Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

You could do one every few months of different places, a mag telling all we know of the place and a little build your own model of it as well, what with reading about it and actually building it, you'd teach people loads about the places, I'd love them all over my shelves.

Well Trethevy was suited to a model because it explained it all so much easier and coupled with the numbering on the stones you'll see it in a completely different light. I'm very pleased with it and hope it makes people think more and not just always take what our peers say as being gospel. It completely changes from an 'open' chamber to a 'sealed' unit and explains the fallen stone and the leaning one.
Then again, I'm not a renowned archaeo just someone who used observation instead of a trowel so won't be applauded for it even if found to be correct which one can never be 100%, but I've had a bloody good try which I'm proud of :-)
KAH next...now that IS a challenge!

But if you was applauded by them it would probably mean you was wrong anyway: > )

Really does look like it was intentionally targeted to muck the place up (ie to deter visitors).

I can’t get over just how close the bank now is to the monument (comparing your photo here and the etching by Charles Knight here). Even allowing for artistic licence in Knight’s etching the bank must have extended much further than it does now. Frankly, another spell of wet weather and it’s not too fanciful to think the whole structure might go.

Good luck with the book by the way :-)

I would be pretty certain, and say so it said Tome, that the banked area would have extended out much further to form an exclusion zone of sorts around it. This would have been a pretty 'holy' place where I doubt you could have simply strolled up to and poked around like we do today.

The present size of the bank, and its now more vertical sides, really do suggest that any slippage, or further erosion there, might result in the whole lot coming down. Two questions: on a scale of 1-10 how likely do you think a collapse might be? Based on your studies of the stones and their positions how likely do you think one or more of them might shatter in a collapse?

In a way that's the easiest question in the world to answer LS because I have history on my side. 100% Trethevy Quoit will fall ONE DAY unless supported, because the greater majority already have! How soon it falls is entirely down to the powers that be to take action and ensure that it doesn’t in the near future.
That’s the easy answer and I guess not the one you were really hoping for. I’m not a structural engineer but I do have eyes and I do have research notes which indicate to me that the quoit is on the move. Take a look at these two photos as they indicate accurately what is happening.
https://picasaweb.google.com/100525707086862773355/TrethevyOnTheMove?authkey=Gv1sRgCKXdtNO6tNLazgE#

The main supporting orthostat, the front closure stone in one photograph, is leaning out alarmingly to the east and almost replicated by the rear side flanker in the other photograph which is being pulled with it. It won’t stop!
I have to hesitate here because I am in danger myself of giving too much away as I have written about it and would prefer you to read it out of a book for obvious reasons ?

Trethevy has already partly fallen and I’m positive I have proven it. This is the worrying bit because the ‘repairs’ were really only temporary but still remain and relied heavily on the banking to the base. If it goes, so does the quoit! Look at the large boulders mixed in with the earth and heaped against the rear flanker that is leaning. Remove that and it slides out and falls.
I know exactly how it will fall because it is obvious but if we wanted to go to the trouble of totally re-instating it to its original build then we could easily do it today with the equipment at our disposal and still use Neolithic technology to keep it intact. It only got into trouble before because of a stone failure not because of faulty workmanship.
It is a magnificent example of Neolithic engineering and I am in awe of our great ancestors who understood far more than we often give them credit for. It took me nearly a year to pick up on what had never been discussed or noticed before and in doing so answered so many other unanswered questions.

And yes, some stones are certain to break, especially the recumbent stone presently lying inside the chamber. You'd need more than super-glue to put that one back together :-)