Head To Head
Log In
Register
The Modern Antiquarian Forum »
Stonehenge TV programme
Log In to post a reply

62 messages
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
Sanctuary
Sanctuary
4670 posts

Edited Sep 10, 2014, 21:11
Re: Stonehenge TV programme
Sep 10, 2014, 21:08
quote="tjj"]
tiompan wrote:
This goes some way to explain how the hasty and wishful thinking has led to the error .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29126854
“The Cursus is aligned in the East-West direction, and the pits were found one in each end, pointing to Dusk and Dawn .”
If the cursus ran due east to west then the thinking that the pits, if bisected , would provide a north south line makes some sense but the pits ,like the cursus , are not aligned due east to west . They and it are over 5 degrees off due east /west , not much , but over the distance of the 2,000 m between the pits this adds up to an error of 190 m .The error is compounded by the western pit not being on the alignment of the sunset as seen from the heel stone as claimed .


Thanks for this Tiompan, I always read your posts here but confess much of this particular discussion has gone over my head. As mentioned in my previous post I walked through the various meadows between Woodhenge and Stonehenge just the other day. I had never seen Stonehenge from those distances before and came away with a completely different perspective to the one I had before. All those thousands of visitors are being sold short to some extent - Stonehenge has to be approached from afar to gain the full impact and 'sense of place'. And that means walking to the start of the Avenue or viewing it from the 'long' Cursus. I will watch the programme and probably forget most of it soon after. I'm not an archaeologist, nor do I want to be - but I do live in Wiltshire with its two major Stone Circles, its unique Silbury and evidence of 'death/burial rituals' everywhere in the landscape. I just have an ordinary (unqualified though not uninformed) person's interest.[/quote]

I think you underestimate your knowledge June. In truth you probably know as much about SH as anyone else does because it is forever changing. Nowhere has there ever been a place so subject to continual change of ideas with no doubt much much more to come. One moment it's this, then it's that, then it's something else, that's where the public are short-changed IMO. It never ends. As I've said many times before, it's a shame the money spent on it isn't shared around more as we might find out that there are many other places just as mysterious and interesting in other parts of the country waiting to be discovered, not just this cash-cow.
Topic Outline:

The Modern Antiquarian Forum Index