9 ms·

A coherent story of Stonehenge may be beginning to emerge

37 points by ohjeez 9y ago

apokryptein 9y ago
Interesting read -- thanks.
fluxby 9y ago
Nothing was cracked really. Still no explanation of who built it and how it was built. The fact that it was a religious area for many centuries has been known for a long time. Same can be said about pyramids in Mexico and great pyramid in Egypt, as well as many other sites like Pumapunku, etc. Ancient mega structures are one of the biggest mysteries of our world.
- pvg 9y ago
  We heave a pretty good idea who built the pyramids and why since they wrote about it.
  - fluxby 9y ago
    Not really. Which pyramids are you talking about? What we have are some lukewarm explanations which do not hold up to scientific scrutiny of all the historic sources. If you are talking about the Great Pyramyd of Cheops in Giza then plenty of evidence show that Cheops had nothing to do with building that pyramid. He was a Stone Age monarch at the time when writing and mathematics have not been developed in Egypt. The pyramid has no indication anywhere on it that it belonged to Cheops, one would think that if a guy spent over 20 years and killed over 20,000 slaves building it, then he'd put his name on it. :)
    - fluxby 9y ago
      The idea that pyramid belonged to Cheops comes from Herodotus who travelled to Egypt long after Cheops, and in fact what he wrote down is an urban legend from the local folk, because no historic Egyptian documents could verify who built the great pyramid. There are other much earlier historic accounts about the great pyramid from Arab historians. Who have a very different story about the pyramid.
      - mustacheemperor 9y ago
        >a very different story about the pyramid. Do you have any sources or articles? I'm a huge ancient Egypt nerd and would love to read more about it - as is unfortunately usually the case with nuanced historical topics, Wikipedia just breezes through the common assumptions (that it was built for Cheops).
        fluxby 9y ago
        Few historical points that we know for certain: - Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor. - Herodotus traveled to Egypt and later made his claim in 5th century BC. This is about 2100 years after the rule of Cheops! To say that his historic account can be deemed as verifiable is a joke. - Up until 820 AD the pyramid was completely closed off by the granite plates that covered all external walls, and an Arab caliph Al-Mamoun broke most of them and found a way in. - The architectual complexity of the Great Pyramid is unbelievable. On top of everything that most people know, it also has an underground chambers with an artificial lake (water comes from underground sources) and a really big sarcophagus submerged in the water. The sarcophagus is larger than the walkways leading up to the underground chamber. - All the consequent pyramids that came after the great pyramid are much smaller and much less sophisticated. We know that Egyptian empire was growing substantially in wealth and power at that time, so why the pyramids are less sophisticated? Shouldn't we see technological progression, not regression in a rich developing society? What I think is that we have a serious case of Cargo Cult where emperors try to emulate the greatness of the pyramid. - The Arab historians I mentioned refer to the legend of Enoch.
        sbmassey 9y ago
        According to http://archive.archaeology.org/9909/abstracts/pyramids.html http://archive.archaeology.org/9909/abstracts/pyramids.html carbon dating makes the old kingdom pyramids older than their historical dates, although they suggest they may have been using old wood.
    - sbmassey 9y ago
      Well, if he was a monarch before writing had been developed, he would have had a hard time putting his name on it.
      - fluxby 9y ago
        He would have had even harder time designing the pyramid
        deepsun 9y ago
        Well, children can design pyramids using sand.
        fluxby 9y ago
        Yeah. Only those pyramids are about knee high and last for about a day. :) The great pyramid stood for at least 5000 years.
        deepsun 9y ago
        You said "design", not build. My point is that designing pyramid is not really that hard. Building it is totally different thing (but still doable by thousands of uneducated slaves).
komali2 9y ago
Well, that's a clickbait title if I ever saw one, but it is a good article. It's basically a summary of everything we know up to now about Stonehenge. If you haven't read about Stonehenge in a couple years, there's some good recent work done that's worth catching up on. From the article itself: >But a coherent story may be beginning to emerge. That has been particularly true over the last decade. Basically "here's the new stuff we've got on Stonehenge."
JoshMnem 9y ago
Anyone interested in Stonehenge should also check out this book: http://www.lynnekelly.com.au/the-memory-code/ http://www.lynnekelly.com.au/the-memory-code/ It goes into some new ideas about what it was used for.
ajarmst 9y ago
"We found that there were some other structures near here and it's a bit older than we originally thought. Also, some of the rock came from quite far away. We still have a lot of questions." isn't really what comes to mind when the title claims that a mystery has been cracked.
bahjoite 9y ago
> In other words, the landscape was used in religious or ceremonial processions related to the monuments. Surely it was the Glastonbury Festival venue of the day. There were even sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.
- twic 9y ago
  Not to mention bearded patriarchs delivering messages of spiritual renewal to the rapturous masses [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN07fnvGomo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN07fnvGomo
Siemer 9y ago
Ah, I thought it was only 46 miles from Wales! [ 1 ] [ 1 ] https://youtu.be/mbyzgeee2mg https://youtu.be/mbyzgeee2mg

37 points by ohjeez 9y ago

Interesting read -- thanks.

Nothing was cracked really. Still no explanation of who built it and how it was built. The fact that it was a religious area for many centuries has been known for a long time. Same can be said about pyramids in Mexico and great pyramid in Egypt, as well as many other sites like Pumapunku, etc. Ancient mega structures are one of the biggest mysteries of our world.

pvg 9y ago
We heave a pretty good idea who built the pyramids and why since they wrote about it.
- fluxby 9y ago
  Not really. Which pyramids are you talking about? What we have are some lukewarm explanations which do not hold up to scientific scrutiny of all the historic sources. If you are talking about the Great Pyramyd of Cheops in Giza then plenty of evidence show that Cheops had nothing to do with building that pyramid. He was a Stone Age monarch at the time when writing and mathematics have not been developed in Egypt. The pyramid has no indication anywhere on it that it belonged to Cheops, one would think that if a guy spent over 20 years and killed over 20,000 slaves building it, then he'd put his name on it. :)
  - fluxby 9y ago
    The idea that pyramid belonged to Cheops comes from Herodotus who travelled to Egypt long after Cheops, and in fact what he wrote down is an urban legend from the local folk, because no historic Egyptian documents could verify who built the great pyramid. There are other much earlier historic accounts about the great pyramid from Arab historians. Who have a very different story about the pyramid.
    - mustacheemperor 9y ago
      >a very different story about the pyramid. Do you have any sources or articles? I'm a huge ancient Egypt nerd and would love to read more about it - as is unfortunately usually the case with nuanced historical topics, Wikipedia just breezes through the common assumptions (that it was built for Cheops).
      - fluxby 9y ago
        Few historical points that we know for certain: - Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor. - Herodotus traveled to Egypt and later made his claim in 5th century BC. This is about 2100 years after the rule of Cheops! To say that his historic account can be deemed as verifiable is a joke. - Up until 820 AD the pyramid was completely closed off by the granite plates that covered all external walls, and an Arab caliph Al-Mamoun broke most of them and found a way in. - The architectual complexity of the Great Pyramid is unbelievable. On top of everything that most people know, it also has an underground chambers with an artificial lake (water comes from underground sources) and a really big sarcophagus submerged in the water. The sarcophagus is larger than the walkways leading up to the underground chamber. - All the consequent pyramids that came after the great pyramid are much smaller and much less sophisticated. We know that Egyptian empire was growing substantially in wealth and power at that time, so why the pyramids are less sophisticated? Shouldn't we see technological progression, not regression in a rich developing society? What I think is that we have a serious case of Cargo Cult where emperors try to emulate the greatness of the pyramid. - The Arab historians I mentioned refer to the legend of Enoch.
        sbmassey 9y ago
        According to http://archive.archaeology.org/9909/abstracts/pyramids.html http://archive.archaeology.org/9909/abstracts/pyramids.html carbon dating makes the old kingdom pyramids older than their historical dates, although they suggest they may have been using old wood.
  - sbmassey 9y ago
    Well, if he was a monarch before writing had been developed, he would have had a hard time putting his name on it.
    - fluxby 9y ago
      He would have had even harder time designing the pyramid
      - deepsun 9y ago
        Well, children can design pyramids using sand.
        fluxby 9y ago
        Yeah. Only those pyramids are about knee high and last for about a day. :) The great pyramid stood for at least 5000 years.
        deepsun 9y ago
        You said "design", not build. My point is that designing pyramid is not really that hard. Building it is totally different thing (but still doable by thousands of uneducated slaves).

komali2 9y ago

Well, that's a clickbait title if I ever saw one, but it is a good article. It's basically a summary of everything we know up to now about Stonehenge. If you haven't read about Stonehenge in a couple years, there's some good recent work done that's worth catching up on. From the article itself: >But a coherent story may be beginning to emerge. That has been particularly true over the last decade. Basically "here's the new stuff we've got on Stonehenge."

JoshMnem 9y ago

Anyone interested in Stonehenge should also check out this book: http://www.lynnekelly.com.au/the-memory-code/ http://www.lynnekelly.com.au/the-memory-code/ It goes into some new ideas about what it was used for.

ajarmst 9y ago

"We found that there were some other structures near here and it's a bit older than we originally thought. Also, some of the rock came from quite far away. We still have a lot of questions." isn't really what comes to mind when the title claims that a mystery has been cracked.

bahjoite 9y ago

> In other words, the landscape was used in religious or ceremonial processions related to the monuments. Surely it was the Glastonbury Festival venue of the day. There were even sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.

twic 9y ago
Not to mention bearded patriarchs delivering messages of spiritual renewal to the rapturous masses [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN07fnvGomo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN07fnvGomo

Siemer 9y ago

Ah, I thought it was only 46 miles from Wales! [ 1 ] [ 1 ] https://youtu.be/mbyzgeee2mg https://youtu.be/mbyzgeee2mg