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Some of the ideas discussed in this blog are published in my new book called "The Stonehenge Bluestones" -- available by post and through good bookshops everywhere. Bad bookshops might not have it....
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Tuesday, 3 November 2015

The Stones of Stonehenge web site



Stone 36, fallen and embedded in the ground.  Spotted dolerite.  One of Simon Banton's photos from the "Stones of Stonehenge" site.

Herewith a reminder of Simon Banton's wonderful web/blog site, on which he has photos of all of the visible Stonehenge stones.  Quite a catalogue -- and since we last reported, there are many new images.  Thoroughly recommended!

http://www.stonesofstonehenge.org.uk/p/plan-of-stonehenge.html

According to Simon, these are the missing stones:

Missing Stones

Some bluestones and bluestone fragments that are labelled on the plan, for example Stones 32c (Type: Altered Volcanic Ash), 32d (Type: Spotted Dolerite), 32e (Type: Rhyolite), 33e (Type: Altered Volcanic Ash), 33f (Type: Altered Volcanic Ash), 40c (Type: Calcareous Ash), 41d (Type: Altered Volcanic Ash), 42c (Type: Sandstone with Mica), 70a (Type: Spotted Dolerite), 70b (Type: Unknown) and 71 (Type: Unknown), do not have pictures or pages because they are not visible above ground level and exist only as completely buried stumps.

37 comments:

Myris of Alexandria said...

It is disheartening to realise that none of the work done by the pet rock boys has been used by this site and the hence bluestones are misidentified.
Almost a decade of work and still nomenclature from 30 50 years ago is given.
Read the bloody primary literature and if in doubt ask sensible informed questions.
M

BRIAN JOHN said...

Don't tell me, Myris. I'm sure Simon would love to hear from you, and will incorporate any corrections you choose to give him........

BRIAN JOHN said...

Now here's an offer you can't refuse, Myris. You will be the first to agree that it is not easy for ordinary folks to keep up with the welter of papers produced by the pet rock boys in recent years, relating to assorted stones and fragments in Wales and at Stonehenge. What is needed is a synthesis, listing all of the bluestones at Stonehenge (there are only 43) and giving the most recent rock type identifications, with references to the appropriate published papers. That helps to publicise your work, and will greatly help in avoiding future confusion. Send it to me, and I will publish it with hyperlinks, on this blog, as a service to mankind.

Myris said...

I think the pet rock boys are planning to do just that, now that all the igneous rocks have been described, rather more formally in a revue paper early next year. I shall suggest the inclusion of just such a table an obvious and excellent idea (that had escaped them). They are only too aware that they are only just on top of all the lithological changes and need to constantly go back to check their earlier works. For others not steeped in the black arts, lithological nomenclature will be bewildering (but essential)if we are not to live 'trapped' in an Alice's World of archaic terms.
M

BRIAN JOHN said...

Good news, Myris. Look forward to seeing that.

chris johnson said...

Brian has a super idea here. I started to make my own catalogue of the stones a while back and gave up for now at least. So much information in the literature is contradictory or ambiguous.

It is a better idea to add to the work Simon has done already. The Pet Rock boys will make more impact this way I suspect. I suppose Simon is open to publishing the "official" line from the PRB alongside the rest of his information.

Myris of Alexandria said...

I am sure the pet rock boys would be very pleased were their data accurately reported.
That is the whole point of publishing it.
Once published the data are publically owned.
M

Alison Sunderland (Miss) said...

Hello to Myris,
Last Christmas we put on a pantomime for the residents of The Home for Paranoid Patients, all went well until a member of staff called out "He's behind you"!!!


May the crenulated cleavage and graphitised carbon take pride of place in the revue.

Best wishes,

Alison

Myris of Alexandria said...

Dear Asylum, how lovely, Christmass is a time for giving, you must be so blessed.
Please do not overlook stilpnomelane or the Jovian texture, there are so many riches. Even Alibaba's djinn would be hard pressed to provide such fare.
Good luck with this year's offerings.
M

Alison Wunderland said...

Dear Myris,
When you refer to 'mis-identified bluestones', would that also include the buried stone 42cc mentioned at the end of Brian's post?
If so, then I wonder if H.H.Thomas was referring to a micaceous sandstone that did, in fact, contain abundant garnet, and perhaps ts #277 is a red herring?

I don't know about Ali Baba's djinn but the stuff my mother-in-law drinks is evil.

Myris of Alexandria said...

What big eyes you've got grandma.
No #277 is echte it matches the rare fragments of Altar Stone seen in the Stonehenge layer.
The garnet is a complete mystery searched for but in vain. Quite a bit of Thomas's detailed work unravels if looked at closely, see Bevins and Ixer 2014?
The reveal will come in the Lower Palaeozoic sandstone paper probably next year.
But as we always say "next year in Jerusalem".
Now you do read the primary literature.
M

Alison Wunderland said...

Hello Myris,

'Big eyes' = correct, but they are failing.

Perhaps my last post was a little garbled.
The thought is ------ Are the samples in the Stonehenge Layer bone fide Altar Stone?

If the sample/s that Thomas collected came from the Altar Stone, they may have contained abundant garnet, whereas, if ts#277 came from the buried stump 42c, then the garnet may well be absent and Ixer Bevins 2014 would then still stand.

Once again the hammer is the answer.

Alison Wunderland said...

Hello Myris,

'Big eyes' = correct, but they are failing.

Perhaps my last post was a little garbled.
The thought is ------ Are the samples in the Stonehenge Layer bone fide Altar Stone?

If the sample/s that Thomas collected came from the Altar Stone, then they may have contained abundant garnet, whereas, if ts#277 came from the buried stump 42c, then the garnet may well be absent and Ixer Bevins 2014 would then still stand.

Once again the hammer is the answer.

Myris of Alexandria said...

Ah with you.
The garnet reference in Thomas is odd and difficult to reconcile with anything.
#277 and the small bits of Altar Stone are all the same lithology. No problem with that and it is very different from The Lower Palaeozoic Sst (now dated).
The only material with lots of garnet (seen by the PRB) is Devonian sst from Milford Haven (stones collected by many people including our genial host).
Agreed, thin section 277 and other old thin section at the Nat Hist Museum are all labelled Altar Stone.
M

Alice Roberts (Professing) said...

Dear Alison Wunderland,

are you for real with all this geological so - called expertise? You should really have gone to the Horse's Mouths, the Oracles, the Founts of ALL Knowledge, aka Prof Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright, as I did, with my BBC cameraman, a few years back, up on Carn Menyn, in a rainstorm. I was left in no doubt, as was my cameraman. The myyths literally lifted from my eyes there and then, and I was healed. Thanks, Geoff & Tim.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Enlightenment is there for all who open their eyes and are willing to see...... with just a little help from their already-enlightened friends. Hope you did not catch the flu after that thorough soaking up on the mountain.....

Alison Wunderland said...

Dear Professor Alice,
Just for me, for I'm obviously really stupid, can you explain the connection between the Altar Stone of Stonehenge, which is clearly a sedimentary micaceous sandstone, and the Preseli blustones, which most educated people consider to be igneous.
You have me confused.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Lower Palaeozoic Sandstone is now dated? Excellent. Tell us more, Myris.....

Myris of Alexandria said...

Next year.
The data are not mine and so will be published in somewhere suitable when all the authors agree.
M

BRIAN JOHN said...

Very good -- look forward to seeing it...

TonyH said...

Professor Alice Roberts, bless her, is still doing a nice overview of British archaeological digs, region by region, on BBC4, alongside Matt Williams, 8pm Thursdays.

Some very nice summaries on there, with footage of the digs and contributions from the diggers on site.

Her visit to "Tim & Geoff Going Wild Up Carn Menyn" was from an early series. I appears to still be in good health.

TonyH said...

I? That should be "She".

TonyH said...

Wonder how our fellow blog - contributor PhilG is getting on with his obtaining permission to "walk the hard miles" on the Salisbury Plain Training Area beyond the Greater Stonehenge landscape area, generally towards Heytesbury/ Boles Barrow?

Anyway, Pete, Simon Banton's collection of photographs of the array of stone types which, no doubt in time, will be shown to be a fairly good representative sample of what the ?Anglian? Ice Sheet deposited all those aeons ago, should prove useful to you in your intrepid search.
Take care!

Alison Wunderland said...

I see there's no response from Alice Roberts, she must be busy professing or whatever.
I recommend, that before you air your thoughts to the world, you verify the relative positions of your arse and your elbow.

Best wishes from me.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Ah, I suspect, Alison, that there are several Alices, some more professorial than others, just as there are no doubt several Alisons, some more petrological than others....

Myris of Alexandria said...

So long as their are no petrographical Asylums, then the world may continue. Boney Alice has a perch in the geology department at Brum Uni, it has tv studios in the same building. Scholarship is not the only method for successfully playing university musical chairs.

As the 1930s musical tells us Stay young and beautiful and pretty pout for the camera,
Nepotism was far better and more reliable,how the old order changes, lest one good customer should corrupt the world.

Good news on the book front, you certain we are not just part of your advertising copy.
As ever cynical but with a pure heart
M

BRIAN JOHN said...

Your cynicism does you credit, Myris. "I win, we all win" is my noble motto.......

Myris of Alexandria said...

Oh I shall steal that.
M
The December issue of British Archaeology will have a large article on CRyf and Carn Goedog.

BRIAN JOHN said...

At last! Several years too late. Look forward to reading it and being suitably cynical.....

TonyH said...

Well I'm all for South Western anatomist Prof Alice Roberts, she is exceeding decorous, and much preferable to her latest tv partner, the backwards - walking, pouting, hair - flicking, ex - archaeologist Celtic Scottish Oliver! - who is not from "Oliver!" (you gotta flicka hairdo or two, you, you gotta flick a hairdo or two, Neil).

I,too, wish she would answer Alice W's last, rather butch, geological avalanche - type remark about arses and elbows. She is, after all, an anatomist.

I am guessing, but angry "Ms Alice Wunderland's" more accurate nom de plume might be Petrock Preseli.

TonyH said...

Don't think it will be the December issue of B.A., Myris. It may APPEAR in December, but will likely be the January - February 2016 edition.......... Mike Pitts likes to keep one step ahead.

I look forward to reading Brian's letter in the issue after that, on the same topic. Not TOO cynical, Brian, you may want M.P. to print an article soon....

TonyH said...

Stop this blog - sledging of Alice Roberts!! She is, after all, half - WELSH, she took her second (Anatomy) degree in Cardiff (her maternal grandmother was sad she'd never learned Welsh). Alice says she loves walking in Wales, and she took her 18 - month - old daughter for a walk right up Sugarloaf Mountain when she was 18 months old.

She also strikes me, as well as the academic world and the BBC, as being extremely intelligent. The ladies have ex - pop star Lancastrian Professor Brian Cox to gawp at; men have Alice from Bristol, who cannot help also being multi - talented.

Myris of Alexandria said...

Why am I hearing the tunes from Gigi in all this.
We want proper presenters like Mr Moore, do not start me on the Sky at Night. Somewhere there is a cabal of scientific iconoclasts determined to present the pretty side of science.
It will end with lace-trimmed abacuses, abba curses on them but it is the name of the game.
You are correct it will be out in Dec but will be Jan/Feb. Current Archaeology are also running articles in Jan on CRyf etc.
Brian's typewriter will be bathed in righteous indignation and PO profits up that month.
M

TonyH said...

Channel 4 have just announced their next male News Presenter for the Seven O'Clock News HAS to be extremely ugly so the audience, or if you will the viewers, will concentrate on the carnage in the headlines and NOT be distracted by the steaming sensuality of the Presenter.

Personally, I find just LISTENING to Katie Derham on Radio Three concerts deeply affecting.

TonyH said...

Bring it all on, Myris! As long as everyone is joyfully yet laterally reminded of Holland's Johann Cruyff's extravagant footballing skills when CRyf's red herrings are revealed, the world of Legends will be a brighter and friendlier place.

Incidentally, Johann Cruyff is not extravagantly handsome these days and not in the best of health.

chris johnson said...

All is forgiven when you can remember Johan's skills, and some will for as long as soccer is played. He is so inarticulate about his wondrous achievements that he might well become a geologist in the next life.

Johan will be remembered by more and for longer than CRyf, I predict.

Myris of Alexandria said...

Ah have no idea who the best in show is?
I shall guess a footballer.
M
The only best in show I know is Caversham Kuku of Yam great great great grandfather of Wu Wei our first Peke.