A fresh view on the oldest picture of Stonehenge

 

Merlin flanked by soldiers at the Giant’s Dance. Photo:  London, British Library MS Egerton 3028, fol. 30r. 

Dominguez, Betsy. "Merlin, Myth and Monument: The ‘Stonehenge’ Miniature in BL Egerton MS 3028." Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture 9, 4 (2025): 133-162. https://digital.kenyon.edu/ perejournal/vol9/iss4/5 

The paper explores one of the earliest visual representations of Stonehenge, arguing that such medieval images mark the monument's pivotal shift from nebulous prehistory into documented "history"—recast through Arthurian myth as a tangible emblem of British kingship and loss. Dominguez centres her analysis on a striking 14th-century ink miniature in British Library MS Egerton 3028 (fol. 30r), which depicts Merlin—portrayed as a diminutive, beardless child—flanked by soldiers amid a partial post-and-lintel structure of the "Giant's Dance". This image, set within an abridged Anglo-Norman verse adaptation of Wace's Roman de Brut (c. 1338–1340), transforms Stonehenge from an ancient enigma into a narrative prop in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, symbolising mourning for Saxon-massacred British nobles under King Aurelius Ambrosius.

The article critiques prior readings, urging fidelity to Egerton's text over Geoffrey's fuller account: the image aligns with Merlin's pragmatic counsel on stone transport, not explicit magic. Controversy lingers over the figures—Merlin lifting? Soldiers straining?—yet Dominguez links them to the child's recurring motif, enhancing the manuscript's intimate, myth-infused "pedagogy" for young nobility.