The Altar Stone at Stonehenge is a recumbent block of pale green micaceous sandstone. The largest of the bluestones in Stonehenge, it measures 4.9 meters long by 1 meter wide by 0.5 meters thick. But it is not a clean or shaped rectangular block...... both ends are bevelled or broken.
According to Simon Banton, the Altar Stone lies "beneath the collapsed upright of the Great Trilithon (Stone 55b) and its lintel (Stone 156), sunk into the grass. The stone itself was broken by the fall of the Great Trilithon's upright and is in two pieces."
There is an interesting post on Tim Daw's blog -- thanks to him and Simon Banton -- regarding an assortment of new images of the Altar Stone -- unearthed in the Historic England archive. They all date from the 1958 Atkinson excavation, including a number of photos of blocks that were recorded as "unidentified stones".........
Here is the link:
https://www.sarsen.org/2025/02/the-archive-excavation-of-altar-stone.html
Tim refers to the "fine working of the stone" and scratches which have "obvious similarity to other neolithic stone markings." The so-called "engraved lines" shown on the side of the Altar Stone in photo P50107 are very sharp, and I think they were most likely made with metal tools. They look to be remarkably fresh -- and it will be interesting to read more about the stratigraphic context in due course.
Could the marks be glacial striations? It's possible, but they appear to be too straight and regular. I would dearly like to look at the whole of the smoothed SW flank of the slab which appears to be very different from the other surfaces. There appear to be other scratches as well -- less distinct but in my view even more interesting.......
Overall, my impression from looking at the photos is that the Altar Stone is a broken elongated slab which is heavily weathered and abraded. The edges are for the most part rounded off, and I think I see at least two scoop-shaped glacial facets. There are abundant fracture scars, some quite fresh and others rather old and degraded.
The big break at the SE end of the slab looks to be quite fresh, and was probably the result of the accident which brought Sarsen Stone 55B crashing down on top of it. In one photo we can see some loose fragments associated with the breakage. It's possible that other debris might have been removed during excavations.
Another thing which is quite intriguing in Tim's post is the nature of the sediment on which the altar Stone rests. It looks from the photos as if it is very coarse, unbedded or unstratified, with abundant angular and subangular fragments which might or might not be chalk or bluestone. Not enough attention has been given to sediments like this -- and in the literature it is often dismissed as "chalk rubble" or simply "fill". That's not good enough, and some of it looks suspiciously like till!
All in all, these latest images convince me that this is not a quarried slab but a glacial erratic with a complex history............
====================
From Landscape and Monumentality:
Debate continues as to whether the Altar Stone ever stood vertical or was always lying prostrate across the Stonehenge axis. It does not lie symmetrical to the axis, or at right angles to it. During his work at Stonehenge Richard Atkinson investigated around the Altar Stone and found one end badly shaped from souvenir hunters chipping pieces off, but the other end was a bevelled shape, similar to the bottom end of some of the sarsens that had been placed in the ground. It seems likely that at sometime the Altar Stone was standing erect. Whatever its original position the Altar Stone has clearly been disturbed by the collapse of the Great Trilithon, Stones 55 and 56, and 156. Today the Altar Stone lies in two halves, partly under Stone 55 and partly under the lintel 156, undoubtedly as a result of the impact of the collapse, partly buried; as such today you will not see it unless you obtain access to the inner circle.
14 comments:
I haven't delved into old Posts mentioning the apparent presence of a depression somewhere within more central area of Stonehenge yet.......does anyone recall our discussions on its existence? Is it far from the altar stone?
From "Solving Stonehenge" by Anthony Johnson, 2008:- ' The tendon on top of Stone 56 has suffered little from weathering, suggesting that the fall of its partner and their libel may be counted in centuries rather than millenia. John Aubrey attributed the partial collapse to the Duke of Buckingham digging too close in 1620, but Dr Heer's watercolour shows it ruined nearly 50 years earlier, and there is a good reason for thinking it had probably fallen before the Middle Ages, as pinned beneath it lies the carefully worked Altar Stone which, had it been readily accessible, would doubtless have been prized by stone robbers or road builders.'
See also: A. Johnson, Solving Stonehenge: pages 134 - 135, where a large disturbed pit is mentioned vis a vis the Altar Stone.
My 22.45 Comment should have the quote begin with " tenon " NOT tendon!
We know where the bluestones came from; there are bags of the stuff in Pembrokeshire. Take me to where I can find massive lumps of micaceous sandstone, and I might show more interest in the Altar Stone.
Yes, nice mistake! Not to mention "libel" instead of "lintel"............ your text correction system is very forceful........
Hi Tom -- they think the Altar Stone provenancing debate is over and done with. But that is by no means the case.
After I reached an age when Top of the Pops was no longer essential, there was a group called " Altered Images". Well, we now have those who claim to " know", who insist that human beans ( it's my fake Norwich accent, not lively text correction) went on a mega - jolly to shift this mega heavyweight altar stone all t'way from northern Scotland to Wessex. By heck, it'll get the even more gullible punters in off the A303.....
I think Tim has updated this Post. It is now dated Monday 24th February. Take a look at the photos depicted.......
Your second citation ( very substantial!) doesn't work, Brian
The deep grooves (as marked on the drawing) look like pollisoir to my untrained eye. The fainter parallel lines running sub-horizontally are presumably the sandstone bedding?
Ian, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, Tim Daw updated his comments on his own sarsen.org blog. I got the impression that the archival photographs he shows may also have been somewhat improved..... which you may find worth scrutinising.
Going back to the very first comment made above, this is what MPP says in his 2023 " Stonehenge: a Brief History", page 8. " During Stage 3, someone dug a very large pit against the Great Trilithon. Whether this was done as an act of desecration is unknown but this was a time of social upheaval with the settling of Continental migrants in Britain. " MPP said in another ( 2012) book that this pit, on the West and North sides of the Great Trilithon, must have been huge, at least 12 metres long, 5 metres wide and 2.4 metres deep. He says we know that this pit was filled back up to the top in prehistory, within a century or so, because a bluestone was later set into it as part of the inner oval of bluestones, dated by an antler pick to 2270 - 1930 BC. He also says it extended at least as far north as the Altar Stone, where William Cunnington encountered part of a deep hole.
It's my opinion that the large pit described just previously above might well have had a large sarsen stone embedded within it naturally, OR one or more bluestones emanating via glacial movement from what we these days call the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire. Comments welcome.
Post a Comment