Eternal Idol

My copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary informs me that “whittle” means to pare (wood, etc) by repeated slicing with a knife, while it can also mean “to reduce by repeated subtractions”. With this in mind, the subject of this post seems entirely appropriate, considering the presentation we’ve just seen on the BBC’s Timewatch that dealt with the reputed healing power of springs, the Archer’s apparently missing patella, his Alpine origins and the gradual destruction of the Stonehenge bluestones for the purpose of making amulets.

This subject has already been discussed in detail for months, while there’s also been a renewed controversy concerning the fashion by which the bluestones arrived on Salisbury Plain. For my part, I’ll simply say that I was completely unconvinced by what Professors Darvill and Wainwright had to say about Stonehenge being the prehistoric A & E Department of southern England. However, I would say that Stonehenge itself is a casualty of repeated plundering in centuries past, and criminal, immoral neglect in more modern times. This neglect includes the sorry state of the visitors centre, which is hardly on a par with the new Museum built at the foot of the Parthenon, but I’ve never been able to fault the never-failingly cheerful, polite and patient English Heritage staff and custodians who work at the monument, while the security staff I’ve spoken to on private visits have been equally helpful and generous-spirited.

The excavations carried out at Stonehenge in the twentieth century hardly left the archaeological profession smelling of roses, but the same could be said of the various groups who monopolise the site when access is granted. It might seem a fairly clear-cut matter one way or the other to those of us who live on this island and who have an ongoing interest in the ruins, but many of our foreign guests are appalled when they come to Stonehenge at the Summer Solstice expecting to wander serenely through some pagan idyll, only to have to steer their children past foul-mouthed drunks (as I’ve had to do before now) or pick their way through comatose bodies and discarded cider bottles. And all the while, vast sums of money have been spent on consultants and consultancies that have to date achieved precisely nothing, from what I can see.

There’s more in this vein, of course, but it seems to be that Stonehenge is the casualty, and not the “A & E department”. I saw very little indeed on Timewatch to convince me that the “prehistoric Lourdes” concept was a true reflection of any function of Stonehenge in prehistoric times, but if you’d like to read two opposing views, you can read an excellent and lengthy article by Tim Jones at Remote Central and compare it to the equally animated article by Simon Jenkins that appeared in yesterday’s Guardian. Anyone interested in the details of how the bluestones arrived at Stonehenge has only to glance at the last few posts and the comments attached to them, while Brian John has argued at length and in great detail for the glaciation theory. Finally, it seems to me that Professors Darvill and Wainwright missed a trick somewhere along the line, as shown by Pete Glastonbury’s photograph of a spring at the bottom of the Avenue, a feature that wasn’t mentioned in the Timewatch programme.

Both Tim Jones and Simon Jenkins aired the idea of curative waters, but I’m not aware of anyone ever having put this to the test. Geoffrey of Monmouth told us that some of the stones at what is now Stonehenge once possessed healing properties and he specifies that this came about after water was poured over the stones and collected into baths. This surely would not be a difficult experiment to undertake and there must be many volunteers with minor ailments who’d be happy to see if the combination of Stonehenge bluestone + water = relief; if this did prove to be the case, then English Heritage could easily afford to pay for a monumental new visitors’ centre in short order from the proceeds of the sale of bottled water from the site.

As it is, the only curative aspect of the stones that I know of came when a group of people from Fathers 4 Justice ascended the outer stone circle to make a protest in the hope of healing the pain caused by the break-up of their families.

Otherwise, Professors Darvill and Wainwright have come in for a lot of criticism from all quarters, so it’s worth having a close look at what they did and didn’t do. By their own admission, they achieved the dream of a lifetime by digging at Stonehenge itself, so I’m certainly not going to begrudge them this and I’m very happy for them as well. I’m pleased to have worked on the Stonehenge A303 Test Pit Project back in 2002, on the Cursus digs and others, while I have here a well-thumbed book in which the famous author makes great play of “having excavated at Stonehenge” and elsewhere.

Professors Darvill and Wainwright argued for a radical new interpretation of Stonehenge and they made their views clear. I most certainly don’t share their point of view, but then again, neither do I subscribe to the notion, prevalent among the higher echelons of the British and American governments, that anyone who doesn’t agree with me is a terrorist. These gentlemen made me think about an aspect of Stonehenge and for that alone, I’m grateful to them.

Professors Darvill and Wainwright also had the exceedingly good grace to participate in a latter-day Druid ceremony at the stones, so once again, I’ll give them full credit for possessing good manners. The Druid ceremony asked the spirits of the ancestors to assist in the enquiry, so from the amount of fascinating information that came to light from this excavation, it seems that paying respect to the living and the dead at Stonehenge paid off handsomely.

Professors Darvill and Wainwright dug an extremely small trench at Stonehenge and from what I’ve seen, the excavation was carried out in an exemplary fashion, in sharp contrast to many others that have gone before. I’ve seen these gentlemen criticised for publicising their excavation and the Timewatch programme, but to take this churlish attitude is to be woefully ignorant of human nature, let alone the contractual requirements in place when television programmes and books are involved in a project. If they hadn’t publicised the programme, then I wouldn’t have seen it and I’d have been a lot poorer as a result.

They also brought a great deal of information to light about Stonehenge, so much so that the matter of the late fourth century Roman coins found at the base of one bluestone wasn’t even mentioned. Their discovery of organic remains that push back the usage of the site of Stonehenge to around 7,000 BC was staggering, and it’s something that we’ll be writing at length about here, in addition to the many implications of the Roman discoveries at Stonehenge.

For my part, I couldn’t help but grin like a Cheshire Cat when the programme investigated the so-called “Body in the Ditch”, because while the experts pointed out that there were no grave goods, they neglected to mention the stone wrist guard and the many implications of this artefact, but anyone who’s interested can look at the Stonehenge Sentinel post on this site, if they wish. I was also highly amused by the repeated mention in the programme of “security” at Stonehenge in prehistoric times, because I posted up my study of the Stonehenge Sentinel on February 1^st of this year and it was reported in Der Spiegel and elsewhere long before the excavation at Stonehenge took place, and long before the programme was being made or even aired.

Why wasn’t I given a credit on Timewatch? Oh, it’s sooooooooo unfair!

Well, I’ll just have to learn to live with it, something that’s made a great deal easier by the knowledge that the idea of a Sentinel at Stonehenge came in part from the writings of ancient authors. It’s an article of faith among archaeologists that the first mention of Stonehenge in writing occurred in Henry of Huntingdon’s account written in 1130, but I’m absolutely certain that there’s much to gained from the study of accounts that predate Henry of Huntingdon’s description.

There was much else of great interest in the Timewatch programme, so much so that I’m sure it’ll keep us all busy for months, while there were other aspects that I’m sure will be explored in greater detail long after that. For this reason, I’m personally delighted for Profs Wainwright and Darvill, and I’m grateful to them for having pushed for this excavation to take place.

That’s my take on things, but I’d naturally be interested to hear the views of others.

Words by Dennis Price. Photograph of Avenue spring copyright Pete Glastonbury 2008.

Photograph of protest on top of Stonehenge courtesy of Fathers 4 Justice.

Categories: Archaeological discoveries 2008, Bluestone, Stonehenge, Stonehenge Sentinel
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