Stonehenge Daggers Fading Away?

Archive film on a TV programme last night  had a close up of the famous Daggers on Stone 53 at Stonehenge.

Several people noticed that they looked a lot sharper than they now do:

 (photos: Bob Kenchington)

How much they have worn with the attentions of tourists rubbing the outline with their fingers has been much debated - Mike Pitts has an interesting blog post on this:

https://mikepitts.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/is-this-a-dagger-which-i-see-before-me/

I wonder what happened to the latex cast of them that was made by Atkinson in 1956 and if it could be compared to the laser scan of the stone.

Stonehenge Tunnel and Bypass Routes 2005

From: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/stonehenge-whs-research-framework/stonehenge-research-framework.pdf 

Click to enlarge

Here is the entrance to the Hindhead Tunnel overlain on the A303 to show the scale of what a tunnel entrance would be.

Are the Stonehenge Bluestones warmer than the Sarsen Stones?

No.

Sarsen and Bluestone at the New Visitor Centre near Stonehenge - Bluestone on right of photo and identical shot with a thermal camera showing temperature. Click to enlarge.


The zeroth law of thermodynamics states that they will be in equilibrium in a stable environment, but they have different thermal conductivity and capacity which means they will reach equilibrium with the air temperature at different rates and will feel a different temperature to the touch; just as wood and steel at the same temperature do.

Investigating the warm springs of Silbury Hill with a thermal camera

Inspired by Steve Marshall's work on the springs at Silbury Hill and the Avebury region  http://www.stevemarshall.org.uk/docs/Silbury Springs v2.pdf I took my FLIR C2 thermal imaging camera there this morning. The springs are "warm" in that they stay above freezing even on a day such as today where it was -4C at dawn.

The water table is not very high yet but the patches of fresh water were unfrozen whereas water that had been standing all night was frozen.

The temperature scale is to the right, the lighter the colour the warmer it is. Click to enlarge.


Of more interest was investigating if this technique could find individual springs. Below are the thermal and normal picture of part of the bank under the A4. It shows a spring glowing white, on checking water was issuing from the ground there. Without the camera I would not have noticed this spring which shows that this technique has promise and would be worth investigating further.
It does need to be done before the sun has warmed the ground and probably it needs to be a cold day as well.

I couldn't find any springs at the base of Silbury Hill itself by camera or inspection, probably the water table isn't high enough for them.

Ditched Enclosures in Neolithic Europe

Excellent website from the University of Southampton "aimed at the general public and archaeology students. The approach chosen, the language used and the aspects stressed are intended as an exercise in communication with the non-initiated, not with the specialist. "

http://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/ditchedenclosures/

How wide was the Solstice gap in the Great Trilithon?

Click to enlarge: 

Playing around with various reconstructions I think about 18 inches or 50cm, or maybe a bit less.

It would have looked like quite a narrow slot to observe the sun through.

The picture is a scaled composite of the Laser Scan of Stone 56, My reconstruction of 55 taken from Cleal et al and the two parts rejoined together and the excavation  diagram of Gowland showing the  packing stones of 55 and the position of 56.

UPDATE - More from E H Stone in an earlier post - http://www.sarsen.org/2013/03/great-trilithon-from-stones-of.html

Craig Rhos-y-felin, near Pont Saeson Panoramic Photo

Taken April 2014 - click to enlarge.