A Gerald Hawkins Model, Long Before Spinal Tap!

Model built for Gerald Hawkins at Boston University

First off, let us say:

If, before reading this, you already had an opinion about Stone Number 11 at Stonehenge, or even if you have just thought of arguments against someone else’s opinion on the subject, then even if we never get to meet you, you are one of our favourite people in the world! Clonehenge loves you and henceforth wants to make itself a better blog for you.

As part of that effort, today we offer you some Stonehenge model history. For those who are not familiar with his name, Gerald Stanley Hawkins was a British archaeoastronomer best known for his 1963 (1965? sources differ) book, Stonehenge Decoded, in which he advanced the now well-known ideas about Stonehenge being a precise astronomical observatory. We won’t go on more about that, but if you’re curious, Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo can help you out!

Shot of the model showing stone shapes

Dr. Hawkins was chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Boston University in the States from 1957 to 1969, and during that time he had the above model built for him to use in teaching undergraduate university students and for use in documentary films and television shows. The model is now at Boston University and we show it here by the kind permission of Quinn Sykes, the very generous help of Vance Tiede, and of course, the inspiration and tireless work of Hengefinder General Extraordinaire Mr. Pete Glastonbury (Is that the brilliant Wiltshire photographer and author of the must-have Stonehenge Guide ebook, you ask? Yes, friend, none other than!) . Clonehenge thanks you, dear sirs!

It is clear that this is a brilliant model of a sort very rarely built any more. These days archaeoastronomers prefer computer models for their demonstrations of how light would shine on ancient sites and what stars were visible where at various times of year. But back then, something like this was the only option. The description, by Mr. Vance Tiede, is as follows:

“The model appears made of plaster and each quadrant measures roughly a 24″ on a side or 16 feet square in total area. The detail is very good, even with individual post holes to the NW of the Heelstone. Stone 57* is missing, as the model was made before the hole for a Stone 57 was discovered. Stone 11 is two times too big and the lintels should be removed.”

And there it is: Stone 11. Stop everything! What is he talking about?

Well, Gentle Reader, we thought you would never ask! It turns out that there is a controversy about Stone 11. Mr. Tiede, when we asked him about it, answered:

“…the two lintels shown above Stone 11 should be removed, as Atkinson pointed out, Stone 11 is one-half the width and height of the other 29 uprights of the Sarsen Circle. The is a highly significant astro-architectural detail as the total number of uprights is literally 29.5 stones, i.e., one stone for every day of the Moon’s Synodic Period of 29.53 days. Similarly, Stonehenge’s 30 Y-Holes and 29 Z-Holes together represent the Double Month (later used in Athens, ca. 500 BC) of alternating 30 and 29 Days (and still used in the Jewish Liturgical Calendar) also producing an average of 29.5 days.”

So there is a short stone in the outer circle, Stone Number Eleven, and Mr. Tiede thinks it never had lintels. Another opinion we have run across is that Stone 11 was short on purpose, as Mr. Tiede says, but that it still had lintels, and may even show the marks where they would have fit. Meanwhile, Sue Greaney, Senior Properties Historian with English Heritage, says that recent laser survey analysis suggests the stone is short because it is broken, and therefore may have been just as large as the others at the start.

Who’s to say? But it’s something to keep in mind when you make a replica. Find a chart showing where each numbered stone is at Stonehenge and make number 11 short if you want.

Before ending the post we should add that there is reason to suspect that this model had another part. Another model we have seen Gerald Hawkins use on a television show had an alternate center circle in which the stones stood pretty much as they stand today, a ruined Stonehenge that could be switched in and back out again to show differences between how it looks now and how it may have looked in its heyday. This may have included something similar.

Score? Because of its historic association with Dr. Hawkins, and the detail such as good stone shapes, the Aubrey holes and outlier stones being included, we award this miniature Stonehenge 8 druids! Well done, indeed!

One more thing to consider. Someone recently told us that the outer sarsens were once uniform in size and shape, and only the wear of thousands of years has given each its idiosyncratic shape. To us it is hard to believe that the beautiful oddities of Stonehenge were not a part of it in its youth, but who knows? Many little mysteries: Stonehenge continues to guard its secrets.

And there is your Stonehenge history lesson for the day! There is a lot to learn about this little pile of stones. Until next time, friends, Happy Henging!!

*As to the comment about Stone 57, see the correction in the comment below, by Mr. Simon Banton, who knows Stonehenge well.

Babyhenge! The Jelly Kind (Best We Could Do)

Jelly Babyhenge, photo and henge by Dave Dummet

In honour of the Royal Sprout, whether he lives to rule or to banish the monarchy, we wish him and his parents and grandparents good luck and good health!

Oh, and we hope you like our new look. It is here to stay. Comments are welcome.

Blobs of Compressed Wonder Bread: Stonehenge Replicas Hit a New Low!

Stonehenge Sculpted from Wonder Bread by Milena Korolczuk

Stonehenge, the grand and mysterious ancient ruin of Salisbury Plain, thought by some to be the spherical temple with many offerings located in Hyperborea, as mentioned by Diodorus, has now been reproduced in the medium of compressed Wonder Bread, which, if you are not familiar with it, is bread in the same sense that coconut-scented shampoo is fruit. But there it is: you can see it above. A crumby little Stonehenge. Sigh.

This is not to say that the artist, Milena Korolczuk, has not been very clever in creating her Stonehenge de pain, her megaliths o fara, her ancient stones van brood. Of course very few people would be able, or would want to create a careful little sculptural sketch like this from such an unorthodox substance. It is brilliant in its own way. We applaud her.

Score: 6 druid. Six tiny little crumbly stale druids. We had put them at the back of the shelf the first summer we started Clonehenge and forgot about them all this time, but here is the perfect way to use them. We don’t even have to brush the cobwebs or mouse dropping off of them. There, little fellows, off you go!

What’s interesting about this for our purposes, if you look at the page it came from, is that except for a depiction of the earth, all of the other sculptures are human portraits. Stonehenge is the only monument or icon, or anything. Which brings us, as always to the question that echoes down the centuries of posts amassed on this now millennia-old blog,

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

No, that’s not it. What is it? Let’s see…

WHAT IS IT ABOUT STONEHENGE????

Yes, thank you. That’s the one precisely. What is Stonehenge doing to us as a species? Why do people stuck in Antarctica build snowhenges? Why do people drinking wine make cheesehenges? Why do people at the beach make little Stonehenges from odd roundish stones? Why do rich people build full-sized Stonehenges, and regular people build those odd one-trilithon henges? Why, when people build odd things from stone that don’t look like Stonehenge AT ALL, do they call them Stonehenges?

People laugh at us when we say that Stonehenge has a secret force that in a sense lays a psychic egg in the minds of those who loom at it, forcing them to reproduce it in some form at a point in the future. But tell us, oh you mockers and laughers, how do YOU explain it? What dark forces are at work that has created Stonehenges on every continent? That has forced scientists and artists and students and real estate agents and all sorts of people with little in common to reproduce it in countless forms? We leave this question here for you to ponder.

As for what we want, we ask for two things, two forms of Stonehenge now that we have our inflatable bouncy Stonehenge that once was only a dream. We would like to see: 1. A Stonehenge replica, no matter how small, on the International Space Station, and 2. We would like to see an inflatable FLOATING Stonehenge, preferably of a good size. These are our dream henges. See what you can do. You aren’t busy with anything important. You don’t fool us.

The world shambles on in strange lurches, its rhythms forced by powers we cannot imagine, and when we try to site ahead, we see only dim inexplicable shapes in patterns of motion that defy understanding. Someday we will actually write a humourous blog, but until then, dear readers, happy henging!

New Stonehenge Cakes: A Quick Post to Catch Us Up!

Stonehenge cake at Stonehenge Drove, spring equinox

The Stonehenge cake, a sub-genre of the Stonehenge=you-can-eat category, is one of the most popular forms of small Stonehenge replica. And this brilliant photograph also falls into the rarified category of Stonehenge replicas AT Stonehenge, one of only three that we can remember, including Straw Echo Henge, and a film including a small trilithon model used by Stonehenge scholar Professor Richard Atkinson to demonstrate how he thought Stonehenge was built. Rarified company indeed! So far we know the henger of this cake only as Tracey’s sister, but we will NOT REST until we have wrested the truth from wherever it lies!!! Well, we might actually rest. One needs sleep, after all, and anyway, most of you (pretending here that our theoretical readers have any basis at all in reality) probably do not care a whit who made it. Still.

Another picture of the cake, made for the birthday of one ONj Le ChAØs

Quite a nice cake! Note the trilthon horseshoe facing the three-lintel stretch. One wonders, did they read Clonehenge first?? Score: 8½ druids, to match our former winner, which was made by Sharon Barwell of Iced Moments, Nottingham! Our thanks to Hengefinder Francis Stoner for bringing it to our attention!

While we’re on about cakehenges and Stonehenge cakes, here is another recently posted on the wall of the Clonehenge Facebook group, which is where you can see pictures of most of the things that end up here well before they, well, end up here. (Yes, we know how bad Facebook is, how it’s killing our bees and forcing corporate seed ownership and cutting down rainforest, killing indigenous children, clubbing baby seals and fracking the land, thus poisoning our water [We MAY have got it mixed up with a few other corporations there. Never mind. We work in broad strokes], but, hey, it is also convenient, so we’re all in!) And anyway, much more important than anything in those parentheses, here is the other henged cake.

From the Archaeology Tea Club, made by Kaitlin Mckenna

This cake is, obviously, lovely, and by all accounts it was scrumptious, too. The new twist here is on the sides of the cake: remains of those who were buried at Stonehenge, skulls and all! Clever, we must say. Our 8½ to the others forces us to give this one 8 druids, the buried remains almost making up for the limitations of space on top and the resulting limits to realism in henge form! Our thanks to Nicola Didsbury for bringing this one to our attention!

Lovely cakes, and proof that henging is nothing like an all-male obsession. It has been brought to our attention that it would be useful for us to post lists of all of the henges we have posted, according to category, for example, a listing called Edible Henges with categories under it like Cheesehenges, Cirtushenges, Cakehenges, etc. There must be some edible henges that don’t begin with the letter C! Carrothenges? Damn. Aaaanyway, yes, we should do that. We could list miniature outdoor henges, planetarium henges, woodhenges, gardenhenges, and so on. If only we were that kind of people, that Organised Kind of People! Alas, we are not. That’s why there is a search box at the right of the blog!

Our concession will be to list the cakehenges we have listed so far. Mind you, we have not posted every Stonehenge cake we’ve ever seen, so any list will be partial in the larger sense. We will proceed to do so, any day now, on the end of this post, so watch this space! We mean it. Come back in a day or so and be amazed!

Until then, kind friends, happy henging!

Addendum: Cakehenges We Have Known:

Cakehenges come in two main categories: a) Primitive lintels-over-uprights constructions, and b) sculptured Stonehenges. When we started out, we gave great scores to the first kind because we had never seen the second kind. We begin this list with the simpler variety and work up to the works of art.

1. A Cakehenge for Morris Dancers, posted in December 2009.

2. Let’s Call it Cakehenge, posted in July 2009.

3. Cupcake-henge: You Know You Want It!, posted in March 2009.

4. Cakehenge, Done Right!, posted in April 2009.

5. Gingerbreadhenge, An October Classic, posted in November 2009.*

6. Celebrating Sixty: A Battenberg Cakehenge (by our royal celebrity guest blogger!!), posted in October 2012.

7. Icing Henge: Perhaps the Ultimate Stonehenge Cake!, posted in January 2010. (With this one, we leap with both feet into the second category!)

8. Cakehenges and Word Fields, posted in June 2011. (Actually 2)

9. Best Stonehenge Cupcakes Ever!, posted in August 2011.

10. Let Them Henge Cake: Sweet Stonehenge from the Land of Robin Hood!, posted in May 2012.

and…

11. A Little Stonehenge, Cucumber, and Eleven!, posted in January 2010. (Its own genre of Stonehenge cake, based on Spinal Tap.)

*seems to us there have been more gingerbreadhenges, but enough is enough!

There you have it, folks! And that doesn’t include sconehenges or that one of French toast wrapped in bacon.

Brazilian White Quartzite Stonehenge on Live Moss, from Brazil: Small but Fine!

Sergio Greif, henge, and curious dogs

Olá! We greet you from Brasil, como Brasileiros! Yes, it is literally true that we are in Brazil, given the modern usage of the word literally! Poor word, it has a bad case of inflation. But—back to the henge! (Great titles for a book, there: Back to the Henge. You’re welcome.) The miniature Stonehenge in the picture above was sent to us by charming reader Sergio Greif of somewhere in Brazil. We have been meaning to post it since February, but, well, we didn’t, so now we are. (Is it just us, or do those dogs look like they are eager to celebrate the solstice?)

This is not our first henge from Brazil, not even our second. Very early on, we posted the beautiful mosaic fruit jelly henge:

And about a year and a half ago we posted our first South American permanent replica in São Paulo, Brazil at the Center for the Study of the Universe (!!). So Brazil appears to be a pretty happening place, hengewise.

Quartzite henge on moss, another view, with fewer distractions 😉

As some of you may know, we had two email apocalypses, and unfortunately the original email from Mr. Greif has been lost, but part of it was preserved on the Clonehenge Facebook group and read as follows:

Here is a Brazilian Stonehenge, made in white quartzite and natural live moss specifically at December 23, 2012. Hope you like it.

all the best, Sergio Greif

As you can see, we don’t actually know much about this henge, the why of it, especially, but it is lovely, and we’re curious about the source of the quartzite. Did Mr. Greif somehow cut those pieces to size? Were they left over from some other project? The live moss is certainly a nice touch, bringing it close to falling into the miniature garden category that has become so popular.

Score? We give it 6 druids! That might seem a little high to some, but this thing has a charm about it, and we like the presentation, with the flower petals in one picture and such cuteness in the other (referring to the dogs, of course. Well, mostly… ) Thank you, sir. Some very nice henging going on in your country!

While we’re on the topic of smaller Stonehenge replicas, the Henge Collective is still hard at work, and posted a set of pictures depicting Fimohenge, a small henge of a kind of modeling clay. Eventually, we are told, this model will be the basis of an animated Henge Collective movie! The planet holds its breath in anticipation. In the future, all art will be henge art.

That is literally true!

Keep sending in your pictures, or posting them on the Clonehenge group or page on Facebook. You can even find us at @Clonehenge on Twitter. We haven’t made the move to App.net, but we will if people start switching over! We go where you go, to bring you the henges you need, when you need them!

Until next time, friends, happy henging!

Stonehenge at the Moscow Planetarium: Our First Russian Henge!

Stonehenge replica at the Moscow Planetarium

We don’t mean to brag (LYING!!!), but on our page of the 76 large, permanent replicas, we asserted, “Surely Russia and India must each have at least one!” Well, guess what, you sweet little hengers? We found one in Russia, OH YES WE DID! Well, sort of. It is permanent, but calling it large might be stretching the truth. A bit. As seen here: (What shirt?)

waist high

In the past we have pointed out, for the benefit of would-be hengefinders, that planetariums are great places to look for Stonehenge replicas, because their designers and builders like to reference mankind’s observation of the stars throughout history and prehistory, and, right or wrong, Stonehenge is understood by many to have been an astronomical observatory. Great justification for science-types to let their mystical side out a little!

The Moscow Planetarium Henge is a fairly standard planetarium replica, in the precise placement and clean lines of the stones. It is a little stiff and overly uniform, although we must give them credit for noticing the basic shape of the stones, and including not only the inner trilithon horseshoe, but also the bluestones inside it. They did, however, skip the inner bluestone circle, which is a shame. Afraid of tourists tripping over them, perhaps.

Still, we like it overall, an eye-pleasing take on the idea of what Stonehenge may have looked like originally but leaving out a couple of lintels and part of at least one sarsen in order to give visitors easy access to the inner space. Letting people walk around inside it is a plus!

Moscow Planetarium and replica

Score? We award 8½ druids for this lovely bit of sculpture, to which we might give the title Stonehenge as Designed by Steve Jobs. If you go to Moscow, it’s worth a visit!

Before we go, we’ll add a photo of a Russian Stonehenge-building craft set from toy website Igranadom.ru .

Stonehenge craft set

We doubt sets made at home will look like this, but the makers did get a nice result here! Worth 6½ druids, we think. It’s good to know that Russians make Stonehenges just like people do all over the world. Stonehenge replicas make all of us family. This could be the key to world peace! Don’t forget to hug a henger today!

Coming up soon (ha ha jk!) we have an enigmatic Stonehenge replica in Illinois, USA, the new one in Alabama, USA (eventually), some small replicas sent in by readers (Thank you! Send moar!), and eventually another European henge-ish public sculpture. Judging by the number of people who search “How to make a Stonehenge model” and thus find Clonehenge, there won’t be a shortage of things to post on this blog for a very long time to come! Remember, keep your eyes peeled for Stonehenge replicas, and until next time, friends, happy henging!

P. S.: Asking for opinions: should this one be added to the list of large permanent replicas, or is it too small?

Happy Valentine’s Day! In Which We Venture into the Realm of Teh Cute!

Sculpture by Lesley-Anne Raven at Cobweb Corner

Greetings to our readers. [heart] [heart] [heart!] We don’t have either of our new large permanent replica posts ready yet, but we wanted to put something up here for Valentine’s Day and look what we found!! THIS!!!! And you may well ask, “What is it?”

On the Stone Henge [sic] page of Cobweb Corner, Ms. Raven includes this among many interesting items she calls “Stone Henge* inspired incense burners and candleholders”. Here’s another.

What’s that you say? Aren’t these a little on the precious side for Clonehenge? Too cute? Are you wondering if we know the craft person and are getting kickbacks on every item sold? And we say, “No, but thanks—what a great idea! We’ll work on that.” On the other hand, if we ever started making money from Clonehenge, we might have to start actually working at it, and no one would want that, least of all us!

We’re posting this because: A. Our policy is to illustrate all of the ways in which people are reproducing Stonehenge; and B. We were completely at a loss as to how to celebrate Valentine’s Day on Clonehenge until this came along. This chocolate henge looks yummy, but we didn’t ask permissions in time.

We’re not awarding druids for this. We give it five strawberry creams and a ♥! And we accompany it with our words from last Valentine’s Day:

Happy Valentine’s Day to all, with or without a real lover. We all know you singles have your dreams and fantasies. You may be doing as well or better than many who face the challenge of the real thing (our own partner, for example, has us to put up with…).

You know what your Valentine wants: a Stonehenge replica, of course! Make it from biscuits or chocolate candies. Hide that ring and its glittering rock among the stones. There are few things more romantic and at the same time subliminally sexual than that shaft of light streaming in between a pair of uprights! If you make one, send us pictures. Of the henge only, please. There are plenty of sites for those other photos!

Meanwhile, as spring approaches, we have great line up of henges ahead for you. An interview with the amazing Mark Cline (of Foamhenge fame, and who is currently constructing the new Alabama addition to our list of large permanent replicas) is in the works, and one of our trusty henge-o-racks may be heading over to meet him at the new fibreglass replica to get pictures of him and the henge while it’s being painted!

We have a public sculpture in Zurich to look at, a lovely small quartzite model from Brazil, and another small model that is a pun on the glacier theory of the bluestones (Yes. We get all kinds.), the Serbian sculpture mentioned before, probably some snowhenges, and many other odd and fun things to come! Enjoy your sweetheart tomorrow, or conversely, enjoy being bitter about not having one. Remember, Stonehenge needs love, and until next time, friends, happy henging!

*Stone Henge is one of many common misspellings of Stonehenge, including Stonehedge, Stongehenge, Stoneghenge Stonhenge and others. Each has its adherents, but to find everything about Stonehenge on the internet, one has to search them all.

Hidden Hengers of Mississippi: Stonehenge Contagion Hits the Deep South!

Peghenge, henge and photo by Felder Rushing

It has been cold here in Clonehenge Central. England has had snow, and the usual rude snow sculptures have shown up in our internet feed. But down in the state of Mississippi, it is warm and lovely, and people can do their gardening—and garden henging—all year long. So it should be no surprise to anyone that the Stonehenge virus has had its way with people there just as it has everywhere else.

Meet Mr. Felder Rushing, native of Mississippi, radio personality, eccentric garden pundit and–henge enthusiast! Last week we were taking a healthful stroll around the Internet just to get the kind of fresh air, sunshine, and exercise you can’t get if you confine yourself to the social networks, when we stumbled on, without crushing it, we might add, the henge you see above. Some might call it a clothespin henge, but Peghenge would be a more familiar usage for most of our readers.

From there one (healthy aerobic) click took us to to his eclectic page of henges, which starts with Stonehenge itself and goes on through Avebury (we approve), a number of familiar Stonehenge replicas, on to his own and a friend’s garden henges, and to Newgrange and the white horses, by which we mean the chalk horses cut into a few English hillsides. No sign of the Uffington, but we’re in a forgiving mood.

James McCormick’s Stonehenge, from Rushing’s website

The picture above is a stone circle in the garden of one of his friends, James McCormick in Starkville, Mississippi. Rather nice, we think! True, there are lintels only in the center, and they’re in a circle, not a horseshoe, but the reference is clear, it is aesthetically pleasing, and we have learned it is astronomically correct. We award this little gardenhenge 5 ½ druids!

And Peghenge? It is tempting to award it a higher score for its outer lintels and the correctly-formed inner horseshoe, but, since this Felder Rushing is a famous gardener, writer, radio personality (his show is called The Gestalt Gardener), and speaker who also has a cottage farm in Shropshire, should we not hold him to a higher standard? Score for the peghenge is also 5 ½ druids! We hope, sir, that this will spur you on to even greater Feats of Henging Glory.*

Meanwhile, our huge staff of researchers, as well as our roomful of idea people and writers, are working on another post from the Deep South. Mark Cline, of Virginia’s Foamhenge fame, has dazzled the henging world with a new creation, a fibreglass Stonehenge in Alabama, rumoured to be guarded by dragons and Chinese warriors! It is new,and information is hard to come by, but we have enough to add it to our list of large permanent replicas.

The other one is a set of Stonehenge-related sculptures on an island in the Serbian city of Belgrade. The research on this one has taken so many turns, involving politics, a formidable sculptor, a soul-stirring sculpture garden that was once behind the prince’s palace and is now destroyed forever, and the like, that we’re having trouble getting the article small enough for posting. But our huge staff is up to any task and will persevere! Meanwhile, this, too has been added to our list of large permanent replicas, bringing the grand number to 75. This is a world of wonders!

And so, dear friends and readers, when you start to despair for the world, think of all of the people out there who shrug off their troubles and in the face of certain disaster decide to build another Stonehenge! The impulse to have a laugh outdistances everything else about human nature. You have to love us. Ish.So, until next time—happy henging!

*Note: We have been prevailed upon by the great Simon Burrow, recent winner of the End-of-the-World Clonehenge Contest, and venerated Hengefinder, among the oldest friends of the blog, etc., to reconsider the Peghenge scoring. So Mr. Rushing’s fine creation is now awarded 6½ druids! Use them well, sir.

21 December, 2012: Apocalypse No!

Poster from Allan Sturm’s LoveSmack Studios

Greetings, henge lovers everywhere, and a happy solstice to you all from your friends at the Clonehenge blog!

Yes, you read the poster right. It says, “Dance inside a giant to-scale Stonehenge!” Yes, it says other things, too, but we are not the sexism police. We are the Stonehenge replica fandom. Focus! We have before us an exciting henging first–the Stonehenge dance floor!

This is a poster for an End of the World Party. (Apparently at the end of the world, fonts turn into zombies and parts of them begin to fall off. But once again, focus!) The end of the world. Ish. As of this writing, it is 21 December in Europe and Great Britain, but there have been no signs of the world ending. How Stonehenge ties in with the end of the world we’re not sure, either, but who are we to blow against the wind? Let’s see a few of the other pictures posted on the Clonehenge Facebook group recently as the apocalypse approacheth.

Citrus henge, courtesy of champion henger, Simon Burrow

Friend and recent poster on this blog, Simon Burrow, posted this artistic citrus henge two days ago. Mr. Burrow is known for henging with unusual materials and with some frequency. If there were a thing like a henging problem, this henger might be said to have one. BUT there is not! So onward.

Photo posted by Bob Carlson–not sure who did the henging

Ah, the days when Stonehenge was beset by eldritch creatures of the sea! Who wouldn’t want to make a replica of those epic times? Here’s one, a little short on lintels, but impressive nonetheless, posted by the mysterious Bob Carlson. We don’t know much about him, but anyone who henges AND speaks Welsh is all right by us!

A snowhenge, posted by Rufus T. Firefly

And from R. T. Firefly of Henge Collective fame we have this snowhenge from another year. Don’t let that smile fool you–the creature shown here has teeth like a piranha and a temperament to match! If you see one at a henge, turn and run for your life. You have been warned!

miniature Stonehenge garden by Two Green Thumbs Gardens

And, yes, we have posted this last one before, but its popularity never dies–the miniature Stonehenge garden by Janit Calvo at Two Green Thumbs Miniature Garden Center. We include it again because she has furnished the curious with a blog post called How to Make a Miniature Stonehenge Garden for the End of the World. Timely! Briefly. Even better, she mentions us!!!

So there is our solstice/apocalypse post. Another year gone by, another turn of the sun, another special day for henges and hengers. It is also the last day for submissions to our henging contest. If you don’t know how to submit your entries, leave a comment on this post and we’ll answer.

Until next time friends, in this world or the next, happy henging!

Catching Up: Small Henges and Some News–Welcome, Blokes and Sheilas!

One of Kyle van Oldeniel’s excellent small Stonehenges

We have gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle (hmmm….have we ever posted a picklehenge?). We have let things go for so long that we have enough henges and henging news to fill five or more posts, even with multiple henges per post. We were going to blame it on the interns, who are always messaging away on the expensive smart phones their parents bought them, but as long as we are making people up, why not blame it on our evil nemesis, who hates Stonehenge replicas and wants to end Clonehenge forever. Yeah, that’s it–we TRY to post but he foils us at every turn!

But apparently we have vanquished him, because here we are at long last! The mini-Stonehenge above was created by Kyle van Oldeniel, who lives on the west coast of Scotland. He has created this and a number of other exquisite little henges, like small art works expressing his longing for the mystery, timelessness, and connection to the earth that Stonehenge represents. He has posted more in the Henge Collective group on Facebook. Too nice for our blog, actually! Thank you, Mr. van Oldeniel–well done.

Jumper (or sweater) henge, created for the birthday of Simon Burrow

The picture above was posted to the Clonehenge group on Facebook by none other than friend of the blog Simon Burrow. It reminds us a little of the clothes henge created by Markus Georg. This may not look like much, but it is undeniably eccentric in conception and unique in the henging world for its casual laundry-pile styling and variations in colour and patterns. We do not recall seeing striped or flowered stones in a henge before! What it lacks in accuracy it makes up for in, well, in… thingy! Well done! Ish.

Flip-flop Henge by Liz Smith Yeats

And as long as we are looking at henges made of things we wear, here is Flip-flop Henge as created and posted by Liz Smith Yeats on the Clonehenge Facebook group, where there is much more up-to-date henging news and pictures than you’ll find on the blog, with the advantage of not having to read our dreadful don’t-you-think-we’re-funny commentary! It’s not that we’re desperate to have you join the group, it’s just that if you are actually interested in henging and hengers, you can keep up despite our troubles with our intern/nemesis/broken hands/dial-up/IE6, pet dragons, etc.

At any rate, Ms. Yeats (any relation?!) says, “Hoping you find this a worthy effort. The backstory is that I find Flip-Flops to be loathsome and will stop at nothing to remove them from the realms of footwear.”

Indeed, Ms. Yeats, we find it worthy! And creating a Stonehenge replica out of dodgy footwear is solidly in the spirit of Clonehenge!

We have many more small henges to post when our interns stop messaging their friends and annihilate our nemesis! And download Chrome. And start taking the dragons out for their daily rides so they’re too tired to keep us from posting. Etcetera. And there are at least two temporary large henges to post: that Basshenge from Burning Man that we posted about in its planning stages, and the Henge Collective’s wood henge from the Audio Soup festival.

Also, there continues to be news: links to Clonehenge have been posted on the website of Current Archaeology Magazine (for a while) as well as our being mentioned in a radio show to be broadcast in Australia on Sunday, 9 September. We learned that the decision has been made, sadly, to film parts of Thor: the Dark World at Stonehenge instead of building one. We would have liked to see what they came up with! And we learned that in Roman Polanski’s movie Tess, a replica was used instead of the real thing! We have no pictures yet, but the interns are working on it!

If you live in Oz and this is your first look at Clonehenge, we have one word for you: Esperance! One of the finest recent additions to the world of Stonehenge replicas. You can be proud.

This post has exceeded recommended dosages, so, until next time, mates, happy henging!

CLONEHENGE

A blog about Stonehenge Replicas. We kid you not.

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