Littlestone
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Edited Dec 03, 2006, 19:06
Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 03, 2006, 18:58
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Apologies if this topic has already appeared on your monitor (it was one of those topics that appeared in the Latest Forum Topics on the Home Page but not on some people's Forums page).
The article* by Simon Jenkins in last Friday's Guardian is worth a read (the word hospital by the way wasn't coined by Jenkins but by the Guardian editors). Basically, what Jenkins is saying is that (based on Professors Geoff Wainwright and Timothy Darvill's research), the bluestones were brought from Preseli because of their powers of healing. Jenkins writes that at Preseli there is a, "...plethora of springs on the hillside. Many "holy wells" have been ascribed miraculous healing powers throughout history. But Preseli's are remarkable for their number and for the dolmens, enclosures and barrows surrounding the area. More remarkable still, in front of each are bluestones, rearranged and decorated as if to create an altar and a pool. This was clearly a place of prehistoric pilgrimage, and the bluestones were thought to hold its magic."
Well, if nothing else, it's another theory for the pot. There is also, intriguingly, Layamon's poem, Brut, of 1215 describing Stonehenge -
The stones are great
And magic power they have
Men that are sick
Fare to that stone
And they wash that stone
And with that water bathe away their sickness
* http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1961517,00.html
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Pete G
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if it was there would still be a que.....
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Littlestone
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Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 03, 2006, 20:42
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Pete G wrote: if it was there would still be a que.....
That observation has already been made in comments to Simon Jenkins' article in the Guardian (scroll down in said article). Personally I'm more interested in whether there might be any validity in Jenkins' argument, or any other 'sensible' comments on it, and the ideas advanced in Wainwright and Darvill's research.
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nigelswift
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Re: Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 03, 2006, 20:52
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I saw the article and the Holy Well connection and was fully expecting Goff to come along shouting Told Yer.
To my mind there seems to be a bit of a forced linkage between the healing springs and the bluestones. Why shouldn't the stones have been revered for any other number of reasons?
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moss
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Edited Dec 04, 2006, 07:13
Re: Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 04, 2006, 06:16
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nigelswift wrote: "I saw the article and the Holy Well connection and was fully expecting Goff to come along shouting Told Yer."
Jenkins was linking several ideas together to make a clever argument, the article is written in his usual vein, half mocking, half serious - beware of silvered tongues.....
"To my mind there seems to be a bit of a forced linkage between the healing springs and the bluestones. Why shouldn't the stones have been revered for any other number of reasons?"
The whole landscape round Carn Meini is awe-inspiring, it really does have sacred writ large in its rocks, visual impact, the mountains rising like an island from the lower fields. The sea is to the west, great ridges running down embedded with stone, natural carns that look like longbarrows - water, stone and the world around would have made this a significant natural place, to take with you as they "colonised" Salisbury Plain...
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goffik
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Re: Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 04, 2006, 10:50
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nigelswift wrote: I saw the article and the Holy Well connection and was fully expecting Goff to come along shouting Told Yer.
Modesty forbids me! ;o)
Actually, I missed this - will have a butchers - sounds interesting!
G x
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Littlestone
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Re: Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 04, 2006, 17:08
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Why shouldn't the stones have been revered for any other number of reasons?
Yes, I'd agree with you there - in fact I'd go a bit further and say why shouldn't the stones have been feared for any number of reasons - they are, after all 'contained' by an outer circle and that can be interpreted in any number of ways. I may be wrong but I don't think the Stone of Scone was brought south for reasons of respect and reverence for the stone - it was done more as an act of dominance over the Stone's place of origin.
Bottom line is we don't know why the bluestones were brought to Salisbury Plain (if indeed they were brought) and I'm not sure the idea of 'healing stones' is a very sound one either (would have thought if would have made more sense to go to the place of their origin to be cured as people in their millions still do go to places like Lourdes).
Just another idea to fuel our stoney imaginations during these dark, short days :-)
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nigelswift
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Re: Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 04, 2006, 18:49
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it was done more as an act of dominance over the Stone's place of origin.
If so, no prizes for guessing which poor sods were forced to pull them! :^#
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Pete G
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Re: Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 04, 2006, 18:57
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiFq_nk8pE0
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hoodedman
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Re: Was Stonehenge a hospital?
Dec 17, 2006, 16:20
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I don't buy this theory. People may have come asking the gods to give them good health among other things but I doubt this was the primary purpose of the stones. The fact,as mentioned by the proponents of this 'hospital' idea, that the people in nearby barrows suffered ill health is fairly irrelevant. Pretty much everyone suffered some form of ill health in the neolithic/bronze age--tooth absess, arthritis,rickets, injuries and so forth.
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