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Trevethy Quoit
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Horsedrawn
55 posts

Re: Trevethy Quoit
Apr 22, 2011, 09:44
What a good idea! To make a model of the quoit, a 3 dimensional model, has long been on my back burner. It is thrilling that someone else is doing this. I very much look forward to seeing the results. Any competent modelmaker can make an accurate scale model but they want lots of money to do it.
There is much discussion of the construction of the monument, but it seems to focus on how the thing was put up, not why it stays up.
It is poised, chocked up, upon the bedrock in perfect equilibrium. A just stiff frame supports the capstone, which rests on 4 tiny points of contact, and its weight is carried to the ground where it alights, as a bird. This structural integrity has enabled it to stand for so long, even surviving the pushing in of Stone 7. Quite apart from any astronomical considerations, and regardless of any possible sequence of construction, this is a staggering feat of engineering, deserving of a place in the history of Architecture; the art of building. We are forced to ask the question; is this a building? If so then form follows function. The sophistication of the structural theory behind allied to the sophistication of astronomical usage built into it lead me to the understanding that this was not built by witless savages as a tomb. Tomb it may well have been. Buried it may well have been, doubtless ploughed and ravaged, but it was built as an instrument for purposes of astronomy, and it still works.
A scale model, the larger the better, would be invaluable to us all.

David Kane.
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Re: Trevethy Quoit (Sanctuary)
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