Frogit:
I too am interested in stone circles, and have been ever since childhood. I read a lot of books as a kid, and many of them were fantasy/speculative fiction titles written by British authors. So, even as a kid growing up in the states, I was exposed to the mystery of the stone circles.
These strange stone artifacts created by the ancients are indeed awe inspiring and mysterious. The sheer size and weight of the stones, and their exact placement, have for centuries fascinated scholars and everyday Joes alike. The mystery is two fold, how were such enormous stones moved, in some cases hundreds of kilometers, and then set in place with exacting precision, and why was such an endeavor undertaken in the first place.
Even utilizing modern heavy machinery and construction techniques, it would be nearly impossible to replicate the engineering feat inherent in the stone circles. This being said, how did the ancients, not possessing derricks and earth movers and the like, accomplish this impossible -- no not impossible because they exist -- task? Answer, um, um, [scratching head a bit] don't know.
Now then, to the why. What would have possessed a people to undertake such an endeavor. I have heard two sort of answers which are, fascination with time, and religious conviction. Today we have watches, with which we can meter out the hours of the day, and the days in the year. Each hour is neatly displayed on a little round thing adorning our wrist. Nifty, aye? Well, the ancients didn't have such contraptions; instead, they, so the theory goes, used the stone circles to keep track of time. This is easy to prove, too. All you need do is look at the position of the sun in relation to the circle to figure what, for example, is the longest or shortest day of the year. These specific days were of particular interest to the ancients because they coincided with the observance of the changing of the seasons, which symbolize planting and harvest, death and rebirth. Although this theory rings true, it seams a bit hollow, as if it were only a partial explanation of the whole. It also doesn't answer the question why we ... and this is second hand since I've never had the opportunity to visit a henge .... feel such awe, such connection, such, well power even, at the site or even thought of the stone circles, when today we wear those little watch thingies on our wrists.
Earlier, I alluded to the connection between the genre of the fantastic, and the stone circles. While I'm blithering on about the henges, I might as well tell you my favorite fantastic "what if" speculative idea involving them. What if somehow the henges are gates, doorways to another time and or space. What if we possessed the key to unlock these doorways and could cross the threshold of another reality and step into another world. Again, this is what if, but isn't it a cool idea?
Lastly, I'll mention this. Recently, a limestone circle, eerily like those that can be found in the British isles, was unearthed nearly 4,000 miles away across the pond in sunny southern Florida. Hmmmm, isn't that odd? It proves again how much more connected the ancients were than we would like to admit. As 21st century humans, we have this annoying superiority complex. We like and are more comfortable with the notion that we are the first to try to understand the cosmos, when we are really only rediscovering what was once lost to us all. And to think that none of this is mentioned in the Bible. Hmmmm.
We are so out of touch with reality, it's sad. There is so much obscured by time, so much that we can't even grasp just waiting for us, maybe on the "Oooooooo" other side of the circle.
Edited by - aluminutty on 3 August 2002 10:57:29
