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Monuments and Megaliths: From Stonehenge to ‘Stonage’

Angus Vine

in In Defiance of Time: Antiquarian Writing in Early Modern England

This chapter considers the antiquarian response to ancient monuments through a detailed account of early modern discussions of Stonehenge. The Wiltshire stone circle enthralled the antiquaries, but ... More

This chapter considers the antiquarian response to ancient monuments through a detailed account of early modern discussions of Stonehenge. The Wiltshire stone circle enthralled the antiquaries, but it also taxed their imaginations. Enigmatic and inadequately explained in historical sources, it was perhaps the archetypal antiquarian curiosity. The chapter proposes that a new, practical methodology emerged to enable viewers to make sense of such monuments: measurement, or, as it was known at the time, mensuration. This became an important way of describing ancient remains, conveying both their size and their wonder, but it was also increasingly a strategy to interpret or make sense of them. The chapter also explores how Stonehenge became an important locus for the poetic imagination, as poets increasingly commented on the speculation over the monument and also found in its enigma moral and epistemological lessons.Less

Excursus: A Heart Unknown

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

Stone’s function as human memorial is discussed.

Afterword: Iceland

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

Iceland offers a lesson of stone’s impermanence: it moves like any liquid, restless and ephemeral.

The Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age: The Time of The Sacred Circle

Ronald Hutton

in Pagan Britain

The monumental forms of Early to the Late Neolithic include round ceremonial enclosures and circular settings for the burial of human remains. In Ireland, the developed passage grave or passage tomb ... More

The monumental forms of Early to the Late Neolithic include round ceremonial enclosures and circular settings for the burial of human remains. In Ireland, the developed passage grave or passage tomb consists of a large round mound, entered by a long passage of megaliths leading to a stone-built chamber. Neolithic inhabitants also built the largest chambered long barrow causeway enclosure and cursus and the largest henges: the Avebury henge, Marden and Mount Pleasant Henges, and the Durrington Walls. About two miles and southwest of Durrington is the most famous prehistoric monument in the world: Stonehenge.Less

Merlin: Magic, Miracles, and Marvels

Karen Sullivan

in The Danger of Romance: Truth, Fantasy, and Arthurian Fictions

In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, medieval thinkers disagreed about what they called “marvels,” that is, phenomena in the natural world that cannot be understood according to the laws of ... More

In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, medieval thinkers disagreed about what they called “marvels,” that is, phenomena in the natural world that cannot be understood according to the laws of Nature, and about Merlin, the preeminent performer of marvels. Rationalists denied the existence of marvels because they denied that anything natural was beyond human comprehension. They argued that, because Merlin was not a saint, enacting miracles with divine aid, he must have been a limb of the devil, enacting magic with demonic assistance. Contemplatives affirmed the existence of marvels because they affirmed the irreducible mysteriousness of God’s existence. They maintained that Merlin possessed a natural power, neither divine nor demonic, to predict the future. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Life of Merlin and History of the Kings of Britain and Robert de Boron’s Merlin, Merlin demonstrates that time is not a linear sequence of points but a web of correspondences, where marvelous portents (like dragons) anticipate the future and marvelous memorials (like Stonehenge) recall the past. One should respond to a marvel, these texts suggest, not by trying to understand it, but by delighting in it, as one responds to romance.Less

Introduction: Stories of Stone

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

The introduction maps how a geologically-inflected materialism opens new literary vistas. It discusses Job, Aldo Leopold, Bruno Latour, Graham Harman, Sisyphus and others of geological note.

Geophilia: The Love of Stone

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

The first chapter examines geophilia, a shared desire between humans and stones for endurance, creativity, and art.

Excursus: The Weight of the Past

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

The author explores Bordeaux, Paris, and Montparnasse and contemplates stone’s legacy in the city.

Time: The Insistence of Stone

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

“Time” looks at deep time as understood now and in the Middle Ages, detailing how fossils arrive into history rich with stories of cataclysm and a call to inventiveness.

Force: The Adventure of Stone

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

“Force” investigates how stone works as both a magnet, drawing attention and desire, and a propulsive force, disrupting and moving just when we assume bedrock to be still.

Excursus: Geologic

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

The author explores Scotland and ponders how stone represents a people’s history.

Soul: The Life of Stone

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

“Life” considers how some people have been locked into a Stone Age by others in order to dispossess them, then details how stone’s liveliness provides a countermovement and queer vitality.

Stonehenge and Avebury: A Ritual and Ceremonial Landscape?

D. W. Harding

in Rewriting History: Changing Perceptions of the Past

As Britain’s foremost prehistoric monument, Stonehenge illustrates changing fashions in interpretation of, and public and professional attitudes towards, the national archaeological heritage over at ... More

As Britain’s foremost prehistoric monument, Stonehenge illustrates changing fashions in interpretation of, and public and professional attitudes towards, the national archaeological heritage over at least three centuries. From Stukeley and the early antiquaries there was constant interest in Stonehenge and its environs, including Avebury and Silbury Hill. But it was not until the twentieth century, after the site had become a listed ancient monument and had been taken into state guardianship, that the greatest damage was inflicted through fieldwork that remained unpublished until the end of the century. Stonehenge evidently was significant in terms of the seasonal solar cycle, but in the mid-twentieth century especially it became the focus of astro-archaeologists with complex theories of astronomical and calendrical significance. Interest has always focused on the origin of the bluestones, whether the product of glacial drift or transported from south Wales by the builders. Research on Stonehenge and its neighbourhood in recent years has greatly enhanced understanding of the site’s chronological and structural sequence, and its possible roles as a place of ritual, burial, and ceremonial activity. Now with Avebury part of the World Heritage site, Stonehenge is once again subject to controversy as to how best to protect its environment from greatly increased volumes of traffic.Less

Stonehenge and the Druids: Antiquarian Controversy in Restoration England

Kelsey Jackson Williams

in The Antiquary: John Aubrey's Historical Scholarship

Aubrey is famous for his groundbreaking survey of Stonehenge and his identification of it and similar megalithic stone circles as Druidic temples. This chapter explores how his study of prehistoric ... More

Aubrey is famous for his groundbreaking survey of Stonehenge and his identification of it and similar megalithic stone circles as Druidic temples. This chapter explores how his study of prehistoric monuments developed out of a mid-seventeenth-century scholarly controversy over the origins of Stonehenge and explores its parallels to similar archaeologically minded scholarship in Denmark and Sweden, emphasizing Aubrey’s methodological debts to the works of Ole Worm and Olof Rudbeck. Like his Swedish contemporaries, Aubrey, although an innovative and intelligent scholar, was strongly conditioned by nationalist presuppositions, and his reconstruction of ancient British culture was inflected by his own Welsh self-identification and his consequent marginalization of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian contributions to modern English culture.Less

Ebenezer Sibly’s Wondrous Library

Susan Mitchell Sommers

in The Siblys of London: A Family on the Esoteric Fringes of Georgian England

Scholars of esotericism often cite Ebenezer Sibly as a key figure in the transmission of early modern knowledge of the arcane to its “rediscovery” in the nineteenth century. Their explanation of his ... More

Scholars of esotericism often cite Ebenezer Sibly as a key figure in the transmission of early modern knowledge of the arcane to its “rediscovery” in the nineteenth century. Their explanation of his importance focuses on his “wondrous library” of scarce books and manuscripts. In fact, his library is mentioned in his will, but its omission from his probate inventory invites a reappraisal of the traditional account. What happened to the library? If it existed, what did it contain? This chapter reconstructs the contents of the library and draws some conclusions about how essential it was for Sibly’s reputation as a transmitter of early modern esotericism. The absence of a physical library also leads to a refashioning of Sibly’s role in the esoteric revival. He emerges not as a guardian of ancient books, but as the compiler of An Illustration, which, published affordably in numbers, helped build a broad readership for astrology.Less