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Stonehenge 'was hidden from lower classes'
Telegraph ^ | Sunday, August 31, 2008 | "How about that?" editor

Posted on 08/31/2008 8:04:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

Archeologists have uncovered the remains of what they believe to be a 20ft fence designed to screen Stonehenge from the view of unworthy Stone Age Britons. The wooden construction extended nearly two miles across Salisbury Plain more than 5,000 years ago, and would have served to shield the sacred site from the prying eyes of ordinary lower-class locals... The dig's co-director Dr Josh Pollard, of Bristol University, said: "The construction must have taken a lot of manpower. The palisade is an open structure which would not have been defensive and was too high to be practical for controlling livestock. It certainly wasn't for hunting herded animals and so, like everything else in this ceremonial landscape, we have to believe it must have had a religious significance. The most plausible explanation is that it was built at huge cost to the community to screen the environs of Stonehenge from view. Basically, we think it was to keep the lower classes from seeing what exactly their rulers and the priestly class were doing."

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; stonehenge
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Images: Secrets of Stonehenge unearthed
Images: Secrets of Stonehenge unearthed

1 posted on 08/31/2008 8:04:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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You need Flash player version 9 to view the Stonehenge panorama

2 posted on 08/31/2008 8:06:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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Ancient Stonehenge Houses Unearthed
Discovery Channel | 10-13-2006 | Jennifer Viegas
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Stonehenge Builders’ Houses Found
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Houses Found Buried Beneath Stonehenge Site
The Washington Post | January 30, 2007 | Marc Kaufman
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Stonehenge’s huge support settlement
BBC News | 11-05-07 | Sian Price
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Stonehenge Didn’t Stand Alone, Excavations Show
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‘Cursus’ Is Older Than Stonehenge:
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3 posted on 08/31/2008 8:10:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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Did Stonehenge start out as royal cemetery?
msnbc | May 29, 2008 | not specified
Posted on 05/29/2008 4:47:46 PM PDT by RDTF
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Stonehenge Mystery Solved. [Open]
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Stonehenge Could Have Been Resting Place For Royalty
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4 posted on 08/31/2008 8:10:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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Unearthed, The Prince Of Stonehenge
The Telegraph (UK) | 8-26-2002 | Roger Highfield
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Science - Reuters Stonehenge ‘King’ Came from Central Europe
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5 posted on 08/31/2008 8:11:22 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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-leftovers-

Skeleton Could Hold Secret To Stonehenge
Salisbury Journal | 2-5-2008
Posted on 03/05/2008 7:02:05 PM PST by blam
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5,000-Year-Old Axe Head Found On Stonehenge World Heritage Site
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High-tech lasers have been used to unlock the secrets of Stonehenge.
bbc | Thursday, 16 October, 2003
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6 posted on 08/31/2008 8:11:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
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To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

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7 posted on 08/31/2008 8:12:42 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: SunkenCiv

I was just reading the June 2008 National Geographic on Stonehenge today, gorgeous photos and great info.

So if there was a fence around it so the lower class couldn’t see it then we are priviledged indeed as we do see it.

But imagine when the men who it was built for walked among it, in whatever interesting clothes they wore...


8 posted on 08/31/2008 8:13:12 PM PDT by Beowulf9
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To: SunkenCiv

Good grief.


9 posted on 08/31/2008 8:16:09 PM PDT by BenLurkin (Palin is more qualified than Obama.)
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To: SunkenCiv

why wouldn’t a better guess than class be sacred from profane, like the court of the Gentiles, and the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple?


10 posted on 08/31/2008 8:16:58 PM PDT by gusopol3
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To: Beowulf9
I don't buy this analysis for a minute.

It says far more about the person who promulgated it than it does about the ancients.

11 posted on 08/31/2008 8:17:16 PM PDT by BenLurkin (Palin is more qualified than Obama.)
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To: SunkenCiv
GOSECK, GERMANY. Palisade Reconstructed.


12 posted on 08/31/2008 8:41:57 PM PDT by Fred Nerks (fair dinkum!)
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To: SunkenCiv

This just in: Merlin was a snob.


13 posted on 08/31/2008 8:57:51 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: SunkenCiv

Stretching it.

It could have had a ceremonial function of keeping out malign forces or keeping benevolent ones inside or even vice versa.

The wya they stretch this stuff would put a political spinmeister to shame.


14 posted on 08/31/2008 9:01:47 PM PDT by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts and guns made America great.)
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To: Beowulf9

Fortunately Spinal Tap corrected this injustice

15 posted on 08/31/2008 10:07:53 PM PDT by xp38
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To: Beowulf9

Are you saying that it was sort of like Bohemian Grove? - lol


16 posted on 09/01/2008 2:28:41 AM PDT by marsh2
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To: Verginius Rufus; SunkenCiv
Right!
I can just imagine it now. Me ancestors on me mothers side skulkin' around outside the fence. Hooting at the priests and chuckin' the occasional mead bottle, or bag, over the fence at 'em. Givin' 'em raspberrys and the finger as they file in & out.

The peasants are revolting!....heh heh heh
17 posted on 09/01/2008 3:33:46 AM PDT by Tainan (Talk is cheap. Silence is golden. All I got is brass...lotsa brass.)
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To: SunkenCiv
The most plausible explanation is that it was built at huge cost to the community to screen the environs of Stonehenge from view.

It's more plausible they needed a fence to charge admission.

18 posted on 09/01/2008 3:59:41 AM PDT by Reeses (Leftism is powered by the evil force of envy.)
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To: Tainan

See, now the fence makes sense. ;’)


19 posted on 09/01/2008 6:11:56 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: ZULU

Naturally, anything not understood is said to have a ceremonial purpose. :’( Right now this newly discovered pallisade is said to be insufficient for defense. Maybe the ancient Britons are the real inventors of baseball, and eventually preserved chunks of the wall will be discovered, buried, complete with peekholes. ;’)

Lately it’s been as if no one had ever studied the environs, perhaps because no one had. There’s a topic around here (at least one) regarding the pretty recent claim that the site was *not* used for the dead, but was a place for healing, specifically for eyes and vision. That was difficult to explain, because remains had already been found. Then, more and more remains were found, spanning a couple of thousand years. As noted, the “Amesbury Archer” had come from (I think) the Alps, in Europe proper.


20 posted on 09/01/2008 6:21:11 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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