Stonehenge, Timewatch and a new Dark Age
September 28, 2008 - 4:27 pm
"The darkness drops again..."
I stand by my charitable assessment of the achievements of Professors Wainwright and Darvill inasmuch as their excavation of Stonehenge brought many fascinating discoveries to light. However, the discovery of the Roman coin and potsherd in a bluestone socket at Stonehenge wasn’t even mentioned, nor was the winter green material that indicates that Stonehenge was being actively used as late as the seventeen century. The Mesolithic finds received a scant mention at the end of the programme, and that was that.
In last night’s post, I said that I disagreed with the notion that Stonehenge was a healing centre, but this is surely the understatement of the millennium. I don’t know which is more staggering – the idea that two senior archaeologists could peddle such an astonishingly flimsy theory with straight faces, or that the BBC’s Timewatch programme could act as a vehicle to promote it. I had thought that the BBC 4 Silbury Hill documentary marked a nadir in such alleged “investigations”, but now Timewatch have set a new benchmark and I’m struggling to find words to adequate describe this pantomime.
Having given the matter a great deal of thought overnight, I simply can’t fathom how such a programme was ever commissioned in the first place, so this process shall have to remain a mystery until such time as other evidence comes to light. However, what is beyond doubt is that the BBC Timewatch programme on Stonehenge was certainly not made with the inhabitants of the British Isles in mind, because as Michael Moore remarked on an edition of Question Time broadcast from American last year “The Brits aren’t stupid and they know their history.”
I glanced briefly at the BBC forum last night, and it was clear that I wasn’t the only one in a state of disbelief at listening to arguments like “There’s more bluestone here therefore it was more valuable”, or “She had a funny round skull therefore she was a healer”, “the onsite security shot him because he was emerging from a (non-existent) wood to try to steal some bluestone so they buried him and left him surrounded by bluestone with no grave goods (apart from the wristguard, which was conveniently ignored)” and so on and so forth.
If anyone else announced that they’d discovered “Neolithic inscriptions”, then presented as evidence a few shallow depressions that the BBC couldn’t even be bothered to laser scan, enhance or portray on the screen in any way, they’d have been rightly laughed out of court. I’ve never seen or heard anything like it, so I can only assume that it was made to order for an American audience almost totally unfamiliar with Stonehenge, an audience who’ll now be convinced that Stonehenge was a “place of healing” because the BBC and the archaeological experts have told them so.
For decades, archaeologists have poured scorn on the various claims made by the pagan community with regard to Stonehenge, but now even the most ludicrous and far-fetched of these notions sounds like rock-solid common sense compared to the absolute nonsense that supposedly serious men spouted to the cameras last night. Earlier this year, I declined to join in the shrill condemnation of the BBC’s Bonekickers because 1: I enjoyed it and 2: I honestly thought it showed many senior archaeologists in an extremely flattering light and after last night’s Timewatch Special on Bluestonekickers, I rest my case. I’ll keep an eye out to see if any groups created by archaeologists spring up on Facebook announcing that “Timewatch is an embarrassment to Archaeology!” but I won’t hold my breath, because while some archaeologists are ready to sneer at what they regard as the uninformed ramblings of the Great Unwashed, they’re curiously reluctant to pipe up (in public) when a senior member of their own profession presents something that’s demonstrably wanting.
When I posted up a article on Bonekickers, I reproduced a comment I’d seen on one of the forums and it’s worth posting it again in light of the shortcomings of last night’s programme:
Dear BBC,
Thank you for recording guys in cheap knight costumes on video while they’re hopping around in nightly, yet brightly lit forests. It makes crude amateur filmmaking so much more justified: “The BBC does it – why shouldn’t we?”
Also I’d like to thank you for presenting fresh, never before seen characters – after all that’s what the BBC is known for: innovative programming. A grumpy, witty archaeologist with a hat? Never mind Indy, it’s still fascinating. The shy intern, just starting out and eager to impress? Sheer brilliance that gave dozens of hospital shows somebody to root for. The driven, handsome professional? Whee, THERE’S a new type of hero!
Dialogue. It’s overrated. Really! So thank you for lines that made me shudder – characters talking about their view on history and archaeology just to characterise themselves for the viewer, that’s something. It really is. Well.
I could go on, but here’s a suggestion: you have a brilliant little website, the “Writer’s Room”. There are dozens – hundreds! of tips for young, aspiring writers. Tips like “Don’t write cliches”, “Keep your script tight”, “Make your characters deep and likable”; “Present us something we’ve never seen before…”
- read it. Make your producers read it. Make your writers read it. Make your commissioners read it. And then again. And again. And again.
This, dear BBC, was utter crap.
The writer of this comment was referring to a drama, but the principles for quality control remain essentially the same, while perhaps the most important point here is that if the BBC’s Timewatch goes in for this kind of thing and presents it as cutting-edge stuff, then others are likely to regard it as the template for their presentations and arguments.
In the same vein, Alun Salt wrote a very good article entitled “How do you get taken seriously?” on his Archaeastronomy site; we are none of us perfect, but again, I’d suggest that whoever was behind the Silbury Hill documentary and now Timewatch should have a long, hard look at Alun’s article if there’s to be any chance of the BBC retaining its once superb reputation for factual programming. How is it that the same corporation that can make Sir David Attenborough’s “Life On Earth” series can at the same time come up with “Bluestonekickers?”
Winston Churchill famously commented upon a secret that the Druids possessed, but on the 19th of June 1940, he made what has come to be known as his “Finest Hour” speech. Bearing mind that this is 2008, that we’re currently witnessing all manner of technological and scientific marvels and that many very shrewd, very patient and very clever men and women have spent a sizeable part of their lives in a genuine attempt to understand how and why Stonehenge was built, it seems fitting to quote from Churchill’s “Finest Hour” speech with regard to Timewatch’s Darkest Hour.
“If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”
Well, it’s certain that this argument will rumble on for a long time to come, but tomorrow, by way of a complete contrast, Eternal Idol will present a real discovery from Stonehenge, a proper discovery that’s unique in every sense of the word and there’ll be plenty of crystal clear photographs of something unprecedented that you can study at your leisure.
In the meantime, the marks on the stone below are far more clearly defined than those presented as a Neolithic inscription on a bluestone in Wales – does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Stone from Winterbourne Bassett - is this a Neolithic inscription?
Words by Dennis Price. Photograph of Winterbourne Bassett stone copyright Pete Glastonbury 2008.
Stonehenge photograph by Jack Price.
11 Responses to “Stonehenge, Timewatch and a new Dark Age”
Shrewton Erratic?
Can anybody please help? I was in Shrewton yesterday and came across a great many sandstone blocks in the bases of the older buildings — some of the stones seemed to be sarsens. That would not be surprising, I suppose……
There is one very surprising block in the village — a big slab of fine-grained sandstone (I think — but it might be a sandy limestone) about 2.5m long, about 2 m wide and c 50 cm thick, with beautiful ammonite fossils in it. According to the house owner, it used to be the other way up, and used to cap a well in the village. Could it be Upper Greensand? As far as I can see from the geology map, the valley in Shrewton does not actually cut right through the chalk into the Upper Greensand — the valley is shown as a chalk valley with alluvial infill.
If there is no Upper Greensand in the vicinity, then this has to be an erratic, carried in from the W or NW.
And I think there is another erratic in Shrewton, namely a small piece of bluestone built into the strange building called the Blind House. Very different from all the other sandstones and sarsens used in the building. Much harder, fine grained and a bluish tint to it. It can be reached at the back of the building, by standing on the wall. Does anybody know it? I’d value another opinion on this one!
(Did you get a photo we could see Brian? Pete)
Dear Dennis,
Thinking further about Stonehenge = ‘Neolithic Lourdes’, I had the following thoughts.
Suppose that the statement is correct, which after all is a possibility. Suppose the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge because of their believed healing effect. Then, copies of Stonehenge are also a possibility. If it is all about bluestones, we should have found more similar stone circles including the bluestones in Britain.
But, let us turn the table around. What if Stonehenge itself was a copy? I know a far more likely place as a candidate for a neolithic Lourdes. It’s Bath. Bath has hot springs with mineral water. Such sort of water is far more effective against some diseases. E.g. people with kidney stones can find relief in hot water.
On my website, I wrote down my suspicions that Bath was a proto-English spoken place. One of the indications is that Gildas mentioned the Germanic place name ‘Badon’ (Bath) and not Aquae Sulis, nor a proto-Welsh equivalent. Maybe more important is the name of the local goddess Sule itself. I proposed that the name is identical to the modern word ‘soul’. The Romans identified Sule with Minerva, goddess of the mind, skills, craft, technology, wisdom, in one word the SOUL. Being a proto-English place and successful, there is a possibility that Stonehenge was the proto-Welsh answer to Bath. That could be the reason why those bluestones were brought over. Stonehenge was not a full copy of Bath, for the obvious reason that there are no hot springs on the spot, but Stonehenge offered a different perhaps older experience. The idea however remains: ‘old’ Stonehenge was around 2300BC embellished, first with the trilithon stones, then the sarsen ring, etcetera, as an answer to Bath.
Did we miss something at Bath? We can suppose that the hot springs date from before the Bronze Age. There should be traces of neolithic ‘building activity’ at Bath. But maybe that Bath was so successful that all those neolithic monuments were demolished in order to build more modern Roman buildings. The very success of Bath as a healing place could then explain why Stonehenge lost relatively fast its appeal. In other words, let’s face the possibility the Stonehenge still exists because the monument was eventually a failure. Compare it with the city of Bruges which has kept very much its medieval aspect, because the city lost around 1520 its economy, its function as capital of Flanders, its political importance and fell asleep. Bruges became frozen in time.
Cheers,
Michael Goormachtigh
I used to live 2 houses away from the stones in Winterbourne Bassett. Thats as much as I can comment. did that help?LOL
If anybody can bear to listen, I just came across this:
http://www.open2.net/timewatch/2008/stonehenge_extra.html
It’s a splendid example of complacency and self-congratulation. John Farren, editor of Timewatch, explores the riddle of the stones with historians Tim Darvill, Susie West and Stuart Mitchell, in the Stonehenge podcast.
It’s all very bland and fawning — the uncritical thinking and acceptance of the orthodoxy from the other historians is staggering. There’s not a hard question or bit of serious thinking anywhere in the 30 mins — and the BBC confirms that what they were really driven by was RATINGS. To hell with science (actually, they seem to think this IS science). The idea of examining the skeletons etc was a “wizard wheeze,” according to the producer, introduced to look scientific. Darvill says he was “really happy” with the film. His comments (which take up most of the programme) are full of circular reasoning — God help archaeology. The producer and his cosy colleagues appear to be blissfully naive and unaware of the ridicule being poured on them by the rest of the world…….
“…We must never underestimate the stupidity of academics….” what a wonderful quote! Read who thought of it first (I think) here at http://tredelyn.blogspot.com/2008/10/below-radar.html
I’m somewhat sceptical myself of monocausal theories, or the practice of digging to find evidence to support a theory rather than exploring to observe what’s there and let that drive assumptions about possible meanings.
When I heard about the bluestone dig, and the healing theory, it was just prior to putting a team together to address the spiritual side. I found the Professors to be enthusiastic, respectful of the spirit of the place, and genuine in their desire to unearth truth.
Then soon after, at Summer Solstice, I had the honour of leading the Celebrations at Stonehenge. One of our Druids who would normally lead had been struck down by a rare virus that saw him fighting for his life in intensive care, and whilst processing towards the stones I had a call from an Arch Druidess who reported in terrified shock that the car she was travelling to the event had overturned and her lovely daughters were trapped unconscious in the wreckage.
We entered the henge as normal, and called to the spirits formally, but the terrible events so played on my mind that I couldn’t focus at all on the formalised stuff. I remembered that if any place on earth still has magic, this must be one such place. I told the people gathered what had just happened, and asked if they would mind, if we do some real magic from stonehenge. With a great sustained IAO we focused the energy of stonehenge into a ball and sent it to crash site and hospital bed alike.
All of the people in the car crash escaped with only cuts and bruises, to the amazement and delight of everyone. The senior Druid with the virus recovered fully enough to lead Autumn equinox. At equinox a man came up to say hello to me and honestly he looked terrible. I asked him if he was well, and he replied that he had sever pnumonia but hadn’t wanted to miss stonehenge! On intuition I told him to go to the west sarcens and placing a hand on each, to ask the elementals of water to please back off a little where his lungs were concerned.
Next day I had a message from this man communicated via my grove, his pnumonia was completely cleared up!
I’m not making the case that Stonehenge was built to be purely a place of healing, but you might like to suspend complete disbelief as I now have, regarding Prof’s W & D theories until we see their fully written articals which may well join up the trail of evidence better than did the documentory.
At least they are granting the ancients the opportunity to be seen as people with a bright and civilised side.
The Riverside project, correct me if I’m wrong, has also set out to prove a theory, in this case one that see’s the function of stonehenge as a place of Death and taboo…based on a guess founded on practises in Madagascar where stone is ‘death’ and wood is ‘life’.
It must be disturbing for them to discover that little children were buried with tenderness there, along with their toys, and that the ancients so revered the mighty trees that the deviated constructs around them so as not to disturb…somewhat suggestive of a druid-like reverance for trees.
I can’t help myself from thinking that they would rather find chewed bones embedded with arrowheads which could more easily be sensationalised when interpreted.
They ignore what happens at winter solstice, the acknowledged prime alignment of Stonehenge. The sun dies, and three days later rises again, a triumph over darkness – or death. Stonehenge it would seem, might represent faith, hope, and belief in the life beyond rather than anything dark and sinister. NOT ‘Death’, but ‘Rebirth’ and the triumph of light over darkness?
I’m also reminded of the documentary ‘Ceasar and the Druids’ in which MP was featured. This program was in my opinion the very definition of bad science…
All in all I am hopeful that the spirits of our sacred land are going to reveal some wonderful truths about the people who built it and worshiped there, that will break the myth of their being primitive and dark.
Then I hope their bones will be placed back into the ground from where they were taken, and respect given as it should be.
Frank
Re “the Shrewton erratic”, Isobel Geddes has now looked at the stone and this is what she says:
“…..it is Chilmark Stone (Portland Beds, U.Jurassic), which is not
a million miles from Shrewton -12 miles actually. The big ammonites
and sandy texture are diagnostic, so I would think it is the
nearest source of big slabs of stone. Chilmark stone is quite
variable from shelly limestone to calcareous sandstone.”
How did it get from A to B? That’s difficult to prove. It could be a glacial erratic, carried from the west, or it might have been fetched by the villagers and placed over the village well as a lid. My estimate is that it weighs maybe 1-2 tonnes, and it’s more like a slab than a boulder.
Did anybody get to look at what I think is a piece of dolerite in the wall of the Blind House in Shrewton?
Did anybody see the piece in the Times the other day about the Darvill / Wainwright Timewatch programme? Apparently it hasn’t been put on the web, so I have pasted it here:
http://www.brianjohn.f2s.com/enigma10.html
together with other outrageous stuff!
[...] environment … 3. Why was CO2 5 times higher than now in the Cretaceous-Jurassic glaciation? …Eternal Idol Blog Archive Stonehenge, Timewatch and a new …The Greatest Story Never Told … it is Chilmark Stone (Portland Beds, U.Jurassic), which is not. a [...]
No mention was made of the geological make-up of the blue stones and I have it on good authority that Stonehenge was actually an electricity generating centre in conjuction with Woodhenge and was originally covered in gold.
Care to comment?
Dear Dennis,
So we can guess. I like that. Don’t take it too seriously.
Here is what I propose:
Neolithic ‘stones’ are rarely ready made by nature. In most case they have to be cut out of a quarry or ‘bedrock’. A layer of rock always has weaker spots. Layers, veins of softer consistence which can go in any direction. The art of the stone cutter is then to find those layers, to determine how they behave and to use them in order to split the rock. The relative softness of the material is not or barely visible. What the cutter does is trying out the stone by chipping a hole in the rock. This vein can look promising, but can stop abruptly at some depth. A minimum depth is needed. So, the biggest holes beneath are such trials. The colleague stone cutter would make holes roughly in an straight line to the top, also testing the quality of the rock. Eventually, the first tester concluded that the vein was not good enough. So, let’s say that first the lower hole on the left was chipped out, then the second and both were unsatisfactory. Eventually the stone cutter moved up again to the right for a third hole (not visible) and found the right spot. His ‘mate’(s) then cut holes in a horizontal line according to the expected size of the stone they were making and more or less following the weaker vein. Those holes were then cut out deeper, stuffed with very dry hardwood which was hammered in, and then the wood was watered abundantly. The wood swelled and the rock split roughly up the intended line. The operation was then repeated if necessary on the underside of the rock. Eventually, the stone is made rounder and transported to its final destination. This ’rounding’ process makes that we cannot see the useful holes.
My proposal is what we see here are technical holes.
Michael Goormachtigh