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Re: Line of sight calculator
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Littlestone wrote:
I don't believe the banks of henges were built to accomodate specators . It could work at at some of the medium sized henges but if there was anything to be seen at Avebury they would have needed giant screens to relay it as it's 200 m from bank to the centre , Marden and Durrington are even bigger . At smaller henges some are 5-7 m in diameter there would only be room for immediate family .


That only holds true at Avebury if you assume the ‘activity’ took place at the centre of the Henge. We don’t know that was the case, in fact the Obelisk and the Cove are not at the centre of the Henge but closer to the Banks of their respective quadrants. As such each may have offered different ceremonial/spectator venues at different times (perhaps in sync with the seasons?).

Anyone who’s been at Avebury at summer solstice will know that the ‘activity’ takes place in the south-east quadrant. Dancers, drummers, fire-eaters, jugglers etc perform close to the Obelisk, while loads of spectators sit and enjoy the performance from the south-east Bank – as such the Bank in that quadrant is most definity suited to a spectator event, while the other three quadrants at this time are practically deserted. It’s not hard to imagine something similar happening in Neolithic times :-)


You would hope that the then much deeper ditch (house-height deep) filled with jagged chalk would have kept crowd trouble to a minimum - who would want to fall - or be pushed - into that?


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thesweetcheat
Posted by thesweetcheat
13th December 2010ce
18:58

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Re: Line of sight calculator (Littlestone)

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Re: Line of sight calculator (Sanctuary)

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