h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Stonehenge - A2523188
Author: Annie - What doesn't kill you makes you stronger - U128652

Previous Topic of the Week
Resubmission to PR.
Previous PR thread: F1790572?thread=1501476

With special thanks to Gnomon for the description of the stones

Annie/GB

Role of Stonehenge:
The latest archaeological evidence, shown recently on 'Time Team', indicates that SH was a part of a wider funerary landscape, which includes Durrington Walls and Woodhenge (see my Entry in preparation at A7379265?) and, as such, was more concened with mid-winter than the summer solstice.

>it's a metamorphic igneous rock consisting of plagioclase felspar and augite - feldspar

>to measure the magnetic frequencies at different places on the earth, (specifically sacred sites), they found - either the commas or brackets are redundant in this sentence.

>they planned to take an 8 feet tall, 3-ton Bluestone from the Preselly mountains [towards the end] - Prescelly. The Welsh for this is 'Mynydd Preseli', if you wanted to mention that.

The section about opening on Boxing Day/New Years' Day needs tinkering, as in a few days' team it will sound like it's referring to 2006/7!

Team? Time? Time Team? Freudian slip, anyone?

Ref the spelling of those Welsh mountains, I 'googled' various spelling of these some time ago for my Entry on Pembrokeshire, and by far the most common was Presceli.

Interestingly, the only spelling the Ordnance Survey seem to recognise is 'Preseli'

In fact, looking at various sites, Preseli seems the most 'official' or correct spelling. The Office of National Statistics, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, the Ordnance Survey and Welsh Assembly all use that spelling.

I presume Prescelly and all the variants are Anglicised versions of the Welsh, which is being used more and more as the 'standard' spelling - whether in English as Preseli Hills or as Mynydd Preseli in Welsh.

One point you may have missed- If the original builders had a priesthood caste and if they were using stonehenge to predict eclipses this would help the priests maintain their authority.
the Book stonehinge decoded postulates how the alignments could have been used for just such a purpose.

added

Have we decided which spelling of "Prescelly" I'm using?

Well, as in Welsh they're called Mynydd Preseli and as Ordnance Survey also use this spelling, I would plump for that. I'll change my Pembs Entry to the same spelling.

I *must* come back to this - on a (very quick) scan, it looks like a typically superb and detailed entry from you, Annie!



Hard to believe there wasn't an entry on it already.

Great entry.
The quote "You Can Do Anything You Set Your Mind To When You Have Vision, Determination, And An Endless Supply Of Cheap Labor" comes to mind.


Dancer

Thanks BigAl

@Dancer

Elentari, I only put it together, with a para of my own, everything else is other people's work from Topic of the Day a couple of years ago.

It still takes skill to combine lots of different comments like that!

OK -

"Perhaps the Wessex folk, architects of the third phase" - you mention this before you tell us that there were phases of construction, perhaps you could change it too "Perhaps the Wessex folk, architects of the third phase (see below)" or something.

Also, you say that Stonehenge is managed by English heritage, but that one needs permission from the National Trust to get inside the fence. Is that right? It seems very odd.

Lastly, under one of the building phase sections, you start with something like "Massive changes:" which seems a little abrupt to me.

That's it though!

Point 1: Done.

Point 2: "You need to be a member of the National Trust to get inside the surrounding fence" - yes that's true.

Point 3: Done.

thanks Elentari

This still reads like a whole lot of disjointed discussions of Stonehenge stuck together. It does not read like a h2g2 entry. I already gave detailed suggestions before as to how it should be structured, but you don't seem to have implemented them.

Introduction
Description of present monument
How it was built, including History discussion of the three phases
What are the present alignments?
Why was it built? What was it used for?
Other stuff
Visiting Stonehenge

Some other points:

Content:

There's no way it is 300 miles from any part of Wales to Stonehenge.

"The ancients liked their art to look like what it was supposed to be. The Cerne Abbas Giant, the Westbury White Horse, the Sheela-na-gigs of Ireland, the Nasca Lines etc., all show that the ancients liked their horses to look like horses and their giants to look like giants."
This is an extremely dubious statement. All the White Horses except the Uffington one, but including the Westbury one, were re-cut in the 19th and 20th centuries, so we have no idea what they originally looked like. The Cern Abbas giant is not believed to be particularly ancient. The only one of the chalk figures that is proveably ancient is the Uffington white horse, and it definitely does not look like what it is supposed to be. We're not even sure whether it is a horse or a dragon. The Irish SHeela na gigs were not drawn by prehistoric people but by IRish Celts under Norman rule, so they really have nothing to do with the argument, and the Nazca lines are mainly lines, so we don't know what they were intended to represent.

much more important that the ancient Celts could boast -- the Celts did not arrive in Great Britain for at least 700 years after Stonehenge was completed

"There are many speculations as to the meanings of the spirals" -- up to this point you haven't mentioned any spirals. You should explain what these spirals (which I've never heard of) are before you start talking about their symbolism.

"to attract and emit radioactive fields" -- perhaps you could provide a footnote explaining what a radioactive field is, because I've never heard of them. But then, I only studied physics for six years.

Wording, typos etc:

According to the difficult books, -- According to complicated geology books,

calender --> calendar (a few places)
glaciatic action --> glacial action

part of the year the earth's north pole points away from the sun --> half of the year the earth's north pole points away from the sun

Millenium --> Millennium

G

'They also found that granite has the capacity to attract and emit radioactive fields'.


Well, I imagine Annie means the radioactive gas, radon - but it wasn't the said people who discovered this!

Ref. 'Long been supposed that.... dragged the bluestones overland on [treetrunk] rollers' I recall that a TV reconstruction some years ago (but admittedly pertaining to sarsens - I think) was impossible. The weight of the stone crushed the roller. They (the reconstructors) eventually found that they were able to move the stone along planes of wood, rather like railway track, greased with tallow. Had the ancients done this for sarsens, they would presumably have used the same method for bluestones.

'There's no way it is 300 miles from any part of Wales to Stonehenge'. (Gnomon)

True. I live in Salisbury and frequently travel to Haverfordwest, Pembs. When I first started making this journey about 30 years ago (using the A48M) this was 200 miles to the inch. More recently, with improvements in the M4 it is more like 180 miles.

"It does not read like a h2g2 entry"

I do apologize.

I promise to work harder.