Posted on 02/07/2010 9:58:47 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Inevitably dubbed Stonehedge, the evidence from a new survey of the Stonehenge landscape suggests that 4,000 years ago the world's most famous prehistoric monument was surrounded by two circular hedges, planted on low concentric banks. The best guess of the archaeologists from English Heritage, who carried out the first detailed survey of the landscape of the monument since the Ordnance Survey maps of 1919, is that the hedges could have served as screens keeping even more secret from the crowd the ceremonies carried out by the elite allowed inside the stone circle...
If the early Bronze Age date is correct, when the hedges were planted the Stonehenge monument already had the formation now familiar to millions of tourists, after centuries when the small bluestones from west Wales and the gigantic sarsens from the Stonehenge plain were continually rearranged.
The survey also found puzzling evidence that there may once have been a shallow mound among the stones, inside the circle. It was flattened long ago, but is shown in some 18th century watercolours though it was written off as artistic licence by artists trying to make the site look even more picturesque. The archaeologists wonder if the circle originally incorporated a mound which could have been a natural geological feature, or an even earlier monument.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
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Amazing how things are found one when one actually looks into things. But is it just me, or has Stonehenge become a little boring in recent years? |
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“Hedgehenge” ?
Anyone able to post a photo of these 18th century watercolors?
"They werrrrre a SHHRRRUBBBERRRRY!"
Hence the puzzling inscription, “Stay out da bushes!”
So 2000 years ago somebody gussied it up for the tourist trade.
Perhaps the outer circles were the bathrooms and the inner circles where the beer was served.
Egyptian Pyramids.
LOL! Ya beat me to it! hey, are you THE Martin Fierro, the saxaphone player? Didn’t you play with Jerry Garcia years ago?
You gave my son and I a belly laugh with that one.
Cheers,
knewshound
Not to quibble, but the Great Pyramid complex was built in the historic period.
Egyptian Pyramids.
Once the people doing it are writing down what they were doing it's no longer prehistory.
That would be "No."
Good point!
I knew that FR wouldn’t let me down.
Of course the inner hedge was taller than the outer giving a nice two level effect.
It could be the monument was such an eyesore, that the locals just planted a hedge around it so they wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. :’)
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