March 26, 2015

Seeing Stones: 10 Facts and Figures about #Stonehenge You Might Now Know

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Stonehenge is one of the most recognized monuments in the world. We thought it would be fun to delve into the history of the place and focus on 10 interest facts and figures that people may not have known about Stonehenge.

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Date Built?

Much about Stonehenge remains a mystery – the biggest unanswered question is when was it built? Archaeologists believe it was built anywhere from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. Radiocarbon dating done in 2008 suggested that the first stones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, whilst another theory suggests that bluestones may have been raised at the site as early as 3000 BC.

Big Visitor Numbers

Stonehenge has over 1,000,000 visitors from all over the world ever year – making it one of Britain’s most popular tourist attractions.

The Stones Are Generally Off Limits

When Stonehenge was first opened to the public it was possible to walk among and even climb on the stones, but the stones were roped off in 1977 as a result of serious erosion. Visitors are no longer permitted to touch the stones, but are able to walk around the monument from a short distance away. English Heritage does, however, permit access during the summer and winter solstice, and the spring and autumn equinox. Additionally, visitors can make special bookings to access the stones throughout the year.

Massive Weight

Some of the stones can weigh up to 60 tons. One of the biggest mysteries is how the builders managed to get them onto the site and lift them in the prehistoric era.

The Stonehenge site is more than just the iconic stones at the center – the land surrounding the henge is a massive burial ground with over 200 people buried on the site.

A Bit of Wales

Some of the stones are Welsh bluestone – which only exists in Wales. The stones have been geologically placed to have in origin in western Wales – which is very far away from Wiltshire!

Who Owns It?

Stonehenge used to be a neglected monument on some absentee landowner’s land (and much damage was done to the monument). Eventually it was decided to be too important to trust to private ownership and the British Crown now owns the site. It is managed by English Heritage and the land surrounding the site is owned by the National Trust (which has a remit to protect its properties forever).

Check Your Sums

Those who built Stonehenge had to have been extremely sophisticated in mathematics and geometry. It was aligned with the midwinter sunset and the midsummer sunset. It was also aligned with the most northerly setting and most southerly rising of the moon.

Multiple Stones

The monument is made of two major types of stone, sarsens and bluestones (mentioned above). Sarsens are the larger ones, some of them reaching 9m tall and weighing over 20 tons. They are thought to have come from the Marlborough Downs, around 20 miles from Salisbury Plain.

Building A Tunnel

You can see Stonehenge from the main road – the A303 – as you drive by. This is also a major problem for the site as it creates a lot of road noise and pollution that damage the stones. The British government has just announced that they’re going to build tunnel under Stonehenge that will make the site almost as it was when it was built – silent to the winds of the Salisbury plain

Article source:http://www.anglotopia.net/british-history/seeing-stones-10-facts-figures-stonehenge-might-now-know/
March 26, 2015 By

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April 21, 2012

SPRING equinox, anyone? Children jump for joy on 20ft bouncy castle art installation… shaped like Stonehenge

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Children were walking on air today after Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller unveiled his life-size bouncy castle… of Stonehenge.

The 20ft-high inflatable, called Sacrilege, is modelled on the prehistoric monoliths and was opened to the public on Glasgow Green as part of the 18-day Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts Festival.

It was designed using detailed plans of the Salisbury monument and took two months to make thanks to the efforts of workers at Inflatable World Leisure, who Mr Deller said built the first ever bouncy castles in the UK.

King of the bouncy castle ... Jeremy Deller's Sacrilege at Glasgow Green is part of the Glasgow international festival of visual arts. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

King of the bouncy castle ... Jeremy Deller's Sacrilege at Glasgow Green is part of the Glasgow international festival of visual arts. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

 

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The 20ft-high inflatable, called Sacrilege, is modelled on the prehistoric monoliths and was opened to the public on Glasgow GreenThe 20ft-high inflatable, called Sacrilege, is modelled on the prehistoric monoliths and was opened to the public on Glasgow Green

Children were walking on air today after Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller unveiled his life-size bouncy castleChildren were walking on air today after Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller unveiled his life-size bouncy castle

His giant inflatable is one of the highlights of a festival programme featuring more than 130 artists at almost 50 venues across the city.

Mr Deller, who won the Turner Prize in 2004, said: ‘It has taken two months to put together so it is wonderful to finally see it up and being used by the public.

‘Stonehenge is a part of our history and it is such an iconic structure that I wanted to recreate it as accurately as I could.

‘We haven’t done it exactly but it is as close as we could get it. People should come down – it’s here for two weeks and it’s free.’

After appearing in Glasgow, the castle – the artist’s first major work in Scotland – will be taken on a tour of the UK.

Artist Jeremy Deller has a go on his installation in ScotlandArtist Jeremy Deller has a go on his installation in Scotland

The giant inflatable took two months to build and is one of the highlights of a festival programme featuring more than 130 artists at almost 50 venues across the cityThe giant inflatable took two months to build and is one of the highlights of a festival programme featuring more than 130 artists at almost 50 venues across the city

 

After appearing in Glasgow, the castle - the artist's first major work in Scotland - will be taken on a tour of the UKAfter appearing in Glasgow, the castle – the artist’s first major work in Scotland – will be taken on a tour of the UK

Other highlights at the Glasgow festival include solo shows by Glasgow-based 2009 Turner Prize winner Richard Wright, Adrian Wiszniewski and Karla Black.

Mr Deller added: ‘I couldn’t have done it without the help of Inflatable World Leisure who built the first bouncy castle in the UK, so they are good company to be in.’

The festival also includes the first UK show called Triumph, an installation of more than 2,500 discarded sporting trophies collected by Polish-born Aleksandra Mir, and an exhibition focused on Glasgow’s Socialist Sunday School movement that flourished in the early 20th century.

More than 90 per cent of the work on show during the 18-day festival is either new or previously unseen in the UK.

'Stonehenge is a part of our history and it is such an iconic structure that I wanted to recreate it as accurately as I could,' Mr Deller said‘Stonehenge is a part of our history and it is such an iconic structure that I wanted to recreate it as accurately as I could,’ Mr Deller said

There will also be a range of newly commissioned works drawing on other artistic disciplines such as dance, film and music.

Teacher Lynda Darrock, 31, visited the bouncy castle with children from Annette Street Primary School in Govan, Glasgow.

She said: ‘The children thought it was absolutely amazing. They were talking about it all day, I even had a go myself.

‘They keep asking if we are going back.

‘Jeremy spent lots of time talking to the children beforehand and afterwards asking if they enjoyed it. He was brilliant.

‘Some of the children have been to Stonhenge and they were blow away with how similar it is to the real thing. They had a great day.’

AND HERE’S THE REAL THING… THE MAGIC AND MYSTERY OF STONEHENGE

The Wiltshire monument was completed around 4,500 years ago and is believed to have taken around 35 years to complete.

The largest of the gigantic upright stones weighs about 40 tons – the equivalent of an articulated lorry.

A Time Team dig (for the Channel 4 show) in 2009 established that Stonehenge was built around the same time as Durrington Walls, another henge, or circular earthwork, two miles away.

The two adjacent henges were part of the same complex, with Durrington Walls the location for a massive Neolithic village that housed the workers who built Stonehenge.

The Time Team suggested that this site housed up to 4,000 people, which would have made it the largest Neolithic settlement in north-west Europe.

The Wiltshire monument was completed around 4,500 years ago and is believed to have taken around 35 years to completeThe Wiltshire monument was completed around 4,500 years ago and is believed to have taken around 35 years to complete

While the circle at Durrington Walls represented life and the land of the living, Stonehenge, encircled by burial mounds, represented the land of the dead, the team claimed.

The two were connected by the River Avon and the procession route from one to the other represented the transition from life to death.

It is thought that the stones used at Stonehenge were moved from Marlborough Downs, about 20 miles to the north.

Digs suggest that the area around the stone circle was used to bury the cremated remains of hundreds of people.

Other experts believe that it was a place for healing.

Meanwhile, a study earlier this week suggested Stonehenge could have been designed with acoustics in mind like a Greek or Roman theatre.

A team of researchers from the University of Salford spent four years studying the historic site’s acoustic properties in a bid to crack the mystery of why it was built.

While they could not confirm the exact purpose of the stones, the researchers did find the space reacted to acoustic activity in a way that would have been noticeable to the Neolithic man.

‘Stonehenge is very well known, but people are still trying to find out what it was built for and we thought that doing this research would bring an element of archaeology that so far hasn’t been looked at,’ lead researcher, Bruno Fazenda said.

He added the new area of acoustic science, named archaeoacoustics, could be helpful in the archaeological interpretation of important buildings and heritage sites, some of which may not exist in their original form, such as in the case of Stonehenge.

Because the site in Wiltshire is in a derelict state, researchers travelled to Maryhill in the U.S. where a full-sized concrete reconstruction of Stonehenge was built in 1929 as a memorial to the soldiers of WWI.

They were able to make proper acoustic measurements that allowed an investigation into striking acoustic effects such as echoes, resonances and whispering gallery effects.

The second phase consisted in the creation of a full 3D audio-rendition of the space using a system comprised of 64 audio channels and loudspeakers especially developed at the University of Salford based on Wave Field Synthesis.

This system enables an accurate and immersive recreation of what Stonehenge would have sounded like.

SOURCE – Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132789/Stonehenge-bouncy-castle-comes-Glasgow.html#ixzz1sgMI1wJF

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