Re: The bluestone debate | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Stonehenge and its Environs 134

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The bluestone debate

tonyh Nov 22, 2008 10:38:50

Replying to Moth

I expect your right.

I must be a troll. I have the nerve to ridicule a daft idea. No one else would think to do such a thing to somebody else's ideas would they.

Completely troll free zone until I arrived.

Steve proposed it as a workable idea. I disagree.

Personaly I don't see any reason to believe that they had the rope to the length and strength required. It would have been entirly handmade, not produced on a machine as in Chatham and Norway.

But putting that aside..

50 ropes leading back to the stone 5cm in diameter. What are you going to tie it off to? It would have to be a frame or seldge and whatever it is Your tie off point has to be strong enough to take the weight of the stone the sledge and the friction of the ground and there has to be enough room to tie your ropes...

The problem with 50 teams of Oxen is they will get in each others way. If they are in a straight line any sideways movement of the leading animals will cause the rope to catch those following. If you fan them out then you are adding a side pressure and lowing the forward pressure. unless you can equalize the pressure the stone will drift in the direction of the great pressure.

With them fanned out how are you going to organise steering. There are 50 farmers out there each one trying to control their pair. Logistical nightmare

Don't forget to concider how long these ropes would need to be and how long it would take to make and why on Earth any farmer would need rope that long

That brilliant picture that Nigel posted shows how you use teams of Oxen . The Romans used trains of up to twenty. and it only takes one man to control them, not 50.

But that brings us back to the same problem as the start. How do you connect the teams to the stone. If you used 5 teams of 20, the rope would need to take - what, 10 ton's of pressure? and I'm pretty certain they didn't have any of that.

On entirly practical grounds I don't believe it would work.

If thats antagonistic, then I'm a Dutchman.

Tony

The Watchman Nov 22, 2008 15:03:49

Replying to tonyh

tonyh wrote:

I expect your right.

I must be a troll.

Yes. You must be.

"Pete G:
Your not baiting the Modern Antiquariums are you?
Give em enough rope!

Tony h:
Pete..
What on earth do you think of me..

Shiny:
I'm following that thread too.

Pete G:
[added a photo of shooting fish in a barrel]

Tony h:
Sigh..
I got bored..
Miss the bloodbath of Sot..

Pete G:
Compared to Sotmesc their a bunch of Eunuchs!"

http://aveburywhs.4forum.biz/avebury-chat-f1/the-bluestone-enigma-t41-30.htm

UPDATE:
The posts on the thread have been edited to read as follows:

Pete G:
Your not engaging the Modurn Antiquariums in their fish bowl are you?
Whats the point?
If you don't play their game they will call you a troll then insult you for trying to ask questions they can't answer or dont agree with...
The bullies drove all the interesting people (especially the women) away ages ago.

Tony h:
Pete..

What on earth do you think of me..

Shiny:
I'm following that thread too.

Pete G:
[added a photo of some children's television characters]

Tony h:
Sigh..

Edit... I removed the majority of this post because it had no place here.

I could of deleted or changed it at anytime.

Pete G:
[added an image of a face with a shocked expression]

Tony h:
Well I made a relevant and practical observation about using a 100 Oxen in teams of two and connected to the stones by rope. Steve got snotty about it and then it was 'off'.

Think I might of caused some discontent.

Tony

PS..

To be honest it was not my intention to stir it up but...

---

The Watchman cannot find any supporting evidence to back up Pete G's claims of bullying. All references to the "Spur of the Moment Elite Social Club" (SotMESC) have also been removed.

Steve Gray Nov 22, 2008 16:15:08

Replying to tonyh

tonyh wrote:

ISteve proposed it as a workable idea. I disagree.

I didn't actually propose it as a workable idea. I said:

Steve Gray" wrote:

So what if 50 farmers turned up each with his own pair of oxen and a long rope? Each pair would be supervised by their owner and separated by enough space to avoid problems.

That's hardly a case of proposing a workable idea. The tone was even slightly tongue-in-cheek. I put the proposition forward because it was the opposite case of harnessing them all together as a single team. It wasn't in itself supposed to be THE answer, just a way of stimulating a sensible discussion about the use of oxen power.

But you responded with a tirade of mocking, arrogant, patronising, derrogatory heckling.

Now, finally, we do get a reasoned response from you. Why on earth couldn't you have done that in the first place and saved us all this aggro?

If you really want a proper discussion about it, I'll respond to the points you've raised, and if you present a sufficiently strong argument against some aspect of it, then we modify the idea to take into account what won't work.

Ultimately it may turn out to be unworkable, but I'd prefer to discuss it properly before ruling it out entirely. Often an original idea may be no good, but something better comes out of the discussions.