Ancient Stonehenge mystery solved thanks to particularly dry summer: archaeologists

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/01/ancient-stonehenge-mystery-solved-thanks-to-particularly-dry-summer-archeologists/



Ancient Stonehenge mystery solved thanks to particularly dry summer: archaeologists
By Steven Morris, The Guardian
Monday, September 1, 2014 13:43 EDT

One of the many mysteries of Stonehenge may have been solved, not because of a brilliant scientific breakthrough or thanks to painstaking research, but after a maintenance team’s hosepipe turned out to be a little short.

Archeologists have long argued over whether the ancient monument was once a perfect circle or if it was always, as it is now, an incomplete ring.

When a hosepipe used to keep the grass green in hot spells failed to reach a broken part of the circle, unsightly brown patches began to appear. Custodian Tim Daw was fretting over the blemishes when he realised they matched the spots where stones would probably have stood if the monument was a complete circle.

Daw, said it was a “lightbulb moment”. “I was standing on the public path looking at the grass near the stones and thinking that we needed to find a longer hosepipe to get the parched patches to green up,” he said.

[toby jo]

1. What I dig most about these old sites is the way they line up with ley lines.

[Enthusiast]

2. Thank you, unhappycamper.

Interesting stuff.

[packman]

3. This is a surprise to me:

"Archeologists have long argued over whether the ancient monument was once a perfect circle or if it was always, as it is now, an incomplete ring."

I thought it was commonly known that Stoney was a circle. Seems like I read about it being such in grade school and even seeing depictions of it being a circle at one time.

[Alcibiades]

4. You're right

There's really no debate, I think there have always just been some contrarians. Maybe some folks point to the missing stones and argue it was never finished, but this shows it must have been.

[William Seger]

5. Photo