Please don’t rub up against the stones, thank you.
Girl power!
Viewed from above, Perks suggests Stonehenge’s inner bluestone circle represents the labia minora…
Yeah, they designed it to be meaningful when they flew over in their gnomish helicopters.
:roll:
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. They didn’t have helicopters.
[size=2]Obviously, it was meant to be viewed via jetpack.[/size]
Come on guys, it was for the aliens and their UFO’s!. Basically, it was their wasy of telling the ET’s to “Fuck You!”
The Nazca drawings only make sense when viewed from above, so it’s not like ancient people never considered the aerial view when building something. Just as the Nazca Lines are (likely) designed for shamanistic rituals that involve walking along paths, it is possible that the Stonehenge builders had similar rituals in mind involving female reproduction.
The calender idea makes more sense, though the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Troy
This claim is highly tenuous.
Why not just build a statue to a goddess of fertility?
Physical representation of symbolism seems more of a modern trait than an ancient one.
If they can’t show other examples of this type anywhere in the world, then their claim will be very difficult to support.
Researchers Need to Get Laid More Often, Qt3 Posters Say.
Why not dig a hole in the ground instead of building a pyramid? For a couple of hundred years pyramids were the proper way to dipose of Pharaohs - a period bookended by much simpler burial rituals. The Egyptians had religious and egoistical reasons for doing so. Asking why they didn’t do something easier misses the obvious point that sometimes bigger is better for appeasing gods.
The claim is tenuous, but you can easily imagine a ritual where a shaman walks around the inside of the monument before emerging from the “birth canal”. It’s not ridiculous on its face.
Troy
I like that explanation, Troy!
My point is not that they didn’t do something easier, although I can see why you thought that. My point is that I don’t recall examples of this type of symbolism existing in ancient times, so it seems strange for this sort of symbolism to have been created then (opposed to the more common symbolism of building a statue to a goddess of fertility, for example).
Granted, not a lot of these types of things remain intact for study… but ignorance is hardly an argument for their claim.
Not totally ridiculous, but unlikely. I’d say additional study of the topic has to take place before a secure statement can be presented.
Once again, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can have both fertility idols and elaborate fertility rituals. The Greeks would have Mystery celebrations as well as fertility gods. The Sumerians didn’t just stop with mother goddess dolls. Celtic fertility deities have been found, though nothing as old as Stonehenge.
And Stonehenge is not alone. There are smaller stone circles in England (their placement in relation to Stonehenge gave brith to the Ley Line malarkey, I think). Stonehenge is the best preserved and the biggest. It’s location could have had religious significance for the area, so it was the only built on that scale. There was only one Jewish temple at a time.
Why aren’t there other around the world? Who knows. England was pretty isolated from other areas. Back to the Egyptians, other people built pyramids and zigurrats, but only the Egyptians used them as burial chambers. The evolution of the pyramid from staircase style to the classic flat-sided polygon is native Egyptian and never spread beyond its borders in spite of constant contact.
The idea of Stonehenge as a symbol of feritlity certainly fits with its use as a calendar for planting. It’s certainly not decisive - archaeology hardly ever is (remember the kerfuffle a few years ago when someone claimed to have found Alexander’s tomb?). It’s an intriguing idea, though.
Troy
I think the claim may be tenuous, but it’s still a possibility. The article described how the arrangement of stones could be seen to describe an opening in the earth itself, symbolizing the source of life for plants, birds, animals, people, etc. If that was the intent, than a fertility figure wouldn’t work as well.
Not to be contrary, but I would also disagree with the idea that physical symbolism is more of a modern trait than an ancient one. I think the reverse is true. In many ancient cultures, everything from weapons to habitation have been seen to overtly symbolize different aspects of their culture. And in the case of strucutures built for ritual use, then by their very nature they have symbolic meaning.
TSG’s right on about the aerial view stuff, too. For some reason we find it inconceivable that ancient peoples could create something meant to be viewed fromt he heavens. Forget gnomish helicopters and aliens, what about rainclouds, the sky, the gods?
I can’t believe you guys are having a serious argument about this.
The guy who wrote the paper is a retired OB-GYN.
As if that wasn’t bad enough he’s a retired Canadian OB-GYN.
When viewed from space, Stonehenge, the related stone markers, and the 2 great burial mounds, form the worlds largest pornographic connect the dots picture ever created.
On a more serious note, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure what the point of Stonehenge is. The fertility monument seems about as plausible as the idea that Stonehenge is a giant calender or timekeeping device. The process of creating the structure is amazing no matter what the purpose.
The picts got a bit drunk and forgot why they did it.
Actually they got stoned, not drunk.
Want me to post an article where I compare Xena:Warrior Princess to the Odyssey, the Bible, Shakespeare, Poe and Kafka? ;)
Someone find the link to that article on the “postmodern self-reflective nature” of Space Invaders.