Monthly Archives for January 2009

Gardenhenge, after the winter

garden-henge

photos and henge by Kilaana

This henge first caught our eye when we saw it in its full glory:

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but we find the picture taken after the elements had their way with it even more evocative of the original. This is not, as it appears, just another henge of small stones found nearby. It is the result of thought and work–the ‘stones’ were cast of Sand Topping Mix and then carved to more closely resemble the stones of Stonehenge! These people were determined . . . and perhaps a bit nutty. But in a good way, we think.

Maybe the elements were making a gesture to recognise this when they destroyed the henge in a way that made it resemble its ancient parent. This couple makes cheese henges, too. Kilaana says they are a hit at parties. We want to go to the parties she goes to! We could bring a Stonehenge game and a Stonehenge watch and some crackerhenges to go with their cheesehenges. maybe dress as druids. A party for henge-heads–it’s a thought.

Speaking of druids, there’s the question of a score. We give this one 7½ druids as is. Rebuild it with the trilithons added and we’ll probably give it an eight!

Finals Week Henge, Pasadena CA 2005

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photo by David Dow, with permission

One of the many motives for building a henge, as we saw in the Snowhenge of the Antarctic post, is for purposes of supplication. We suspect that this temporary henge built at Caltech (California Institute of Technology) for finals week a few years ago may have had such a motive, although whether the goal was good marks or just the end of the *&%$# semester we cannot say.

It has a nice look and at first we misunderstood it to be a permanent installation. The material used appears to be white boxes of some sort. In the photo at this link, (from there you can see a few more photos) you can see that the ‘stones’ were quite large. The representation is overly simple, but then it was built by freshmen. The fire in the center was a nice touch.

Score: 6 druids for thinking big, making it fun and giving it a little ambience!

Georgia Guidestones

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photo by Craigkbryant, reproduced from Wikipedia according to Gnu Free Documentation License, version 1.2

This was, of course, not a Stonehenge but was only on this blog because it kept getting called “America’s Stonehenge”. It was destroyed for safety reasons on the 6th of July, 2022, after it was damaged by a bombing overnight. If, like us here at Clonehenge, you did Stonehenge searches every day on social media, you could definitely see this coming. The right-wing wacko theory industry had been milking their false narrative about this eccentric monument for all it was worth, inflaming anger toward it and inciting its increasingly violent following.

The Georgia Guidestones, once standing in Elbert County, Georgia, USA, were easily the most controversial of all the sites referred to as American Stonehenges. Ten commandment-like proclamations are carved into the stones.  A radical fringe saw them as Satanic proclamations of alleged evil overlords, although it seems they were funded and worded by a wealthy eccentric as a guide to any people who might survive a global apocalypse like a nuclear war or other devastating event. Some who see the stones as evil had sworn to topple them for decades.  We had stated before that we considered the Guidestones the most threatened of the monuments we list here.

It’s a shame to lose such an odd and unique creation but we aren’t shedding any tears officially since it was in no way a Stonehenge like like the others you can find on our List of Large Permanent Replicas.  However its destruction is a warning that the far right-wing crazies in the United States are becoming increasingly motivated by the joy of violence. Anything they’ve been muttering about and threatening could be the next thing on the list including anyone striving to make this a better world.

Clone Henge / CloneHenge / Clonehenge

We have been considering this for some time and now, at the suggestion of henging expert and advocate Simon Burrow, we have repaired our broken name to match that of Stonehenge. We do not, however, agree that “if there is  a space it is not a henge”. We are inclined to yield to the creative henger full freedom to name his or her creation. When the International Henging Olympics are formed, no doubt the committee will rule on such crucial matters!

Our daily henge will be posted later.

Stonehenge in der Oberpfalz

oberpfalz-henge

photo by Alfred Schaffer, with permission

In southern Germany near the Czech border stands the simplest of Stonehenge replicas, a single trilithon. We do realize that a trilithon doth not a Stonehenge make, but in this case the circumstances of its creation qualify it as a replica. Once again the imperative to build at least a bit of Stonehenge had its way with the people it needed to make it happen. You can see it on Google Maps:

As far as we can make out by the use of automatically-translated pages (what fun!),  this trilithon was built as a project for a documentary film series about world cultures. Two hundred people helped to move and place the three 40-ton granite stones using methods similar to those the builders of Stonehenge may have used, and all of it was caught on film.

This is not the only German replica. The same nation is responsible for (guilty of?) the best strawhenge ever (and there have been many strawhenges!), Strohhenge. We’ll post more on that another day if we can get more information. Score for the Oberpfalz henge trilithon? Only 5½ druids for it as a Stonehenge replica, but as a monument, what’s not to like?