Talk:Stonehenge
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From Stonehenge:
"The Heel Stone once known as the Friar's Heel, a corruption of the Welsh "Freya sul" or Freya's Seal"
Freya in Welsh?
Actually, just researched it some more - this may not be the Norse Freya after all. I'll remove the link and query the corruption. tnx. sjc Later: Ffreya is also a Celtic/druidic goddess so this looks more convincing now, particularly when set against the ever-reliable Geoffrey of Monmouth's confabulations.... sjc
- Well, shame on you, sjc! G of M may not be the most reliable of sources, but he never wrote either of the two stories attributed to him in this article. Gerald Hawkins in his book, Stonehenge Decoded, discusses Geoffrey's passages that touch on Stonehenge, and expresses a bit of surpise that this admittedly less-than-reliable source does foreshadow some information that only careful research some 700 years later would corroborate.
- The problem with G of M's work is that at face value he reads like a pathological liar about Wales, Cornwall and Britain in general; but when one starts comparing what he wrote with the traces of legends and folklore that predated him, one is surprised how little he fabricated. J.S.P. Tatlock, in his book Legendary History of Britain, is clearly skeptical about what G of M writes, yet finds constant proof that Geoffrey has adapted pre-existing traditions in his writings. Was he just lucky in what he invented? Or did he actually incorporate Breton and Welsh traditions of his age in his writings? Frankly, I'll confess to thinking it is the latter, but only because having read his Historia Regum Britanniae with an unprejudiced eye, it is clear where G of M fabricates, & where he is appears to repeating local traditions.
- I won't belabor the fact that Geoffrey has received more skepticisim than he deserves: think of him as the Jean Auel of his age, who was not above rewriting the fruits of his research in order to either push forward his own agenda or to tell an entertaining story. -- llywrch 02:12 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)
Can we call it an "archaeological site" when no archaeologists are digging there? That is the common use of the term, I think.
Ancient stone monument?
Archaeologists, while they are not physically there, are still picking over the bones, so to speak. It is still a major subject for archaeological speculation, and is therefore, probably, still an archaeological site. We don't know for sure that it was a monument except in the loosest possible sense of the word. Ancient: yes. Stone: certainly. But my, it attracts tourists. Therefore, how about (wait for it), ancient stone tourist attraction.:-) Best leave it as an archaeological site for the moment. Some of those druidical types will be around to work their magic on the prose in the due fullness of time in any case. sjc
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,992215,00.html is the guardian online not the observer. Observer was the pen name of the journalist. I have corrected this but personally strongly protest at including a piece of tat journalism from an online paper which renders an article otherwise very likely to be visited by children inappropriate. This article is nothing like as significant as stonehenge: why do we repeat headline grabbers? BozMo(talk)
- Actually it is from The Observer, not Guardian Online: the observer.gaurdian.co.uk domain is for archives from the Observer sunday newspaper, the author of the article is Robin McKie (as it says on the site) --Steinsky 21:10, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with this point and the one below, perhaps we should move all the unsupported new-age hypotheses to a single paragraph about unsupported new-age hypotheses, and keep the rest of the article for genuine history? --Steinsky 00:38, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me. Although the article is very good on the modern significance of the monument and its recent history, it really needs a section on the various phases of prehistoric activity on the site. adamsan 07:57, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
- Agree that would be much better.--BozMo 09:42, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me. Although the article is very good on the modern significance of the monument and its recent history, it really needs a section on the various phases of prehistoric activity on the site. adamsan 07:57, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
That stuff about the Nebra Skydisc is far too dodgy. As I understand it the provenance of the disc is unknown as it appeared on the international antiquities market with some backstory about it being dug up my metal detectorists on a barrow not a henge site. In fact the whole article is ill-informed from an archaeological point of view, the Ring of Brodgar is indeed an impressive stone circle but not really comparable in size or shape to Stonehenge no trilithons for a start. --adamsan 20:28, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
Stanhengue
though it may also have evolved from the Franco-Gaulish word Stanhengue which has the same meaning Can anyone corroborate this? Nothing comes up on Google for Stanhengue and the linguistics look a bit dodgy to me too. adamsan 17:47, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Summer solstice 2005
I might suggest moving the 'summer solstice 2005' section to a new page / sub-page. I've just added it in a section for now, as people here might find it interesting - and after the NTL proxy servers have been preventing my image uploads for ~3-hours, I don't have much energy left to move things around just now. I've a few other relevant images, such as posed shots of some druids well after sun-up, but it already has an overly heavy image:text ratio. -- Solipsist 19:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Fantastic pictures Solipsist. My suggestion would be instead of moving it all you could make it more general about the modern festivities and put the 2005-specific stuff on a subpage? adamsan 21:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- That might work too. With a bit more research I can probably add some more detail, but there is probably a limit to how much can be said - in truth 99% of the people there just turn up because it is an event.
- For example no-one I asked (including two groups of druids) knew the significant of the effigy being carried by the King's Drummers. One suggestion was that it was a phoenix like figure representing the rebirth of the sun. Although as the same group of druids were saying, for them the summer solstice is actually about masculine energy and this figure is clearly female.
- Also, people are probably celebrating different things. Once I got to the centre of the henge after sun rise, there were several people holding up crystals and semi-precious stones to the sun. I didn't find what the significance of this was, but it looks like more of a new age, although some of these druids are wearing similar stones so it might be druidic too.
- It will probably take the input of some editors more familiar with druid rituals to round it out. In any case, I could add a dozen more photographs illustrating other aspects of the evening. The role of English Heritage in opening access and managing the event, especially in trying to stop people climbing on the stones (compare this one to the picture that made the front page of The Guardian (http://digital.guardian.co.uk/) this morning), but it wouldn't be appropriate to swamp this page which should concentrate on the history and archeology of the stones.-- Solipsist 09:30, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
