How Stonehenge was built?

[LCHIEN]

that man clearly doen't have enough to do.

So, that's how they got the rock to stand up and move a few feet. How did they get the stones from a few hundred miles away? The's no known local sources/quarries for the Stonehenge stones.

[cgallery]

that man clearly doen't have enough to do.

So, that's how they got the rock to stand up and move a few feet. How did they get the stones from a few hundred miles away? The's no known local sources/quarries for the Stonehenge stones.

Given their sizes and shapes, I thought they had been cut. Is it possible that they exhausted a small local source? Or were they not cut?

[LCHIEN]

According to the Wiki article partially excerpted below, the biggest stones came from 24 mi away, weighed 25 tons and there were at least 30 of them. They were cut with mortise and tenon joints as well as tongue and groove joints, showing a very deliberate design. Sure you can pivot a big stone and walk it on a few pebbles on top of a finished concrete surface, but not on unpaved roads and fields for 24 miles.


The next major phase of activity at the tail end of the 3rd millennium BC saw 30 enormous Oligocene-Miocene sarsen stones (shown grey on the plan) brought from a quarry around 24 miles (40 km) north of Stonehenge, on the Marlborough Downs. The stones were dressed and fashioned with mortise and tenon joints before 30 were erected as a 33 m (108 ft) diameter circle of standing stones, with a ring of 30 lintel stones resting on top. The lintels were fitted to one another using another woodworking method, the tongue and groove joint. Each standing stone was around 4.1 m (13.5 feet) high, 2.1 m (7.5 feet) wide and weighed around 25 tons. Each had clearly been worked with the final effect in mind; the orthostats widen slightly towards the top in order that their perspective remains constant as they rise up from the ground while the lintel stones curve slightly to continue the circular appearance of the earlier monument. The sides of the stones that face inwards are smoother and more finely worked than the sides that face outwards. The average thickness of these stones is 1.1 m (3.75 feet) and the average distance between them is 1 m (3.5 feet). A total of 74 stones would have been needed to complete the circle and unless some of the sarsens were removed from the site, it would seem that the ring was left incomplete. Of the lintel stones, they are each around 3.2 m long (10.5 feet), 1 m (3.5 feet) wide and 0.8 m (2.75 feet) thick. The tops of the lintels are 4.9 m (16 feet) above the ground.

[jackellis]

I agree that getting the stones from where they were quarried to where they were stood upright is no mean feat, and the method they used wasn't explained in the video I saw. Still, raising the stone and then standing it up the way it's shown would never have occurred to me. Similar mysteries likely surround construction of the great pyramids in Egypt.

Those ancient engineers likely thought up ways of doing things that would never occur to us because we have machinery they did not. It's a little bit like slide rules. How many bright young folks would even consider adding logarithms (which is what slide rules do) in order to multiply two numbers when they have computers and electronic calculators?

[LCHIEN]

actually, i saw the same technique used to raise a obelisk ala egyptions on either Nova or the Discovery channel a few years back.

[jackellis]

Don't know whether you saw this web site but it suggests the fellow has also cracked the code on how to move the stones over something more rugged than a smooth surface. http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/newpage4.

Being a not particularly mechanically adept mechanical engineer, I like the simplicity and elegance of what he's done.

[LinuxRandal]

Thanks. Website works (It's Quicktime). YouTube does not work with Firefox 2.0, Installed flash update, still doesn't work. IE7 works on YouTube. Saw the whole video. Checked Firefox website for issues with Flash. Saw none.

Running Firefox 2.0.0.8 and it works fine for me. Are you running any blocking stuff that may affect it?

According to the Wiki article partially excerpted below, the biggest stones came from 24 mi away, weighed 25 tons and there were at least 30 of them. They were cut with mortise and tenon joints as well as tongue and groove joints, showing a very deliberate design. Sure you can pivot a big stone and walk it on a few pebbles on top of a finished concrete surface, but not on unpaved roads and fields for 24 miles.

I am pretty sure it was some education channel (learning network?) that recently had a story on Easter Island. They told of how the land was found, some of its history, and the story of the walking heads. They also showed how those stones were most likely WALKED, Upright, the miles to their destination. At the quarries and on the stones themselves (the ones not upright in the ground), the evidence was there. The stones had rounded bases, and evidence of two groups of people using ropes to walk it, upright, in a ceremony to its location.


The Egyption story, was a joint venture between Discovery/Learning channel, and PBS, as I remember seeing it on PBS one day, and part of it on the other channel a few days later.

[gjat]

Did you guys not see him move the barn? I don't know if it was in that video link or another one on YouTube.

He moved his son's barn 300' (accross a muddy field) using the same technique and with no other help. You don't need smooth concrete, just a stable surface for the next pivot point.

Also, did you see the humped track for moving blocks?

The elegant efficiency of what he's doing is profound both as a engineering example, but it has meaing on societal level too. Stonehenge is in the middle of nowhere, with rolling hills and streams. It's awesome HUGE when you consider the social sophistication that was required to get a large group of people organized into a common goal to do something that has no direct 'surviving' benift. Stonehenge wasn't built at a time when population groups were large or food production was so efficient that large groups of people could easily spend time on things that did not contribute to the survival of the group.

[cgallery]

It's awesome HUGE when you consider the social sophistication that was required to get a large group of people organized into a common goal to do something that has no direct 'surviving' benift.

I find these aspects more interesting than the actual mechanics/engineering. The idea originated with someone, but why? Were they trying to build a temple? Were they trying to keep warring groups/individuals occupied by bringing them together on a giant public works project?

And I think it also tells us something about ourselves. We (the current inhabitants of the planet) often give up without trying.

[cwithboat]

[quote=LinuxRandal;329506]Running Firefox 2.0.0.8 and it works fine for me. Are you running any blocking stuff that may affect it?

FF 2.0.0.12 in safe mode, add-ins disabled, Theme is default, latest flash update, YouTube cookies deleted cache cleared, and it still does not run YouTube video.
IE7 works and the RC airplane video works fine under FF

I am just going to ignore it and hope it goes away as mysteriously as it appeared

[LinuxRandal]

I find these aspects more interesting than the actual mechanics/engineering. The idea originated with someone, but why? Were they trying to build a temple? Were they trying to keep warring groups/individuals occupied by bringing them together on a giant public works project?

And I think it also tells us something about ourselves. We (the current inhabitants of the planet) often give up without trying.

From all the stories I have seen of it, you see the equinoxes as well as other seasonal events. The most likely scenario has always been, it is both a calendar, and used for religious ceremony's (both pagen and Christian, as they both have seasonal links).
I find the humanity aspect lest interesting, but I am rarely supprised by what people can or do, do, anymore. I have seen too much good and bad.
For me, the interesting aspect is the engineering/technology behind it.
A prime example is a newer show I saw on the Parthanon (spelling?) restoration project. They went down all the different issues they were facing, and when they examined a previous, unfinished attempt, they found clues, that would have been polished off the finished one.
To me, it is like hand tools. There aren't many people from my generation, that can sharpen and use handsaws and such. There are too many skills we are loosing, while getting fatter and watching "reality" shown on a screen (tv, computer, whatever), in front of us.

[cwithboat]

There aren't many people from my generation, that can sharpen and use handsaws and such. There are too many skills we are loosing, while getting fatter and watching "reality" shown on a screen (tv, computer, whatever), in front of us.

Notes from my forebears:
15th century
There aren’t many people from my generation that can illuminate a manuscript or write an even hand. There are too many skills we are losing since that Gutenberg fellow invented the printing press, while getting fatter and reading that Galileo fantasy.
16th century
There aren’t many people from my generation that spend an adequate time in prayer and memorizing the holy books. There are too many skills we are losing, getting fatter and watching that Shakespeare fellow’s trash at the Globe Theater.
17th century
That Newton fellow should be making apple sauce.
18th century
Why replace a perfectly good King?