Re: The bluestone debate | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Stonehenge and its Environs 134

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The bluestone debate

Steve Gray Nov 19, 2008 20:20:15

Replying to tonyh

tonyh wrote:

But you had 50 teams of two oxen..

Do they stretch out in a straight line and have 50 different lengths of rope
runing back to the sledge? or are the kind of fanned out so that the are not in each others way?

Tony

It doesn't matter, the principle is the same. I would imagine practicalities might dictate a mixture of the two.

Bear in mind that I only posed this as a question, not as a fully-fledged theory.

tonyh Nov 19, 2008 20:38:32

Replying to Steve Gray

Steve Gray wrote:

tonyh wrote:

But you had 50 teams of two oxen..

Do they stretch out in a straight line and have 50 different lengths of rope
runing back to the sledge? or are the kind of fanned out so that the are not in each others way?

Tony

It doesn't matter, the principle is the same. I would imagine practicalities might dictate a mixture of the two.

Bear in mind that I only posed this as a question, not as a fully-fledged theory.

You mean it would not work..

That's OK..

So do I..

Tony

nigelswift Nov 19, 2008 21:07:38

Replying to Steve Gray

Steve Gray wrote:

It doesn't matter, the principle is the same. I would imagine practicalities might dictate a mixture of the two.

Quite. There has to be a limit to the length of a train. The American hauliers obviously found no difficulty with hitching those pairs in series but anything longer presumably starts to get unwieldy so having more than one train seems the obvious solution. And I agree, there's no question of a ripple effect.