Re: Route of the Sarsens. | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

nigelswift Feb 12, 2008 18:34:21

Replying to GordonP

Hi Gordon,
I think there is a problem with attempting to compare the relative efficiencies of stonerowing and dragging, and that is the fact that in order to do so you must postulate the same small number of draggers as stonerowers. In truth though, there's a technical limit on the number of stonerowers you can use and no limit on the number of draggers. Ergo, given enough people, dragging would be far more effective than rowing and the fact the latter might be more efficient becomes of little consequence. I think your experiments tended to show that to be true.

Personally I think the dominant method was most likely to be quite an army, dragging, but using levering and stonerowing in stoney or marshy or awkward places. Unless of course they didn't have many people - in which case stonerowing might be the main choice.

GordonP Feb 12, 2008 18:57:20

Replying to nigelswift

Hi Nigel
Nice to hear from you again. Seems to me though that you fail to appriciate the problems of dragging really heavy stones on rollers.

Before our experiments it was known that stones up to 10 tons could be moved on successfully using rollers. We now know that stones weighing up to 12 tons can also be moved this way. The question is how far per day? How far could a team move such a stone before they became totally knackered? Believe me had you been part of the pulling team that day you would begin to appriciate the problem.

Furthermore when using rollers the problem increases expotentialy with the wieght of the stone. With stone-rowing it does not.

Anew Feb 19, 2008 07:48:06

Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:

there's a technical limit on the number of stonerowers you can use and no limit on the number of draggers.

There may be some flexibility here if they laid the stone down onto a 'longsledge'.