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Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

(OP)
Just a question:  

Stonehenge began to be built between 2500 and 3000 BC, or about 5000 years ago.   

If you were charged with making a memorial to commemorate Stonehenge - with today's materials - so that it would be accurate to the north star, the rise and set of the sun at the solstices, the stars, solar eclipses and lunar eclipses in the year 7100 - 5000 years from now, what would you use to build a similar size and shape monument?  

How would you set the foundations and material so they would withstand that long in the open air, but still be accurate to the (future) position of the stars?   Granted, many stones at Stonehenge have fallen, and it is very crude model, so you'd have the responsibility of not "re-making" the rough outlines we see now, but (for example) you'd have to carve sharp, accurate edges and making the monument so the "bridges" would not fall.

But how would you do the job?   If you pour concrete for the foundation, what would you use as rebar to keep the concrete good that long?   Would you make everything of stainless steel?  Granite and stainless?   

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

I watched a documentary the other day about the A303, a major trunk road across the country, which famously passes Stonehenge, Roman leftovers and other old stuff.

The point was made that the stones have been moved around quite a lot in recent years ... rebuilt if you like.  Lintels repositioned, etc.

- Steve

LinkedIn

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Yeah, one needs to be careful about how excited one gets about what you see as the current Stone Henge, there has been a lot of meddling over an extended period.

As to how I'd build it, well I'd look at building techniques that have been shown to last a long time and go from there.

Also, building in a place with low seismic activity, weather that isn't too agressive... would also help.

The real problem is pesky humans wanting to destroy or modify it for some reason.  Not sure what you can really do about that.

Sure making the 'blocks' really, really big so they're hard to move has worked moderately well in various places.  However, with the technology we have now, one suspects it's not the deterrent it was even a couple of hundred years ago.

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RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

To keep the meddling humans out, just put up prominent signs stating "Radioactive Waste, 10,000 year half life".

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

racookpe1978,

   My understanding is that the ancient Egyptians maintained structures that were anywhere up to 3000 years old.  Structures can last a very long time if the people around them want them to.  Most structures are actively destroyed either because of warfare, or because someone wanted them replaced with something else.

   The critical factors with Stonehenge are that it is a very solid stone structure, and it was abandoned by the the time the Romans arrived.  The Celts worhsipped in oak groves not circular temples.  Stonehenge predates the Celts, and the Indo-European invasions.  We know almost nothing about the people who built it.

   I understand it is out in the middle of nowhere, so no one has leveled it and built something else on top of it.  Your monument will cease to exist when somebody decides that it is a good site for a Walmart.

   How stable is English soil?  Maybe Stonehenge was extremely accurate way back when they built it.   

               JHG

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

JHG,

Stonehenge is passed by millions of motorists every day.  There are plans that get passed and then binned to build a tunnel underneath it to avoid the inevitable damage from huge amounts of traffic.  

"middle of nowhere"?

"middle of everywhere" more like.

England is a really small country.

- Steve

LinkedIn

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

SomptingGuy,

   It is next to a throughfare now.  The people who built it did not anticipate automobiles.

   Here in Toronto, Canada, there is a fancy street called the Bridle Path.  Back in the fifties, this was developed with all sorts of fashionable bungalows, designed by name architects, for rich people.  Most of these will have a hard time lasting 1% of the time Stonehenge has.  They are being pulled down and replaced with the "monster homes" fashionable with rich people now.  

   Religious sites can last a very long time, at least until the religion becomes unfashonable.  Forts last until an enemy captures them and destroys them.  Sites in the middle of active cities get built over and over as the city's needs change.  In that sense, Stonehenge is in the middle of nowhere.

               JHG

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

"put up prominent signs stating "Radioactive Waste, 10,000 year half life". "

That worked well for the Egyptians too:  "Stay out or the mummy will curse you"*.  The bodies were likely still warm when the first tomb robbers broke in.

*or more equivalently to marauding Frenchmen: "$%&%** &$%&& #$%(&^(#$%!"

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Stonehenge really isn't that far from Amesbury or several other settlements.

Check it out on Google Earth if you want.

Sure, it's not in the middle of a city right now, however the factors that decide where large cities are vary with time.

I mean, there were few large permanent settlements anywhere in North America a few hundred years ago, where as now...

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RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

The Parthenon is a good example of a structure that has had both destructive occurrences as well as repair/restoration occurrences, although previous efforts supposedly reassembled parts incorrectly.  

So, not all ancient structures survive intact; the Parthenon has been bombed out, vandalized, incorrectly restored, etc.  Stonehenge is probably an exception; while not necessarily in the "middle of nowhere," England never got invaded by the Ottoman Turks and Stonehenge never had to be used as a weapons storage building, since it wasn't even really a building.

The Sphinx might be considered to be another edifice that dates from more than 4000 yrs ago, but it likewise has suffered erosion, defacement, multiple poor restorations/repairs.

Stonehenge, in actuality, is the 3rd or 6th iteration of a structure, so it too has not really remained intact over the millenia.  The main reason reason for the sarsens' and lintels' longevity is that they are basically igneous rocks, which are as good as it can get.

A potential competitor to Stonehenge for future longevity is Mt. Rushmore, which is carved out of granite, and supposedly will only experience about 1 inch of erosion every 10,000 yrs.  So, 10 millenia from now, hopefully someone will verify this effect.

TTFN

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RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

I was in Athens several years ago, when the Parthenon had been taken apart and was being rebuilt.  They probably built it better this time.  Building ruins is a growth industry in that part of the world.  Was in Ephesus recently, and they have plans to build some more ruins with some recently discovered rocks.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

I think KENAT means Avebury.  That's much less of a tourist trap, but similarly fascinating, historically.

- Steve

LinkedIn

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

No, I think KENAT does mean Amesbury - the small town closest to Stonehenge.

For my money, Avebury is the more impressive monument.

For a serious attempt at concept design for a monument to last that long, try Googling "Sandia 92-1382"

A.  

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

These guys are building a 10,000 year clock.  There may be another long clock project going on.
How would you do it?
http://longnow.org/clock/

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

The SPhynx showed the problem with building large. The Turks used it for an artillery target (I think it was their ammunition that blew up in the Parthenon).

On the plus side it is a great benefit that modern construction will barely last the lives of the owners.

Thing is, Stonehenge was in the middle of nowhere - when it was built - by today's standards that is.
Reminds me of the American tourists visiting Windsor castle. "Gee that's real cute but why did they build it so near the airport?"

There are a number of chemical plants along the Thames that were built on marshland that no one wanted. Encroachment means that today they are surrounded by housing stuffed full of idiots complaining to their MPs that the chemical plant is too close to their homes.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Referring to the OP's question - yes - have had it for years in the states here - it's called a "Twinkie".

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto:  KISS
Motivation:  Don't ask

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

So you build a monument like this today, with explosives, waterjet rock cutters, diamond saws, a few multi wheel low loaders and a couple of 500 ton cranes. Plus back hoes, bull dozers and other earth movers.
 Then we go through another dark age and all knowlege of these tools disappears. what do you think future generations would do?
 Would they speculate as we do, as to how these things were done?
B.E.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them.  Old professor

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Amesbury/Avebury/Stonehenge, whatever...

Several years ago I was sharing a house with a "recreational" smoker and we visited all these places in one afternoon.  Or was it one weekend?  Where did I leave that car?

- Steve

LinkedIn

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?


US National Cathedral

This took 83 years to build and supposedly will last 1000 years.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Looks to me that most human artifacts, made of stone and the like, will survive indefinitely, barring damage or destruction from war.  The Pyramids, Easter Island Moai, Parthenon, Megalithic Temples of Malta, Hieraconpolis, and others, are all shaped or constructed by Man, and have survived for hundreds, or thousands, of years.

According to http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/where-was-the-oldest-man-made-construction-on-earth-found there is a circle of lava blocks laid down by Homo Habilis, about 1.7 million years ago.

TTFN

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RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

IRstuff,

   An important issue with monolithic structures like Stonehenge is that you cannot steal building materials, at least, not without hundreds of people helping you.  

               JHG

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

drawoh,

Absolutely, that's why there are gaping holes in the Great Wall, and only fragments left of Troy, since not only did the latecomers steal building materials, they simply built on top of the previous ruins.  I'm a bit unclear to me how everything flattens out, but supposedly it was done multiple times.

Nonetheless, it would seem that what the OP asks for is not that hard, in of itself, i.e., just build a structure out of granite or similar igneous rock, located on a seismically, and climatically stable site, and KEEP PEOPLE FROM MESSING WITH IT.   

TTFN

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RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

One other key element to preservation is being buried. Even the Pyramids have not fared so well over 4000 years.  Erosion, freeze-thaw cycles, thermocycling, corrosion, and fungus and plant roots destroy everything eventually.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

The pyramids were encased in white limestone which proved too much of a temptation.

The trick with Stonehenge is that the finished appearance wasn't that alluring. (Some suggest it had a wooden roof at one time).
Plus for a long while no one recognised it for what it was. Some farmer even tried to get rid of the "nuisance stones" by lighting big fires against them but gave up.

The military is a good idea.
Much of Salisbury Plain is/was army test ranges, tank training etc. If they could have included Stonehenge, so much he better. Some of the best wild life habitat is to be found on land used only by the army. They have a low and infrequent impact and when finances are so bad the troops run around pointing guns and shouting bang because they can't afford ammunition, they do even better.
So make sure to pick a site the army likes.
Oh, except if they can afford ammunition in which case don't build above ground. Witness the use of the Sphynx as an artillery target. Large monuments can be to the military what Greenhouse glass is to a small boy with a catapult. Plus the average squaddy isn't exactly a respecter of ancient or modern monuments. I remember visiting a company in an old country house which the Americans had taken over during WWII. Some idiot GI had decided to drive a jeep up the grand staircase and collapsed it. After that its fate was sealed.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Greg,

Have you had trouble finding the paper?  There was an article, I think in SciAm, around the time it published, discussing the monument designs etc. etc. from the Sandia teams.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

I'd start by checking out what the Japanese made the arch out of:

Nagasaki 1945, after the atomic bomb


Nagasaki 2011, after the earthquake and tsunami

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

But oh so inaccurate.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

You mean the arch is not there anymore?

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them.  Old professor

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Don't know about that, but Nagasaki is nowhere near the tsunami location.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

No but the tsunami was caused by the earthquake and the caption reads: "after the earthquake and tsunami". So it may not have been hit by the tsunami but by the earthquake?

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Not this earthquake.  Nagasaki and Hiroshima are down on the southwest corner of Honshu, which I think is at least 1000 km SW of Tokyo.  The earthquake was northeast of Tokyo.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

And certainly, if there was that much earthquake damage, even with the tsunami news dominating the airwaves, there would have been some mention of Nagasaki, specifically because it's Nagasaki.  There would have been mention of some sort of curse, getting flattened by an A-bomb, and then, 66 yrs later, getting flattened by an earthquake.  

And, to top that off, there's a blog with the same photos and a different story:
http://blogs.forbes.com/christianwolan/2011/03/15/earthquake-and-tsunami-photos-echo-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/

As a further nail in the coffin, there are pictures of the same type of gate surviving the earthquake in northern Japan, and possibly, the same gate in the other photo:
http://newshopper.sulekha.com/japan-earthquake_photo_1748620.htm

However, there's a example of a similar Torii gate that didn't survive the earthquake:
http://blog.alientimes.org/2011/03/in-the-quakes-aftermath-a-visit-to-some-farms-shrines-and-temples-in-tsukuba/

TTFN

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RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

OK but that the arch survived an earthquake should not be surprising. I seem to recall that many of the old temples in Japan and in China were surprisingly sophisticated earthquake resistant structures and a quick Google (how I could have done with google in my youth as an instant adjudicator.... it would have saved countless arguments).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_architecture
And the Chinese developed an earthquake sensor that would both sense the event and give some indication of the direction of event.....http://www.ancientchinaculture.com/things/zhang-heng-and-his-earthquake-sensor.html
and http://www.clcillinois.edu/programs/esc/index.asp?seismic
and we should not forget the shaking minarets of Sifahan....http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1202984 though as indicated, earthquake resistance is only a supposition.

Wehave to recognise that modern technology does not mean that earlier cultures were not sophisticated. In many cases the label "primitive" is extremely patronising and very inaccurate.

It is one reason why I was so impressed by the very sophisticated theory of pyramid construction which featured in one of these threads and I was fortunate enough to see a TV show on the theory much later.

Some people may tend to think that when we try to understand early construction that the theories we bring to it are too sophisticated for the time despite being rooted in the "available technology".
We might perhaps consider that the modern engineer is actually handicapped when considering ancient construction methods by the fact that he hasn't spent his entire life living within the ancient construction methods.
The thing that has evolved is knowledge and technology. What we might suppose is that men are no more clever today than in the past. So a clever engineer in any era will perform challenging tasks and push the envelope. Indeed, back then with no 'elf 'n safety and an unlimited supply of materials and cash who knows what they could or could not do?
Hence, if we can visualise a way to do things "within the available technology" we might suppose we are still not as adept in using the available technology as a good engineer of the time might be.

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Earthquake resistance of Torii gates was discussed in the separate thread that I ran across: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelblogs/1040/107255/A+Japan+Photo+per+Day+-+Japanese+Earthquake+Resistant+History+at+Nikko?destId=356635

Note that the Japanese have been building structures in an earthquake zone since the beginning of their habitation of those islands, so they should have learned something about building earthquake resistant structures in those thousands of years.

TTFN

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RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

   I am now reading The Tribes of Britain, by David Miles.  He claims that two of the oldest occupied houses in Britain are the following, both in Lincoln, built sometime in the 1100s...

   The Jew's House the Strait.

   The Norman House in Steep Hill.

   Somehow, the buildings have been perceived as useful for 900 years.

               JHG

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Those houses look eerily similar.winky smile

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

ewh,

   Isn't it amazing how precisely the Normans could reproduce a house back in 1170.  Of course, there is no possibility I got the URL wrong on one of them.smile

               JHG

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

To answer the OP's question, I would build it out of leftovers from my significant other's dinner menu.  I'm reasonably certain that everything she cooks would survive tens of thousands of years out in the elements, and would most certainly be left alone by both man and animal alike.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Dine out a lot?
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

Mr 168, It does suggest your SB's gingerbread house would fit the bill nicely.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

I thought they did a nice job recreating Stonehenge on Spinal Tap.

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

JMW: It's a safe bet that they'll find a lot of Taco Bell and Chinese take-out during my autopsy...

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

A great building material would be low fat mayonnaise.  I have no idea what it's made from, but it is impervious to the elements and all known cleaning materials.

- Steve

LinkedIn
 

RE: Stonehenge: Could You Make A Monument For 5000 Years Service?

I wonder if, when the scientists and archaeologists get done messing around with Stonehenge and finally figure out the true final design and rebuild it that way, it will suddenly send a signal out into deep space?
Maybe they'd better stop messing with it.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

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