Us and Them
September 25, 2008 - 12:17 am
"Inscription" at Stonehenge barrow sensation!
There are those who have dug at Stonehenge, and those who have not.
There are those who can get to Stonehenge to watch the excavations, and those who can’t.
There are those with preconceived notions of the place, and there are those who are prepared to consider every last tiny scrap of information that comes to light about the ruins.
There are those who are interested in learning, and there are those who truly believe that nitpicking and wilful misinterpretation of the findings of others constitutes a worthwhile use of their time and impresses the rest of us.
There are those who think that Stonehenge was a place of the dead, and those who disagree.
There are those who think that Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory of sorts, and those who can not see it.
There are those who think that Stonehenge was a prehistoric Lourdes and there are others who think this is a fairy story.
Some people think that it’s worth looking into ancient stories and myths, while others flatly deny that there was any written reference to Stonehenge before 1130.
There are those who revere the ruins and those who wish to exploit them to their own ends.
There are those who firmly believe that they in some sense ‘own’ Stonehenge, and there are those who consider the monument to be a Wonder of the World, to be shared and admired by all.
Some people believe every last word of what Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote, while others dismiss him as a fantasist.
There are those who wish to keep their knowledge about Stonehenge a secret, whereas others put anything and everything they can into the public domain.
There are some people who know what they’re talking about and others who don’t.
There are those who believe that the ancient British Druids were connected with Stonehenge, and there are others who dismiss this idea out of hand.
Some people think that the builders of Stonehenge were unsurpassed visionary geniuses, while others dismiss them as “practically savages – howling barbarians”.
Some think that their view of Stonehenge is the only admissible opinion, whereas others welcome any and all thoughts on the monument.
Some people try to get a glimpse into the minds and motivations of the builders, while others think purely in terms of “monumentality in the Late Neolithic” and so forth.
Some think that the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge by the actions of a glacier, whereas others subscribe to the human transportation theory.
Some people are prepared to argue their case and present it in detail in public, whereas some tolerate no dissent or questions.
Some maintain that the sarsens came from the Marlborough Downs, but others wonder where all the holes, gougemarks and chippings are in that area.
There are those who suspect that the Anglo-Saxon poem “The Ruin” was written with Stonehenge in mind, whereas others favour Bath as the inspiration.
Many people think that Stonehenge ‘fell into disuse’ in about 1,600 BC, but some others maintain that it’s never been out of use.
Some subscribe to the idea that Pytheas of Massilia described Stonehenge and Vespasian’s Camp in his account of his journey to Britain in 350 BC, whereas others who couldn’t be bothered to look into the matter in the first place maintain that this can’t possibly be the case.
There are those who are convinced that a memory of certain prehistoric rituals and ceremonies at Stonehenge survived into later ages as elements of myths, and there are those who believe that this is wishful thinking.
Some people are deeply uncomfortable about the exhumation of human remains from Stonehenge, whereas others see no cause for concern.
Some would like to see at least a part of these remains reburied, whereas others dismiss the idea out of hand.
Some would like to see Stonehenge open for access all the year around, whereas others would like the opportunity to admire it and learn from it before it’s dug up, smashed up, defaced and robbed all over again in short order.
There are those who keep their thoughts private and others who announce their views on Stonehenge from the rooftops.
There are those who make their case in a reasoned fashion and there are those who are more strident.
There are some who happily think out loud and there are some that ‘appropriate’ the findings of others, passing them off as their own at some later date.
Some are prepared to listen and learn, whereas some are completely intolerant of the ideas, views and concerns of others.
Some subscribe to the idea that a Sentinel of sorts kept watch at Stonehenge through the ages, whereas others think it was a more inclusive monument.
Some see the remains of the dead around Stonehenge as proof that people came there to be healed, whereas others think that most people have something fairly seriously wrong with them anyway when they die.
Some see an increasingly large array of striking features roughly to the northwest of Stonehenge, while some pretend it isn’t happening or don’t bother looking.
There are those who view the springheads in the Preseli Mountains as revered constructions by humans, whereas others are convinced that they’re naturally occurring features.
And at the heart of all this is our intense curiosity about how Stonehenge was built, why it was built and what took place there….
“And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?”
All the words that matter by the sadly-missed Rick Wright.
7 Responses to “Us and Them”
Can you detail what/where is the excavation in the leading photo to the article?
John,
Mike PP is standing in the excavated ditch of the long barrow at the east end of the Cursus.
Many Thanks.
Rgds
John
Ah, my apologies for not pointing all this out, as it slipped my mind.
If there was a seasonal attendance of the masses at Stonehenge (and evidence from Durrington and the need for a palisade indicates large crowds) how did the populace know when to attend and how to get there?
Clearly there had to be indicators locally of when to start the journey and then how was it mapped?
Perhaps the answer to the first question about when was the alignment (or near alignment) of the sun to a feature on the horizon when viewed from a certain point?
Then the thought of ley lines came back to mind. No doubt (?) a product of coincidence and an archaeological blasphemy there is nevertheless evidence of straight lines at Stonehenge (Winterbourne Crossroads and the Cursus).
Many years ago a study I undertook suggested “leys” from the North West, West and South West appeared to end at Stonehenge (i.e. there were no significant “markers” found after Stonehenge). Rightly or wrongly I concluded that they were “track ways” and the “straightness” was part of the ritual in that it replicated the reflection of the sun when viewed across water at sunset. The ley represented the reflection and Stonehenge the Sun.
I certainly do not intend to start a debate on leys as that is, excuse the pun, old ground and will comment no further. But, there was clearly a “need” to travel to the ceremonial centres and ask would something as important as that be left to chance or would it have been organised in some way?
When it comes to Stonehenge, I would never dismiss anything out of hand, so leys aren’t off limits by any means. However, no one seems to be entirely sure of what they are or if indeed they exist, so this is something of a problem.
Whether the masses attended ceremonies at Stonehenge, or if these rituals were more often undertaken by a very few individuals, I’m sure that timing would have been important, so this is an interesting idea. The arrangement that interests me the most is the collection of features to the northwest of Stonehenge, because it seems that there was something going on there as far back as the Mesolithic period. Then there’s perhaps the more obvious gauges of time at Stonehenge itself, which could have been marked by all manner of alignments between stones, gaps and celestial bodies, but I don’t doubt there were others.
The business of the tree in the Avenue at the approach to Stonehenge particularly interested me, because it raised the definite possibility that the rising sun on Midsummer’s Day wasn’t visible from within the monument, so perhaps these lines of sight were a great deal more involved than we might suppose. I can’t really contribute more, but your idea is certainly something that I’ll bear in mind, because you never know when something might just make itself known.
Care to comment?
“oh by the way, which one’s pink?”
http://www.peteglastonbury.plus.com/Photos/Stonehenge/Stonehenge2005.html