<< Events >> Competition: Find a megalith* on Google Street View
Submitted by Andy B on Monday, 14 June 2010 Page Views: 17862
EventsCountry: England
1st coldrum 944 sites found - yes that's about 3/4 of the total, an amazing result
2nd SteveDut 104 sites found (all the way from Australia, another huge effort here)
3rd Runemage 34 (still very good)
4th kelpie 21
5th TheCaptain 22
6th davidmorgan 15
7th austenjohnreid 13
8th golux 11
9th cerrig 11
10th MikeAitch 10
As a result we have a major new resource to add to the Portal, and an article by myself coming out in the next British Archaeology magazine documenting our exploits.
Bat400 was lead judge for the entries, and would have been in the winners if not for this, so thanks very much for all the help. The raw numbers came from the Portal database, with the judging being where some of the "views" were impossible to see. Sorry for the delay with the results, which was caused by me. Bat gives an honorable mention to Baz for humour, with the Ice cream van sighting here.
I'm also pleased to say we plan to run one of our legendary photo competitions over the summer so get thinking about this now.
This is how the competition was announced:
On Thursday 11th March 2010 Google rolled out its Street View service to include 95% of the roads in the UK. Many prehistoric sites are in mundane roadside locations, and I'm not talking about Stonehenge here. There are thousands of obscure and unloved standing stones, earthworks etc in roadside locations all over the world.
So I am putting out a challenge to find and record as many of these sites as possible and post links to them on Street View.
View Larger Map
Ravenswood Avenue, Edinburgh
I have found this to be a great armchair activity that you can do when you get a spare moment and I hope you will as well. To encourage you I have put up the following prizes:
1st Prize £50 voucher and kudos as a top megalith* hunter
2nd and 3rd Prizes £25 voucher each
7 more prizes of a £5 voucher
(all vouchers will be valid to spend in our online shop at www.megalithic.co.uk/shop and are valid for two years. £50 will buy you a lovely piece of silver jewellery and we have some good book bargains so £5 should buy you one of these)
* For obscure historical reasons the Megalithic Portal covers a lot more than just ancient stones, we feature many other types of site including:
Megaliths, Stone Circles and Standing Stones (obviously)
Barrows and other ancient earthworks
Other prehistoric sites of all sorts
In the Americas 'prehistoric' includes native american and similar sites up to 1500AD
Ancient Crosses older than 900AD
Holy Wells and springs (the site or well house must be visible, not in a building)
Modern Monoliths and Stone Circles (hint: there are lots of these on roundabouts)
There is another category of site that we include on our pages that should be quite easy to find on Street View, [This is Museums - MegP Ed]
How to take part
Navigate to any of the pages at the Megalithic Portal www.megalithic.co.uk that features a megalith (or other eligible site) anywhere in the world. We have over 25,000 of these pages to explore. You should make sure you are registered and logged in to the Megalithic Portal so that when you post your link it will be clear it is from you. Use the 'Contact Editor' link if you need help to get logged in.
If you are on one of our photo pages, click on the yellow highlighted text to find our main 'site page' for the location. Once you have found a site page with a likely target, click on the third blue aeroplane icon on page to pop up a Google Map aerial view in a new window. The location of the site you're looking for will be shown with an orange pin marked 'A' on the aerial view. You can zoom the view in and out to get a good look at the surrounding area, and swap from aerial view to various map views.
Once the view is loaded, look for the little orange man in the top left corner. Use your mouse to click and drag him onto the map. You will see all the roads that have Street View images 'illuminated'. Drop the man icon onto the map in the location you want the street view.
While this loads, you will see a small 'inset' box at the bottom right. This shows where your man is on the map and which way he is facing in relation to the site. Bear in mind that the location where the orange pin is may not be completely accurate so you will probably have to look around the area for the stone or site, just as you would in real life. Click on the white lines superimposed on the road to move up and down.
If you find your target, zoom the street view to capture the best image you can of the site. Then click on the 'Link' button at the top right of the viewing window. Click on the code box below where it says "Paste HTML to embed in website" This will give you the URL web link to this exact view. Do a 'Copy' on the full link to get the code (mouse right-click and choose Copy)
Switch windows back to the Megalithic Portal Site Page. Scroll down to the comments section. Add the words Street View to the Subject box so we can find your entry.
Paste the code that you got from Street View into the main part of the comments box. Don't worry that it looks complicated, it will work
Type a single letter y into the little box just above the comment (simple anti spam measure) and click on the Post button to submit your comment. (Once posted you will just get a link, not the embedded map, this is intentional. They then get automatically embedded in our Portal 'site pages',
Go and see if you can find your next site on Street View!
Notes and Rules
* If you have found a location that we don't currently list then you can still enter it. This will get you extra points as long as it is on the list of eligible sites and checks out as valid. Please submit a 'site page' giving the location of the site (with as much accuracy as you can using the lat and long from the Street View 'Send' link or another mapping application)
We will add the new site page usually within a few hours so please save your Street View link somewhere and post it onto our site once the new page is added.
* The competition is to find ancient sites anywhere in the world that has Street View, not just the UK.
* For each image link to be eligible you must be the first person to have posted a link to Street View on our site page and the image link have the stone (or other site) visible. If a link is not eligible then it will be deleted.
* All the submissions will be looked at by our judges and we will pick the winning person based on the following criteria
a) how many locations each entrant has found
b) how clear are the images on Street View of the sites found
c) additional weight will be given to original or obscure sites that we don't have lots of photos for.
* Aerial or user submitted photos don't count, the link must be to a Google Street View image
* Yes we know Stonehenge is on Street View, no points for this
* Your entries must be of legitimate ancient site (or other type listed above that fit into our usual categories). If in doubt , use the 'Contact Editor' link to send a private message if you are unsure about your site, but the judges' decision will be final on eligibility.
* Your link will be optionally included in a compilation of all the sites on Google Street View and you give us permission to do this
* The vouchers cannot be used at the same time as the online shop 'free book' offer but can be used with the Megalithic Portal Society 10% member discount.
* The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into after the closing date
* The competition will run until 31st May 2010 and the winners will be announced following the end date as soon as we have judged the entries
* This competition is not officially sponsored or endorsed by Google but we hope they will approve!
Good luck and have fun armchair exploring
Please feel free to forward this information to your friends and post these details elsewhere.
Andy B
Editor of the Megalithic Portal
There are a couple of examples on this page that I found before Google added all the new images
The London Stone
View Larger Map
Note: Winners of the Street View competition announced, thanks to everyone who entered.
Aluta has found this location on Google Street View:
We would like to know more about this location. Please feel free to add a brief description and any relevant information in your own language.
Wir möchten mehr über diese Stätte erfahren. Bitte zögern Sie nicht, eine kurze Beschreibung und relevante Informationen in Deutsch hinzuzufügen.
Nous aimerions en savoir encore un peu sur les lieux. S'il vous plaît n'hesitez pas à ajouter une courte description et tous les renseignements pertinents dans votre propre langue.
Quisieramos informarnos un poco más de las lugares. No dude en añadir una breve descripción y otros datos relevantes en su propio idioma.