Julian Cope presents Head Heritage | The Modern Antiquarian Forum

Steve Gray

931 posts

Re: Or maybe we should maximise slippage?

Aug 30, 2003, 22:18

> We now seem to be assuming the cutaway was to allow the bottom of the stone to clear the far edge of the hole as it rotated from a low launching tower. this could just as easily apply to a low launch from the other side if the setup was designed for the stone to begin its entry into the hole at less than vertical.

No, I was playing around with this idea, but your 4 ton demonstration convinced me that the stone has to enter the hole at a fairly steep angle. A shallow angle would require a very large build up of momentum to take it to the vertical, and to achieve this requires a large overhang and a correspondingly higher tower. As you pointed out to me, the load on the A-frame is considerable if the overhang is large.

> Without computors perhaps they didn't have the confidence to launch the stone towards a slopeing side but relied on the vertical side to deal with the extra momentum they had purposely built in to the system.

I really need to do some more work to determine just how much momentum the stone can have and yet still be arrested by the hole.

I think it would be useful to know more about what the excavations revealed of the angle of the slope and also how much of the hole was sloping. There are three possiblilities that seem plausible:

1. A small slope (say the top couple of feet) at a shallow angle (45 degrees or less) is what my theory predicts.

2. A steep slope (say 70 degrees or more) supports your theory.

3. A deep slope at a shallow angle suggests that they just pivoted the stones into the hole and then either hauled them to vertical with ropes and A frames, or pushed them up with props and wedges.

4. Any other configurations do not support any theory that I can think of.

In reply to:
Re: Or maybe we should maximise slippage? (GordonP)

Replies:
Re: Or maybe we should maximise slippage? (Steve Gray)

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