Did the Ministry of Works own a compass?

Three Stonehenge postcards on eBay today - the only ones from the Ministry of Works I can see. All of them have the wrong direction as description....

(click to enlarge)

Digging into David Field's Central Mound Theory - Updated

I reported - http://www.sarsen.org/2012/01/three-original-standing-stones-of.html - that David Field had floated the idea that there was a central mound in Stonehenge just to the south of Stones 53 and 54 that might have predated the stone circle. It lines up with the North and South Barrows, in the post I used this diagram - Stonehenge contours at 0.075m intervals - © A. Johnson 2008 - and circled the three "mounds". David thought that they may have originally held three stones.

 I reported that there was no records of any excavations in the central mound area to take this theory further but rereading Gowland's report on his excavations in 1901 I noticed he had dug a hole, marked F on the plan on the edge of the area. The hole was dug to take a supporting strut for Stone 56 as he straightened it.

The details of his excavation there are not in the online version of his report - http://www.archive.org/stream/wiltshirearchaeo33arch#page/60/mode/2up - because they are in the appendix. But in the Archaeologia printed report they are, and it reads:

Excavation F. 5 feet long, 2 feet 10 inches wide, and 3 feet 3 inches deep.
This excavation was made at the side of the south-west pier, No. 54, of the south trilithon. .
The chalk rock was reached at the south-west side of the hole, about 3 feet from the surface.
About 1 foot below the turf, and to a distance of about two feet from the monolith, the entire space was closely packed with chippings of all the stones, together with two or three large lumps of sarsen, one of which measured 1 foot 6 inches by 1 foot 2 inches by 1 foot.
All these were more or less firmly cemented together with a calcareous concretion.
Splinters and pieces of sarsen hammerstones preponderated over those of ordinary sarsen, and the latter was found in much less quantity than the “bluestones;” but besides the clippings, however, several large irregular lumps of sarsen were also dug up, as stated above. As regards the “bluestones,” there was much more porphyrite than diabase, and least “fissile rock” and argillaceous sandstone.
Seven small fragments of ancient pottery were found about 1 foot 6 inches below the surface, and a few pieces of micaceous sandstone.

David Field suggests that this hole F was into the stonehole for stone 54 rather than into the mound which seems to be correct. Cleal's plan is slightly out which is misleading.but Gowland's original plan shows the excavation was tight up to 54.

The two plans compared (not exactly to the same scale)

And from the NMR we have this photo

UPDATE - I have found a postcard which shows Gowland's excavation F as a parchmark:

Click any picture to embiggen

Seeing Stonehenge

This is a fuller copy of the letter I sent British Archaeology which was published in Issue 132  in an edited, and more readable, form. It was written before I noticed the parch marks so it was very prescient.

For they look, but they don't really see – Matthew 13:13

Frank Stevens’ guidebook to Stonehenge was first published in 1916 and continued in print until 1938. It is still admired especially for the woodcut illustrations by Heywood Sumner. The first one is this.

But there is a problem with this illustration which Stonehenge geeks may notice immediately but seems not to have been noticed when the book was in print.

There is a second mistake which is with the caption, the view is towards the north east, not the south east; a mistake I have only just noticed despite studying this picture many times over the last year.

 As a clue here is a contemporary postcard from Frith’s showing the same scene, which also has a similar captioning mistake saying it is “from the N.W” when it is from the South West:

 (A copy is  available at:  http://www.francisfrith.com/stonehenge/photos/1887_19795 )

Here is an earlier version of the picture:

The problem, if you didn’t notice it is that the tall stone, stone 56, was straightened on the 19th September 1901.

It seems that the postcard printers altered the picture rather than have a new photo taken.

Which was a shame as on the evening of the 31st December 1900, the trilithon on the left, Stones 21,22 and 122, was blown down in the course of a severe storm. So you can have stone 56 upright with 22 fallen or 56 leaning with 22 standing or for eighteen months 56 leaning and 22 fallen, but at no time in the early twentieth century were 56 and 22 both upright.

So the illustration in the official guidebook was taken from a faked photograph and not from reality.

The history of Stonehenge is full of examples of people looking at it but not really seeing it.

From the public path looking across the width of the monument the dagger carvings on Stone 53 can be seen clearly on any sunny afternoon. But it seems no one noticed them until Richard Atkinson did in July 1953. They show up in early photographs; they are in view but not seen. Once they were seen many other were spotted. When we know what to look for we can easily see it, it is much harder to see something we don’t expect to see.

In the 1960s C A “Peter” Newham and Gerald Hawkins, and others, looked for astronomical alignments at Stonehenge.  This illustration is from Hawkins’ book.

Peter Newham produced a similar one, below, which concentrates on the Station Stones and the indeterminate F, G and H holes (some authorities think they may be natural rather than man made features).

Peter hypothesised a hole G2 to make an alignment to Station Stone 92 to match the alignment from Station Stone 94 to Hole G which is to the Winter Solstice Sunrise and Summer Solstice Sunset. Gerald Hawkins thought this line was between Station Stone 93 and Hole H.

Whilst they were busy looking at the small Station Stones and on plans where missing stones and holes were they failed to see a much larger object already on this alignment towering over them.

As to whether the alignment is a real artefact or not is another argument, what is indisputable is that many people were looking for it.

The Great Trilithon at the centre of the inner sarsen horseshoe consisted of Stones 55, 56 and the lintel 156. 156 lies on the ground beside the broken 55 but Stone 56, as mentioned above, stands upright. It has, as did 55, highly worked flat sides. But these sides are not symmetrical to the horseshoe or the acknowledged Summer Solstice Sunrise – Winter Solstice Sunset alignment through the monument.  The stone is skewed about 10 degrees from this line, which puts it on the alignment that Hawkins, Newham and other were looking for. 

It might be argued that Gowland, who straightened the stone did not get it back into its original position but close examination of his records and acknowledgement of his skill and experience makes this unlikely. He stated that the original position of Stone 55 and thus the whole trilithon was in line with 56.

I believe that the skewing is significant, others may not,  but either way  millions of people have looked at it and investigators have studied it but they all failed to see it and what it might mean.

There is still a lot to be properly seen at Stonehenge.   

British Archaeology Article on the Parch Marks

British Archaeology - September/October 2013 - is out - here is the top of Page 6 - with Simon Banton. I also have a letter in the edition on page 10....

Mike Pitts writes at length about the parch marks for 17, 18, 19 and 20 I spotted and the implications for the non-completion theory of Stonehenge. (The letter is about the importance of actually looking at Stonehenge.)

Stonehenge Aerial Photo from the South West

Stonehenge Aerial Photo from the South West - 1920s - Click to enlarge

Another one from my collection - it looks as though the A344 is being metalled, note the heap of stone behind the Heel Stone. Lots of interesting marks to be seen as well.

The Underhill Archive

HMJ Underhill Archive: Introduction The archive consists of a collection of hand-painted glass (lantern) slides that depicted the "Megalithic Monuments of Great Britain," dating to 1897-1905 and attributed to H.M.J. Underhill. The slides showed the stone circles at Stonehenge, Avebury, Stanton Drew and the Rollright Stones. Miscellaneous slides depicted other prehistoric monuments: Menhir at Dartmoor and the Sarsen Stones and Wayland's Smithy on the Oxfordshire Ridgeway.

Brodgar Lozenge

Exciting news of a neolithic engraved stone discovered at the Ness of Brodgar.

"Decoration on stones from Orkney from the Neolithic period is almost entirely angular and shares a commonality with the decoration found on Grooved Ware ceramics."

Reminds me of something else as well....

The Bush Barrow Lozenge