<< News >> Radical solution proposed for Stonehenge
Submitted by coldrum on Wednesday, 11 October 2006 Page Views: 2656
StonehengeCountry: England County: Wiltshire Type: Stone CircleInternal Links:
After over 20 years of argument and countless millions spent on consultants and planning inquiries over the state of Stonehenge, a leading expert has proposed a radical solution: do nothing.
The government's long overdue decision on the roads which strangle the world's most famous prehistoric monument is ardently awaited by archaeologists and local residents alike, after two public inquiries and last summer's lengthy public consultation.
Prof Fowler was giving the keynote address last night at a Council for British Archaeology event celebrating the 20th anniversary of Stonehenge and nearby Avebury becoming a World Heritage Site. Since then argument has never stopped over the site, and its squalid visitor facilities, damned by the parliamentary public accounts committee as "a national disgrace" in 1989.
Meanwhile, a novel solution to why the stone circle was built at all has also just been proposed: the oldest stones were transported 220km from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, because the bronze age builders believed the "bluestone", blue-grey dolomite streaked with white feldspar, had healing powers.
The suggestion that Stonehenge should be seen as a prehistoric Lourdes provoked dropped jaws and some outright laughter from archaeologists at a lecture at the Society of Antiquaries of London. However, Geoff Wainwright, former head of archaeology at English Heritage, and Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University, who have been researching and excavating in Wales for the last five years, insist that bluestones have been used to mark myriad spring heads and wells around the Preseli ridge. Many of these are regarded as having healing powers, and the belief the stone itself had special importance survived into Christian times when it was used for grave markers and ogham inscriptions.
More: Maev Kennedy in The Guardian.
Note: Not just another dull statement on the roads situation, see later in the article for a brave 'EM-esque' idea from Wainright and Darvill
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