The Stonehenge Purple Prose Competition

Richard Bates of St Andrews, currently in the lead by a short head..........

The Garbled Title Competition was a jolly diversion.  Now it's back to the serious stuff again, and the Stonehenge Purple Prose Competition has restarted with a vengeance.  Here are some contenders, as reported by the BBC, with respect to the latest results from the Gaffney team relating to holes in the ground round and about the Durrington area.  Throughout the galaxy, neutral observers have watched in shock and awe as the latest research results have hit the planetary headlines.

Here we go:

Dr Richard Bates, from St Andrews' School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: "Remote sensing and careful sampling is giving us an insight to the past that shows an even more complex society than we could ever imagine.
"Clearly sophisticated practices demonstrate that the people were so in tune with natural events to an extent that we can barely conceive in the modern world.
His colleague Tim Kinnaird said sediments from the shafts that were tested "contain a rich and fascinating archive of previously unknown environmental information".
He said studying the finds allowed archaeologists to "write detailed narratives of the Stonehenge landscape for the last 4,000 years".
Dr Nick Snashall, National Trust archaeologist for the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, hailed the "astonishing discovery".
She said: "As the place where the builders of Stonehenge lived and feasted Durrington Walls is key to unlocking the story of the wider Stonehenge landscape, and this astonishing discovery offers us new insights into the lives and beliefs of our Neolithic ancestors.
"The Hidden Landscapes team have combined cutting-edge, archaeological fieldwork with good old-fashioned detective work to reveal this extraordinary discovery and write a whole new chapter in the story of the Stonehenge landscape."

As reported in The Guardian:

Gaffney said the newly discovered circular shape suggests a “huge cosmological statement and the need to inscribe it into the earth itself”.

He added: “Stonehenge has a clear link to the seasons and the passage of time, through the summer solstice. But with the Durrington Shafts, it’s not the passing of time, but the bounding by a circle of shafts which has cosmological significance."

Henry Chapman, professor of archaeology at Birmingham University, described it as “an incredible new monument”.

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And so it goes on.  Before I get over-excited by the superabundance of hyperbole and the surfeit of magnificent adjectives, I must go and lie down in a darkened room for a little while.

Now then.  We clearly have some strong contenders here for the 2020 Stonehenge Purple Prose Title, but it's not too late for other entries to be submitted.  The prize will be awarded towards the end of the year in a glittering awards ceremony, at a venue to be announced in a galaxy near you.