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Roof on Stonehenge

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Andy J A
Andy J Feb 25, 2008 01:49:53
Replying to CGHW1

"I'm sure all this must have been discussed/printed? elsewhere"

Yes, this was also suggested by Geoffrey Grigson ie. in 'The Shell Country Book' p.73:

"Religious or secular, it is possible to think of Stonehenge as a very large roofed round house inside its enclosure, and of Avebury as a pair of roofed round houses with stone uprights inside a great circular ditch and a great stockade of stone posts, with an infilling between the posts which has long since disappeared" (Phoenix House, London. 1962)

but it does seem odd how this very reasonable idea hasn't received more critical attention. Huge wooden superstructures are routinely introduced into discussions about lifting large stones.

A few subsidiary points:

1) Stonehenge seems to have been built on - and with - an earlier prototype (perhaps originally in Pembrokeshire?). At any rate, some of the bluestones also have remnant mortise / tenon joints (indicating a similar lintelled construction) and, as there is so little bluestone dust at Stonehenge, it seems likely that these were fashioned - and probably assembled - elsewhere.

2) A good candidate for main roof timbers would be Scots pine (lightweight, available in straight lengths >20m, and present in the archaeological record at Stonehenge / Durrington etc.). It's unclear, however, where the nearest source for such large timbers might have been, since Scots pine disappears from the pollen record in lowland Britain around 6,000 BP (probably more through human clearance than by 'climate change', as popularly supposed). It's possible, therefore, that Stonehenge - and other sites - involved the long-distance movement of huge pieces of timber, in feats easily rivalling the transport of smaller (though much denser) megaliths.

3) Moving these quantities of stone and timber would have been much easier if people used draft-animals but, for some reason, reconstructions - like the farcical attempt to move a Pembrokeshire bluestone in 2000 - seem to only envisage manpower. There is, though, clear archaeological evidence of oxen at Stonehenge (in the vast quantity of shoulder-blades used as shovels) and many early depictions of animal-haulage in the near East, where these beasts were first domesticated - nb. also: pictures of oxen apparently hauling objects in the 'axe-plough' motif at Gavrinis / Table des Marchand, Brittany, and legendary association of oxen with haulage eg. at Llyn Fan Fach, Llyn Wyth Eidion, Gwyr-yr-Ychen-Bannog earthwork etc.

C CGHW1
CGHW1 Feb 28, 2008 18:21:30
Replying to Andy J

It seems the earliest consideration of a roof on Stonehenge was that of Inigo Jones in his book "Most Notable Antiquity of Great Britain Vulgarly Called Stone Henge on Salisbury Plain" of 1655. He seems to regard the structure as having been built by the Romans and compares Stonehenge with other roofless Roman temples. He concludes that Stonehenge was also roofless.

The next person that discusses a roof is (apparently) Stukeley. In "Stukeley's `Stonehenge': An Unpublished Manuscript 1721-1724" edited by Aubrey Burl and Neil Mortimer a short discussion regarding a roof can be found, but like Inigo Jones, Stukeley finds against a roof. There appears to be a contemporary of Stukeley called Webb who appears to have thought otherwise, but I have not found a copy of Webbs work or ideas.

In the book "StoneHenge And Other British Monuments Astonomically Considered" (1908) by Norman Lockyer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Norman_Lockyer) one can find the following quote

"There can be little doubt that the temple was originally roofed in, and that the suns first ray, suddenly shining into the darkness, formed a fundamental part of the cultus. With regard to the question of a roof, however, the above suggestion, I now find, is not new, the view being held by no less an authority than Dr. Thurnham, who apparently was led to it by the representions of the Scandinavian temples as covered and enclosed structures".

The Dr. Thurnham mentioned in the above text was in fact Dr. John Thurnam a renowned antiquarian and psychiatrist who is known in archaeological circles as the first person to describe a particular type of barrow known as a bowl barrow. Dr. Thurnam died in 1873. I have not been able to read any of his works on Stonehenge yet.

Finally, there is the work by Andre Vayson de Predanne that I mentioned in a previous posting in this thread.

As regards the idea of a roof on Avebury stone circle - I have not heard that one before. Stonehenge has a ring of lintels which make it look rather like a roundhouse (e.g. see here http://www.gallica.co.uk/celts/build.htm). Hence the idea which continually pops up regarding Stonehenge having a roof. If anyone has any more quotes please post them in. Thanks for the one from the Shell book.

Chris W