I would have thought that someone as important and as gold-bedecked as our archer (even four and a half thousand years ago) would have had something slightly more impressive than a dug-out canoe!