Talk:Stonehenge

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Heelstone

From Stonehenge:

"The Heel Stone once known as the Friar's Heel, a corruption of the Welsh "Freya sul" or "Freya's Seal"

Freya in Welsh?

Actually, just researched it some more - this may not be the Norse Freya after all. I'll remove the link and query the corruption. tnx. sjc Later: Ffreya is also a Celtic/druidic goddess so this looks more convincing now, particularly when set against the ever-reliable Geoffrey of Monmouth's confabulations.... sjc

Well, shame on you, sjc! G of M may not be the most reliable of sources, but he never wrote either of the two stories attributed to him in this article. Gerald Hawkins in his book, Stonehenge Decoded, discusses Geoffrey's passages that touch on Stonehenge, and expresses a bit of surpise that this admittedly less-than-reliable source does foreshadow some information that only careful research some 700 years later would corroborate.

The problem with G of M's work is that at face value he reads like a pathological liar about Wales, Cornwall and Britain in general; but when one starts comparing what he wrote with the traces of legends and folklore that predated him, one is surprised how little he fabricated. J.S.P. Tatlock, in his book Legendary History of Britain, is clearly skeptical about what G of M writes, yet finds constant proof that Geoffrey has adapted pre-existing traditions in his writings. Was he just lucky in what he invented? Or did he actually incorporate Breton and Welsh traditions of his age in his writings? Frankly, I'll confess to thinking it is the latter, but only because having read his Historia Regum Britanniae with an unprejudiced eye, it is clear where G of M fabricates, & where he is appears to repeating local traditions.

I won't belabor the fact that Geoffrey has received more skepticisim than he deserves: think of him as the Jean Auel of his age, who was not above rewriting the fruits of his research in order to either push forward his own agenda or to tell an entertaining story. -- llywrch 02:12 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)

The "Hele Stone" and "Heel Stone" names for Stone No. 96 at Stonehenge were abandoned over twenty (20) years ago by geologists, geophysicists, and archaeologists who worked the site. English Heritage literature clearly shows that "Heelstone" has been and is the accepted style and spelling among scientists. Herewith four (4) authoritative published works about Heelstone - we can Talk:Debate Sjc and Llywrch to great depth the slough of names for this infamous 'sardine stone' (my favorite), but the correct Encyclopedia name for Stone No. 96 is styled and spelled "Heelstone" by Prehistoric Society, English Heritage and British Academy authors, and Stonehenge excavators.

1. ON THE ROAD TO STONEHENGE: Report on Investigations beside the A344 in 1968, 1979 and 1980, EDITED BY T.C. CHAMPION, ASSISTED BY JOHN G. EVANS, by Michael W. Pitts, with contributions from Hilary Howard, Alister Bartlett and Andrew David, PROCEEDINGS OF THE PREHISTORIC SOCIETY, VOLUME 48, 1982, ISSN 0079-497X, "Heelstone" (Stone No. 96), "Heelstone" Ditch, Plate 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, pp. 75, 76, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 98, 101, 102, 106, 107, 108, 110, 112, 121, 122, 123, 125, 127, 128.

2. STONEHENGE in its landscape, Twentieth-century excavations, Rosamund M J Cleal, K E Walker, and R Montague, with major contributions by Michael J Allen, Alex Bayliss, C Bronk Ramsey, Linda Coleman, Julie Gardiner, P A Harding, Rupert Housley, Andrew J Lawson, Gerry McCormac, Jacqueline I McKinley, Andrew Payne, Robert G Scaife, Dale Serjeantson, and Geoff Wainwright, ENGLISH HERITAGE, 1995, ARCHAEOLOGICAL REPORT 10, ISBN 1850746052, INDEX 603, 608, Plate 7.2, "Heelstone" (Stone 96), pp. 25, 26, 166, 269, 270, 271, 272, "Heelstone" Ditch, pp. 11, 12, 25, 26, 269, 270, 271, 274-6, 275, 321, 324.

3. PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY . 92, Science and Stonehenge, Edited by, BARRY CUNLIFFE & COLIN RENFREW, Published for THE BRITISH ACADEMY, by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997, ISBN 0197261744, INDEX 351, 355, "Heelstone" (Stone 96), pp. 15, 16, 28, 79, 155, "Heelstone" ditch, pp 29, 30, 82.

4. HENGEWORLD, Mike Pitts, C, CENTURY . LONDON, 2000, ISBN 0712679545 INDEX 402, 403, Stonehenge, "Heelstone", pp. 8, 96, 135, 139, 145-50, 154, 229, 266, 275, 7, 138, 146, 230.

GENERAL ENQUIRIES: English Heritage, Customer Services Department, PO Box 569, Swindon, SN2 2YP, England, Email: Customer Services, Telephone: +44 (0) 870 333 1181, Fax: +44 (0) 1793 414926, Email National Monument Record (NMR) enquiries, Telephone: +44 (0) 1793 414600, Fax: +44 (0) 1793 414606 [1]

Garry W. Denke, Geologist/Geophysicist Garry Denke 22:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Garry Denke 05:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Archaeological site

Can we call it an "archaeological site" when no archaeologists are digging there? That is the common use of the term, I think.

Ancient stone monument?

Archaeologists, while they are not physically there, are still picking over the bones, so to speak. It is still a major subject for archaeological speculation, and is therefore, probably, still an archaeological site. We don't know for sure that it was a monument except in the loosest possible sense of the word. Ancient: yes. Stone: certainly. But my, it attracts tourists. Therefore, how about (wait for it), ancient stone tourist attraction.:-) Best leave it as an archaeological site for the moment. Some of those druidical types will be around to work their magic on the prose in the due fullness of time in any case. sjc

Guardian Online

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,992215,00.html is the guardian online not the observer. Observer was the pen name of the journalist. I have corrected this but personally strongly protest at including a piece of tat journalism from an online paper which renders an article otherwise very likely to be visited by children inappropriate. This article is nothing like as significant as stonehenge: why do we repeat headline grabbers? BozMo (talk)

Actually it is from The Observer, not Guardian Online: the observer.gaurdian.co.uk domain is for archives from the Observer sunday newspaper, the author of the article is Robin McKie (as it says on the site) --Steinsky 21:10, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Okay but it is still irresponisble rubbish which shouldn't be given credibility by inclusion here. BozMo (talk)

I agree with this point and the one below, perhaps we should move all the unsupported new-age hypotheses to a single paragraph about unsupported new-age hypotheses, and keep the rest of the article for genuine history? --Steinsky 00:38, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. Although the article is very good on the modern significance of the monument and its recent history, it really needs a section on the various phases of prehistoric activity on the site. adamsan 07:57, 9 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that would be much better.--BozMo 09:42, 11 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Nebra Skydisc

That stuff about the Nebra Skydisc is far too dodgy. As I understand it the provenance of the disc is unknown as it appeared on the international antiquities market with some backstory about it being dug up my metal detectorists on a barrow not a henge site. In fact the whole article is ill-informed from an archaeological point of view, the Ring of Brodgar is indeed an impressive stone circle but not really comparable in size or shape to Stonehenge no trilithons for a start. --adamsan 20:28, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Stanhengue

though it may also have evolved from the Franco-Gaulish word Stanhengue which has the same meaning Can anyone corroborate this? Nothing comes up on Google for Stanhengue and the linguistics look a bit dodgy to me too. adamsan 17:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Summer solstice 2005

I might suggest moving the 'summer solstice 2005' section to a new page / sub-page. I've just added it in a section for now, as people here might find it interesting - and after the NTL proxy servers have been preventing my image uploads for ~3-hours, I don't have much energy left to move things around just now. I've a few other relevant images, such as posed shots of some druids well after sun-up, but it already has an overly heavy image:text ratio. -- Solipsist 19:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fantastic pictures Solipsist. My suggestion would be instead of moving it all you could make it more general about the modern festivities and put the 2005-specific stuff on a subpage? adamsan 21:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That might work too. With a bit more research I can probably add some more detail, but there is probably a limit to how much can be said - in truth 99% of the people there just turn up because it is an event.

For example no-one I asked (including two groups of druids) knew the significant of the effigy being carried by the King's Drummers. One suggestion was that it was a phoenix like figure representing the rebirth of the sun. Although as the same group of druids were saying, for them the summer solstice is actually about masculine energy and this figure is clearly female.

Also, people are probably celebrating different things. Once I got to the centre of the henge after sun rise, there were several people holding up crystals and semi-precious stones to the sun. I didn't find what the significance of this was, but it looks like more of a new age, although some of these druids are wearing similar stones so it might be druidic too.

It will probably take the input of some editors more familiar with druid rituals to round it out. In any case, I could add a dozen more photographs illustrating other aspects of the evening. The role of English Heritage in opening access and managing the event, especially in trying to stop people climbing on the stones (compare this one to the picture that made the front page of The Guardian this morning), but it wouldn't be appropriate to swamp this page which should concentrate on the history and archeology of the stones.-- Solipsist 09:30, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I really think it should be moved, and also edited. It rather represents a current event that should be a subset of the existing article, which is more about what Stonehenge is. For instance, in an article about a mountain, you'd describe the mountain. In separate articles you might show what sorts of things happen around mountains today, but it's not the same.

In addition, the voice of the article needs help. It changes from first to third person, and then goes on to do such exciting things as invent new words. I'm inclined to actually delete it and let the author show off his photos on a private page. egthegreat 22 August 2005

New findings

Someone should probably incorporate this new information on the source of the stones, and rewrite the necessary parts of the article. --brian0918  22:44, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's already in there, another victory for wikipedia over the mainstream media! adamsan 22:51, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are you sure? The article still says the location from which the stones were quarried is unknown, whereas the news article I linked says that it is no longer a mystery. --brian0918  22:59, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OOps, I must have left a bit in! adamsan 23:10, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nope, I can't find where it says the bluestone location is unknown, Mercer's possible earlier monument yes but not the quarries. adamsan 23:13, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC) I have looked out the article and added some more stuff though so it's all good. adamsan 23:34, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Etymology

I have some serious doubts about the accuracy of the name coming from the words Stanhen gist. Can anyone actually quote a source for this? A search on the net reveals a few sites that have more or less the exact same wording as the text here, so who knows which one is the original. Stan+hengen or something of that nature seems to be a much more natural construct. My old english is very poor, I should note, but it just seems far-fetched that a germanic language, and an ancestral tongue to english, no less, should be so different from the rest. The other germanic languages could all make up a similar word with the combination of stone/sten/stein/steen and hang/hangen/hengen/hengi/hange etc so it's quite a coincidence that one of them had a completely different set of word forms (stanhen and gist) that, split differently, seem much closer to the others and mean exactly the same thing.

If you get my drift. --Bjornkri 11:05, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bjornki, I'm afraid I cant remember where I saw that etymology so it should come out. Christopher Chippendale's Stonehenge Complete quoted in Mike Pitts' Hengeworld gives the derivation as "stone, and a word that would mean in modern English either hinge or gallows" which would indeed suggest something more like stan henge. This source lists Stanenges as a name used in 1130 and these folks support your reasoning too. I will amend the etymology section until we can find a proper citation. adamsan 16:12, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Taboo: Stonehenge was reconstructed

Ignore the dodgy domain, the following URL has a discussion about an allegedly taboo topic - that the Stonehenge we see these days is almost entirely a modern reconstruction (1901 - 1964) http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicstonehenge.htm If this article is correct then maybe there should be a section in the Wikipedia article about the reconstruction of Stonehenge.

Zuytdorp Survivor 14:12, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You should find it already discussed in the article under recent history. Terms like 'taboo' are a bit over the top given that the information has always been publicly available. English Heritage's press release following the supposed journalistic smashing of the coverup is here adamsan 20:24, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, thanks :) The WP article only mentionned it in brief so I guess I didn't notice it. This may have been "big news" in England, but I'd never heard of it. Thanks for the link! 08:45, 8 October 2005 (UTC)~

Cnelus

A user has, via Wikipedia:Articles for creation/2006-01-02#Cnelus, brought to my attention that Google's only source for anything named "Cnelus" appears to be this article. Does anyone have their 1615 Inigo Jones handy to check the reference, or anything more to say about this supposed pagan god? --Dystopos 04:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a secondary source for Jones' ineterpretation somewhere and will reference it when I get home. I think he may have invented the god on the spot to fit his theory but will check. adamsan 13:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tell a lie, according to Chippendale's Stonehenge Complete it should be Coelus, Cnelus may have been a typo. I will change the textadamsan 19:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That makes more sense. By the way, the main article here on WP is under Caelus. --Dystopos 21:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doctor John F.S. Stone, British Archaeologist

Council for British Archaeology (CBA)

Excavations at Stonehenge claims that Marcus Stone (1840-1921), the British painter, rose from the dead in 1950 and was commissioned by the Society of Antiquaries, with alive Richard Atkinson and alive Stuart Piggott to carry out further excavations at Stonehenge. My comment is, did Marcus Stone (1840-1921) really rise from the dead in 1950? The fact of the matter is it was Doctor John F.S. Stone, the alive British archaeologist who was commissioned by the Society of Antiquaries in 1950, not Marcus Stone (1840-1921), the dead British painter. It was they, Richard Atkinson, Stuart Piggott, and Doctor John F.S. Stone who recovered many cremations and developed the phasing that still dominates much of what is written about Stonehenge. Herewith fellow Wikipedians a beginning list of Encyclopedia Errors caused by CBA's author Excavations at Stonehenge paragraph [2]. "In 1950 the Society of Antiquaries commissioned Richard Atkinson, Stuart Piggott and Marcus Stone to carry out further excavations. They recovered many cremations and developed the phasing that still dominates much of what is written about Stonehenge." [3].

Does anyone know how to fix this slough of 1950 Marcus Stone (1840-1921) Encyclopedia Errors in and on behalf of Doctor John F.S. Stone, British archaeologist? I ask because CBA's author who fixed the mistake and rephrased it [4] after I told CBA about it promised to fix the rest like CBA's [5] but did nothing else, in spite of my many pleas. It has been almost three years since I discovered CBA's error while at Science a GoGo. Several page advertisers such as these [6] [7] [8] have asked when this will be fixed. Thank you fellow Wikipedians for any ideas you may have. Garry W. Denke, Geologist/Geophysicist Garry Denke 09:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Garry, you are quite right and I have amended the article - eventually the correction will filter through to the sites that carry Wikipedia content. Not sure what role the CBA played in it all but I'm glad to hear you've set them straight too. adamsan 19:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Adamsan, excellent work. Garry Denke 20:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Garry Denke 05:17, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of external link

If anyone's wondering why I removed what appeared to be a legit external link, the IP that submitted it also submitted external links for a number of computer related topics. Nearly all of the links were registered to the same individual, and all of the links contained advert scripts or links. [9],[10] OhnoitsJamie^Talk 02:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If it's the aboutstonehenge.info link you're talking about I'd have to agree - at first glance it appears legit but the information it carries is of pretty low quality - like the page explaining that Stonehenge isn't actually called Stone Hedge "as many people think". The number of ads inclines me to believe it is a primarily an adfarm rather than a reliable source. I think the current selection of links covers the archaeological, tourist, astronomical and pagan aspects and that any new additions should demonstrate some real benefit to someone interested in the site. adamsan 13:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protection from vandals

Seeing as the vast majority of the numerous edits to Stonehenge over the last few months have been vandalism or its reversion, would anyone support putting the article forward for semi-protection? adamsan 21:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Adamsan--Crais459 10:50, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Association with New Age and Neo Paganism

I have removed a reference to druids using the Stonehenge for "abstruse rituals practised by white-robed wizards" as I felt this is offensive and subjective --Crais459 10:50, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The external link to Eternalidol.com

I have been in dialogue with the owner of the above site who would like to see it included in the External links section. Following a response I made to his most recent blog posting about the Stonehenge article, we have been in email contact. In order to ensure transparency and to give other editors an opportunity to comment, I post my most recent message below. I welcome any further views either from the site owner or other users with an opinion on the site's admissibility

Hello [Owner's name removed]

Thank you for your response. I'm afraid I have not got time to resubmit my message to your blog and have no record of what I wrote anyway. I would be grateful however if would edit the entry so that it no longer incorrectly suggests that the information on laser scanning has been removed.

The rules for admissibility of external linking are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Links_to_normally_avoid and I would ask you to look them over in understanding why I am resisting the inclusion of your site. Reasons 1 and 9 are the ones I feel are most applicable, namely that the theories you propound are not verifiable through academic citation and that it could appear to be self-promotion of your site.

Many editors come to Wikipedia understanding it to be a welcoming conduit for disseminating new approaches to a subject. This is partly true but one of the central tenets of the project is that in order to be considered a reliable resource, all valid submissions need to be verifiable (not true, just verifiable), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability for the full details. As editors, we rely academic orthodoxy whether it is right or wrong because our task is to reflect the mainstream, published view. As unpublished authority on Stonehenge you are, in the eyes of the wiki, on the same level of verifiability as the Celtic Mysteries of Alien King Arthur's Pyramid in Atlantis brigade. See also the guidelines on original research which I think are are relevant in this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research . I appreciate that these rules can be frustrating. For example, from my own job I have knowledge of a number of recent archaeological discoveries that deserve to be disseminated as widely as possible. Some of these disprove some of my own contributions to the wiki but I cannot post them until the archaeologists involved get around to publishing something. Until then, I cannot respond to any challenge over verifiability or original research.

Have you considered submitting a paper to a peer-reviewed journal on your theories? Publication would instantly make your ideas acceptable for inclusion in the wiki. Without the (admittedly dubious) badge of academic respectability however, the inclusion of your blog sets a precedent for allowing a whole list of independent researchers to insert their blogs and their own points of view.

I will post this message on Talk:Stonehenge as I would rather that any further dialogue takes place in public.

Best wishes adamsan 10:54, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]