More “twisted history” from the BBC – two Stonehenges that never were…
May 30, 2008 - 2:29 am
Yesterday, on the anniversary of the hole appearing at the top of Silbury Hill, there was a deluge of very interesting press releases concerning Stonehenge, ahead of the National Geographic’s 2 hour docu-drama on the monument. Of them all, perhaps the most interesting is this link from the New Scientist, where the evidence for the early burials at Stonehenge is presented, then Professor Timothy Darvill offers his opinion, while anyone who’s seen the recent news about Stonehenge will be aware that Professors Darvill and Wainwright are convinced that it was once a place of healing.
Curiously enough, of all the media articles I’ve seen about the dating of the cremation burials at Stonehenge, this BBC piece is the only one to include video footage mentioning the bluestones, which just so happens to come from the forthcoming Timewatch programme that’s devoted to examining the “healing stones” theory. In the aforementioned New Scientist piece, Prof Darvill is quoted as saying “It’s a good step forward to have these fully dated examples (of cremated burials) but they simply reinforce our model that after about 2500 BC, when the stones start being put up, the burials decline in number and the stones become the focus of the monument.”
Fair enough, so if the stones are indeed the focus of the monument, it’s well worth looking at the trailer for the BBC Timewatch programme, which, like the recent BBC 4 documentary on Silbury, was presumably another specialist factual commission that entailed a great deal of meticulous care in its creation.
Jumping the gun slightly, you’ll see that the BBC graphics clearly show a complete circle of sarsens and lintels, making no account for the curiously shortened Stone 11, while the voice-over’s at pains to emphasise the ‘stone circle’ aspect of Stonehenge. Now, the photograph at the top of this piece was taken when Channel 5 did a reconstruction of Stonehenge in foam and they were careful to faithfully recreate the monument. We don’t know for certain that there were wooden posts and wooden lintels at this point, but there certainly wasn’t a standard-sized upright sarsen there, of that we can be sure. This isn’t exactly breaking news, so it comes as something of a surprise to see a trailer for a BBC factual programme effectively inventing a monument that almost certainly never existed, but something even more baffling is to come and to my mind, it makes for extremely disappointing and disturbing viewing.
The photo below is from a Google map of Stonehenge and if you look closely at the top left hand corner of the photo, you’ll see some tiny white dots in the car park that mark where the Mesolithic pits were found in the 1960s, while you’ll also see that they lie northwest of Stonehenge. Are these ancient pits or postholes of any significance? Almost certainly, as you’ll see from this interview with Andrew Lawson, a former Chief Executive of Wessex Archaeology, while there’s also a contribution from Professor Geoffrey Wainwright, who’s coincidentally involved with the forthcoming BBC Timewatch documentary.
Now, is there anything of interest in the fact that these pits lie to the northwest of Stonehenge? I believe there is and I wrote about it at some length in this post, while I wrote about it at greater length in a previous incarnation of this site and I’ll certainly be writing more in light of the recent press releases concerning the presence of royalty in the early stages of Stonehenge. A picture’s worth a thousand words, though, so here once more is the rough map I drew up showing features related to the northwest at Stonehenge.
Now, back in 1999, the great historical novelist Bernard Cornwell wrote “Stonehenge, a Novel of 2000 BC”. I personally think it’s a superb effort, but regardless of your views on it, Bernard Cornwell did a great deal of research before writing it, which is clear from the content of the novel itself and also from page 577 of the book, where he mentions, among others, the English Heritage publication Stonehenge in its Landscape, Twentieth Century Excavations. Admittedly, the illustrations on the jacket and on page 559 of the novel show a complete ring of sarsen uprights, just as the BBC trailer does, but on page 389, this picture (below) by the artist Rex Nicholls appears, in which the first stone phase of Stonehenge is viewed from the south, and I’m assuming that the artist drew it after carefully studying the evidence available to him.
Rex Nicholls clearly had a flash of inspiration when he drew the bluestone uprights and lintels to the north east of this structure, because we know that some of the remaining bluestones at Stonehenge show signs of having once formed jointed portals. However, what’s most important is that the crescent of bluestones points roughly north west, which is coincidentally the direction where the Mesolithic pits lie.
To put the matter beyond any doubt, we can turn to the official English Heritage Stonehenge site, which clearly shows the picture below and which has the unambiguous caption of “Stonehenge Phase IIIa: first stone monument made of blue stones from Wales.” Again, we can see that this monument clearly points to the north west, and again, I can only assume that the artist who created this fine illustration of Stonehenge viewed from the East was following the clearest possible instructions from the English Heritage archaeologists.
With all this in mind, it comes as something of a shock to watch the BBC Timewatch trailer, where there’s no mention at all of an original crescent of bluestones, only the repeated mentions of stone circles. Stone circles convey the subtle inference of shrines, which is of course the subject matter of the Timewatch programme, so I’m assuming that a mention of what the official English Heritage Site describes as “Stonehenge Phase IIIa: first stone monument made of blue stones from Wales” is highly inconvenient, especially as it represents a crescent and not a circle.
It’s even more inconvenient if this crescent is oriented towards the northwest and towards the pits that were dug some 5,000 years beforehand, because it at least implies that the original bluestone monument on the site was positioned with the staggering memory of some 5,000 year old event in mind, while as I’ve shown on my rough map above, the northwest is the approximate direction of the setting sun on Midsummer’s Day and the approximate direction of the home of the bluestones. In any event, I can’t see anything here to do with healing, while whoever was responsible for this latest BBC trailer has chosen to ignore the shape of what’s regarded as the first bluestone monument on the site, shamelessly replacing it with a circle (below) and ramming the point home in the voiceover.
So, who’s right? The official English Heritage website, with all their extensive resources to draw upon? I’m assuming that the English Heritage illustration is accurate, because otherwise, it’s inconceivable to me that they’d be putting out misleading information for years on end for a huge global audience that are fascinated with Stonehenge. Bernard Cornwell and Rex Nicholls presumably drew upon the same body of information, and I’m not aware of anyone having faulted either their interpretation or the one by the English Heritage artist. If the Timewatch trailer is more accurate than the two aforementioned illustrations, then I can only assume that some new information about the original bluestones has come to light that I’ve not heard of, but I’d personally go with English Heritage every time.
In one minute and twenty seconds, the voice-over mentions a circle three times, an enclosure once and a ring once, while there’s another reference to some stones enclosing others. By my count, we see three rings of stones on the trailer, but amazingly enough, the familiar, defining and iconic crescent or (God forbid) horseshoe of bluestones completely fails to put in an appearance! We’re simply left with a glimpse of two complete circuits, for want of a better description, of bluestones. Which is all very odd indeed, because on page 160 of Mike Pitts’ Hengeworld, for example, figure 35 contains the crystal-clear caption “In phase 3v, the bluestones at the north-eastern arc of the oval were removed, to create a horseshoe…” which has mysteriously vanished from the new Timewatch vision of Stonehenge.
It’s bad enough that some idiot edited the trailer for a BBC documentary to make the Queen look as if she’d stormed out of a photoshoot, when nothing of the kind had happened. It’s completely baffling why the recent BBC4 specialist factual commission on Silbury Hill was so utterly devoid of interesting and original content. However, the Timewatch trailer looks to me like a cynical attempt to plug a theory in complete defiance of what’s known about the site, so when the BBC specialist factual commission department has to stoop to inventing two Stonehenges that were never there and to treat those legions of people who are genuinely interested in the monument like simpletons, it’s new, depressing and worrying low.
If I, like the makers of this Timewatch trailer, had the sheer luxury of taking 20 or stones from Stonehenge and replacing them wherever I liked, then I’m pretty sure I could ‘prove’ any theory that took my fancy. Call me old-fashioned, but it really doesn’t seem like the way forward if we’re ever to arrive at the truth about the place.
Post Scriptum: I couldn’t be bothered to mention that the BBC trailer left out 500 or 600 years of boring and completely irrelevant ‘wooden bits’ at Stonehenge before the stones turned up, because there are times when you just lose the will to live. However, if you’d like to see another trailer that recognises the anomaly of Stone 11 in the sarsen circle, which you can see in the top left of the ruins in this superb photograph by Adam Stanford, you can have a look at this clip from the National Geographic.
Words by Dennis Price. Photographs copyright Pete Glastonbury 2008.
6 Responses to “More “twisted history” from the BBC – two Stonehenges that never were…”
The problem with most documentaries is that they are hyped up as providing a final solution to a mystery but then the actual content provides nothing of the sort. It soon becomes clear that new discoveries are not so much factual but just new interpretations. For me that leaves a feeling nothing has really been resolved.
The one big negative is very little is really known for certain about Stonehenge or its surrounding landscape! The limited Archaeological evidence remains very much open to dispute and these disputes are unlikely to be resolved until there is a major modern dig at Stonehenge. Given the sites importance such a survey is unlikely to ever happen and what if it did? The most likely outcome is no smoking gun evidence will be found which would put to bed once and for all what Stonehenge was about.
In the documentaries (National Geographical and TimeWatch) I doubt if the Wilsford shaft will merit a mention. Its significance is the fact the construction of this 100 foot deep shaft could only be completed by lowering someone down it head first to hack away the chalk!
“Consideration might also be given to a role for the shaft in relation to a solar cosmological scheme given its position on the axis of the mid winter sun set as viewed from Stonehenge” http://csweb.bournemouth.ac.uk/stonehenge/pdf/section2.pdf (page7).
Another feature which very little is known about is the Palisade ditch running west and north of Stonehenge in a NE – SW direction. Also why was it necessary to dig the Scroll trench (dated 700 BC) from Stone B towards and through the Hele Stone?
I was unaware that there was a “short” stone in the sarsen circle and as you clearly show this must have been a highly significant design feature? My interpretation of the site plan puts this stone opposite the break in the ditch forming the southern entrance. What does that mean?
Although I am certain the pursuit of theory will prove entertaining it still remains conjecture. There are so many aspects of the monument and its landscape which by necessity will have to be left out because they still have to be subjected to systematic modern Archaeological survey.
In my research of Stonehenge that has been perhaps the most surprising and definitely the most disappointing aspect.
Some very interesting points Dennis. My only comment would be that although the Timewatch animation is clearly flawed, I don’t subscribe to the view that English Heritage are always right. Their audio guide to Stonehenge is not only awful, but full of mistakes, as is their guidebook (although not as many as the previous edition had). Even worse is their recently published “The ghastly book of Stonehenge” which is so littered with errors that you could probably find one on every page.
This isn’t to say I disagree with their reconstruction of the bluestone circle, only that they don’t always seem to use the wealth of knowledge they should have available to them.
Anyway, I digress. As Jon says, it’s a shame that once again Stonehenge overshadows the other monuments. The majority of the Riverside Project press releases this week seem to have been totally overlooked by the press in favour of the Stonehenge bit, and the ‘confirmation’ that it was a graveyard. Every other feature around the stones would be a fascinating piece of history in its own right if it wasn’t so close to the bigger monument!
Ah, this was something I didn’t phrase correctly, with hindsight, so the fault’s entirely mine. What I meant was the English Heritage illustration is based on a consensus of opinion from the archaeological discoveries on the site and while we can’t be 100% entirely certain what this first monument looked like, I’ve not seen anyone who’s suggested that ‘a stone CIRCLE’ was the first structure on the site, with all that this entails. The trailer’s very cleverly done, but it’s clearly geared up to getting everyone who watches it to thinking about circles, then cosy shrines, then healing places.
Actually, this is far too polite, because anyone else who flagrantly invented something that wasn’t there would be crucified and I’m just amazed that the BBC have got the gall to do this.
Otherwise, I have to admit, if it wasn’t already obvious, that I’m nigh on obsessed with Stonehenge and I can’t read enough about it. You’re right though, because the other monuments are also truly fascinating and would merit a genre in their own right if they weren’t sitting so close to the most mesmerising monument on Earth.
Thanks for writing in and thanks also to John for his detailed contribution, because all these comments give us all food for thought, and if we weren’t thinking, critical creatures, we’d be making trailers for Timewatch.
Another fascinating and thought-provoking article, Dennis. You’re rightly aggrieved that the BBC has taken liberties with a reconstruction of the earliest stone stage of Stonehenge. Without trying to excuse the BBC, I think I can understand why, though you probably won’t sympathize!
I start from the point that Stonehenge is a very complicated monument, and its evolution over a thousand years is even more complicated. (You only have to consider the phases and numbering scheme – after many years, I still have to think hard to recall exactly how it goes.) So, in the context of making a documentary for a lay audience, why would you choose to over-elaborate your description of a poorly understood bluestone phase, that has completely disappeared?
I said “poorly understood”, and I base that on Mike Pitts’ (Hengeworld) comments: “… there is no direct dating evidence” and “the most that can be justifiably imagined is a slightly rectangular arrangement open to the south-west.” Aubrey Burl uses a very similar diagram (based on one in Ros Cleal’s ultimate reference) and says very similar things because, as he says, the evidence of the holes is “so fragmentary.” But both these authors would have the axis of the early bluestone arrangements north-east to south-west. Which makes the English Heritage (north-west) reconstruction rather odd, because wouldn’t their archaeologists have used the authoritative Cleal’s data?
So for me, I’m not sure that the north-west opening in a crescent is “beyond doubt”, as you claim above. In fact, it’s not completely certain that there weren’t complete circles there, though Pitts’ and Burl’s comments show that it’s very unlikely. However, the best estimate I can find for the number of bluestones at Stonehenge (given that most of them have been vandalized or removed) is between 60 and 70. That’s a lot of stones, and about four times as many as are apparent in the Q/R holes. Interestingly, the Timewatch reconstruction of the first stage has around 70 stones!
I find many of your arguments for the significance of the north-west direction persuasive, but I’m not sure that the Q/R holes add convincingly to the weight of evidence. And maybe that’s why the transitory early bluestone stage didn’t make it into the Timewatch story as a crescent. When respected archaeologists can’t be sure what the shape was, or its orientation, then a circular interpretation that aligns nicely with the rest of the story is one that will be more easily absorbed by a lay audience. So I think I can understand the rationale of the programme-makers, even if it disappoints me. (I’ve found that even well-educated and knowledgeable people have very little idea of dates and sequence. An historian I know could merely say, misleadingly, that Stonehenge was “Bronze Age”.)
I’m looking forward to seeing the Timewatch program, warts and all, but I’m frustrated that I won’t be able to see the National Geographic reconstruction which, based on their website, looks like an epic production. If anyone knows how to catch up with a more accessible replay or recording later, please post the information here!
Hi Alex,
I’m pleased to see that you think some of my arguments for the north-west are persuasive, while I’m sure there’s still far more to this matter, especially the significance of Midsummer’s Sunset to anyone taking part in a ceremony within the monument, and there’s also the business of the palisade to the northwest. However, I’m happy to leave this all by the wayside for now.
The official English Heritage website shows a north-west oriented crescent and I’m assuming that it’s the most likely scenario for what they call the first bluestone monument on the site. I agree with everything you’ve said and I wouldn’t personally bet my shirt that this is an exact snapshot of the past. However, bearing in mind the fact that there’s some undoubted significance to the northwest at Stonehenge, whatever it may have been, I’d say that on balance, the English Heritage illustration is more likely to be accurate than not.
I just don’t agree with this lay audience argument, though. Not long ago, I was watching ITV’s Lewis series on Sunday evenings and there were fantastically involved plots involving classical references and all sorts for what was presumably a lay audience, not a specialist one. Then I’d point to the regular science documentaries that the BBC presents, on subjects like astronomy, physics, possible time travel, genetics and all sorts, all of which present a degree of detail that sometimes leave me baffled, not that I’m complaining.
I’m just not aware of any archaeologist stating with any degree of conviction that the first stone monument on the site was a circle, and that’s that, really. I don’t see why a lay audience should fail to comprehend that it’s difficult to make sense of the first stone stages and I think it’s on a par with the ’45 minute warning’ to flatly state that there was a circle there, especially if it happens to fit so cosily with some forthcoming idea about a shrine. It’s just not good enough.
I barely mentioned it, but while the surviving evidence for timber structures at Stonehenge is confused and incomplete, there’s no doubt that there was a corridor entering the monument from the south, in the same place (roughly) as Stone 11 and opposite the southern entrance where the ox skulls were buried. I’m bloody sure that a lay audience could understand all this instantly, while I’m also sure that they could understand that if you enter from the south, you’re heading north, the direction in which many prehistoric burials were oriented, which further suggests something to do with death, not healing.
I’ve posted a lot of material on this site and I’m very happy for it to be in the public domain. I’m even happier if someone can point out where I’ve gone wrong, even on the smallest point, and long may this remain so. As I wrote, it may seem insignificant and there may be some doubt about the precise shape of the original structure, but that simply doesn’t excuse making one up without any accompanying explanation, because if anyone else with an interest in or theory about the monument did the same thing, they’d be crucified. Ask the Druids!
Care to comment?
The media will never let the truth stand in the way of a good story… I just don’t understand why such an important and intriguing stage of the development of the site has been omitted. Whether intentional or not, they’re obfuscating the truth by leaving out vital stages. Frustrating!