Stent Henge–and A Happy 2010 to All!

photo from ADAMANT, used w/o permissions–permission pending

Happy New Year, Gentle Readers! The first henge of the year is one that will be hard to top. It’s made of stents of the sort used to prop open coronary arteries. The copy accompanying it reads:

“A reader reports one of his dearly departed co-workers spent a great deal of time creating a scale model in stents of Stone Henge. Stent Henge was created with pieces of scrap Nitinol self expanding vascular stents embedded in cured Sylgard 184 elastomer. It is a nearly perfect reproduction of the layout of the famous stone circle in England in a compact package just about the perfect size for a paper weight. It took nearly a year of work during slow periods. ” [links added by us]

We wonder, how do you even do something like this over a year? Do you add the clear silicone slowly, layer by layer? We don’t know, but the outcome is impressive and accurate. See the section that has retained its lintels? And the inner trilithon horseshoe?

Whoever made this used a photo of Stonehenge as it stands today as a guide. Perhaps he kept it in his chamber–or maybe he knew it by heart! I suppose we shouldn’t go on in that vein. (Don’t beat us!) Heh. Our New Year’s resolution is to actually be funny. Wish us luck!

Score: 7½druids. It’s made of unusual materials, and someone has taken pains to make it accurate. That’s what we like here in Clonehenge country. Posthumous kudos to the builder of this eccentric beauty!

Wearing Stonehenge: Show Your Love with Tiny Megaliths!

photo from the website of the Vangar Emporium

It’s getting toward the gifting season (groan!), so here’s a fun little set of items for any Stonehenge enthusiast on your gift list. We were impressed with these because most earrings out there that are being called Stonehenge earrings bear no resemblance whatsoever to Stonehenge. These are rather nice little trilithons of spotted stone (okay–in the real Stonehenge it is the short bluestones, not the tall sarsens of which the trilithons are made, that are spotted, but we’ll let that pass because we like the look).

And there’s the nice little pendant to go with them. The whole set would go well with an outfit of solid black, or a wardrobe of solid black if you’re that sort.

We can’t help but imagine these finding their ways onto the ears and chests of cute little wannabe Wiccans who have glittery moon tiaras and only a dim concept of Stonehenge that somehow involves Druids and Irish music or bagpipes although they’re not sure why. But quite serious archaeologists who know about Beaker folk and the cursus and what-not might wear these earrings, too. The stone shapes and proportions are well done and there’s an off-balance sense about them that echoes the cobbled-together look of the real monument.

Score: 6 druids, because good Stonehenge jewellery is hard to come by. Sadly for our Stateside readers, the website selling them is in the U.K. So far we haven’t found anything comparable on Etsy.

By the way, this site also sells small Stonehenge candle holders and even little witches hung from strings to hang from your ceiling or perhaps your . . . ahem . . . Yule tree. And that’s only on their Stone Age/Pagan/Celtic page. Who knows what joys await? Happy winter solstice shopping, or whatever you like to call it!

Packing Foamhenge: A Mini Tour de Force

henge and photos by Drew at thinkythings.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

We look at a lot of websites while doing this blog. Many times we get distracted and spend way too much time looking at non-henge-related pages. But never have we seen a site that so sweetly reveals a quirky and interesting mind the way thinkythings.org does. He discusses an odd assemblage of topics, from a 1940s woodpecker toothpick dispenser to what phrases you can make with a set of children’s alphabet blocks (warning–R-rated!) to (our favourite!) common or famous first names that are also verbs (with categories for variations you end up thinking of if you try listing them yourself), and many other odd things that somehow elicit a smile.

This is the kind of stuff we hope for from the internet, brilliant things arising not from the drive for money, but from the sheer quirkiness we each possess. (Don’t get us wrong–we’re not averse to money. Clonehenge remains nonprofit, like some people who remain virgins, not out of virtue but because of a dearth of interested petitioners!) One of topics that this unusual and prehensile mind touches on is the topic of Stonehenge, Stonehenge made with eco-foam, a material used for packing peanuts that will dissolve in water and disappear, hence “eco“.

In Drew’s words, “In 1994, a small team of software engineers at a consulting company in Cleveland, Ohio discovered that Eco-Foam does not dissolve when it is only slightly dampened. The part of the foam that comes in contact with the moisture becomes tacky, and this property can be used to stick Eco-Foam peanuts together or to other objects. The natural consequence of this discovery was to build a scale model of Stonehenge.”

Of course, he endeared himself to us in the first paragraph where he asserts that “if the Druids worshiped at Stonehenge, it was without knowledge of the site’s origins or purpose, for Stonehenge was completed 1500 years before the Celts arrived in Britain.” Hurray! It could only be better if he explained about the Beaker people. As if this weren’t enough, it is obvious from the photos, especially those from above the model, that the builders looked very closely at detailed layouts of Stonehenge. (Here is an aerial view for comparison.) This model is brilliantly made and of an unexpected material. Cha-ching!

Score: 7 druids! That’s high for a small henge, but this fellow even makes a point on his Odd Things page of giving the true definition of the word henge. You can’t beat that with a stick! As they say. Whatever that means.

Thank you, Mr. Drew, whoever you are. You serve as a model for those who aspire to make a better henge. And a better blog.

Witch Henge–Be Prepared for Serious Mojo!

photo by Bob Bradlee of Stonehenge Collectables

This item has witches on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 druids by itself, but once I turned it on, that’s when the magic happened! The evil gleeful witches began to revolve around the fire, which glowed like the eyes of a wolf howling at the moon. I don’t know how I lived until now, without this tasteful objet d’art!

After I plugged it in that first time, my life changed. Mail poured in, all full of checks for thousands of dollars. I’ve had to stop going to public places because of the throngs of ardent admirers I attract. When I step into the garden, bunnies and hedgehogs follow me and colourful birds light briefly on my shoulders or in the nearest branches and sing to me sweetly. Flowers open as I near them, and fill the air with a wonderful fragrance.

Indoors, dust has stopped settling on the furniture. The whole place cleans itself now. My health has improved, I’ve lost weight, and I look ten years younger. I could go on, but of course there is this odd henge to discuss!

This is a resin model made by Lemax for their Spooky Town collection (called Witches’ Cove–do they mean coven or is it a reference to the Cove at Avebury?). There are the four uprights lintelled, one trilithon and some fallen stones. Then there are six witches, or are they just Welsh women in traditional dress, who having swept up at Stonehenge are now burning the debris?

The witches (could one of these be Juniper?!) do revolve in a circle and the fire does light up. The owl, vulture, raven, black cat, skull and bones are there to add atmosphere. It’s surprising there’s no jack-o-lantern. Do you think someone said, “No–that would be over the top!” Heh. You can see more photos here.

Seriously–who comes up with this stuff (and why six witches instead of three?). We love the addition of the autumn leaves in the grass. How often do maple leaves blow onto the grass at Stonehenge, do you think? How much does EH pay per year to have someone come in with a leaf blower? No.

Score: We are waffling on whether this is so bad it’s good, or whether it’s just bad. Okay, I suppose we got a chuckle out of it. We’ll give it 5½ druids–or six witches! We considered just naming this post ROFLMAO. But then we thought of the wolf shirt.

Happy Halloween, Samhain, or whatever you celebrate! And seriously, if any of you witches out there do dress and party like this, send pictures!

Watermelonhenge, or, Where the So-Called Monkey Gets His Smile

henge and photo by monkey, with permission

The season is over in the northern hemisphere, but here it is–watermelonhenge, or, as monkey (a white stuffed monkey who looks curiously like a dog) calls it, watermelon stonehenge. And as monkey says, “everybody loves a good henge.” Especially when it’s tasty! He offers a tutorial here. And we belatedly discovered he has his own website here.

Of course this is not the only watermelonhenge on teh intarwebs (here’s one), but it is the nicest. Monkey seems to benefit by being a world traveler and possibly having influential friends. It’s hard to tell about someone who uses a vague etymological term for his name. He’s not our first monkey with a henge, by the way. Some of you may remember this sweet children’s henge with a mother and child monkey pair along with a dog, which is, frankly, what monkey still looks like to us!

But on to the henge–nicely done for a foodhenge. Only two trilithons in the middle and not many fallen uprights, but at least he got the outer circle and didn’t just make it a ring of trilithons. That’s so last century! Anyway, we make allowances for foodhenges, as you know. And that incredible smile on monkey’s face tells us he is very happy with how the whole thing turned out.

Score: 6½ druids. We can see how someone clever with a knife could make quite a nice little watermelonhenge for a party plate. We recommend tapering the uprights so they’re smaller at the top. Why not give it a try? Look how well this fellow did and he just has fingerless stumps for hands! Well done, monkey! Let us know if you do a bananahenge. We already have a dog bone henge.

[And if you want to serve a non-henge watermelon plate for Halloween, we suggest this.]

Okay, Don’t Make Us Come Over There! (Beach Stone Henge, Wales)

beach 5 photo by Thelma June Jackson, with permission

It’s the Welsh. Well, it may not be the Welsh, but it is Wales. Remember this one? Well, the madness continues as the force emanating from Carn Menyn in the Preseli Hills forces people to reproduce Stonehenge everywhere all the time. In Wales, all children’s blocks are shaped like sarsens and every garden has at least one Stonehenge. Police patrol the roads to stop people building Stonehenge replicas on them at all hours. In restaurants everything is served in little trilithons. People even wear little Stonehenges on their heads!

Okay, well, we may be exaggerating just a wee bit. But, look, there’s no denying this is a second beach pebble henge. Two is more than one! We rest our case.

This is clearly a holiday henge. The builder did that ring of trilithons inside but then made a cairn of small stones in the middle and a partial ring of stones that he or she just laid flat around the outside, drawing a line, probably with a finger, to complete the circle. To us this says someone intended to build a Stonehenge replica and then when it started to get complex said, “Bugger this, I’m on holiday!” and did the rest in a hurry.

Still, it caught the eye of a passerby and here it is, an example of what you can do when you’re on a beach and the weather (or the water) is not nice enough for swimming. Beach stone henges are one of the most common types of Stonehenge replicas, but they can be a gateway henge, leading to a henge obsession that can disrupt your life and your relationships! Be forewarned.

Score: 6 druids. Looking at that beach, on second thought, please do make us come over there!

[Here’s another pebblehenge.]

Kansas State Fair Crinoid Stem Stonehenge Models

photos by Ace Jackalope, used with permission

Well, it was going to be watermelonhenge today, but after encountering some technical difficulties we decided to go with this brilliant entry from the 2009 Kansas State Fair: Stonehenge models made from fossil crinoid stems (crinoids are a kind of sea animal that resembles a lily, more or less, many of them anchored to the sea floor by stems). As our new friend Mister Jackalope posted, “Morgan Reves of Pottawatomie County, Kansas, treated the public to this special exhibit: two models of Stonehenge – past and present – made of fossil crinoid stems.”

Why fossil crinoid stems? We don’t know, but they are common. Presumably Morgan had a bag of them sitting around and was struck one day, as people are, with the idea that she (or he?) could make little Stonehenges with them. What we love is that the two models on display show the monument as it was, or is thought to have been, at its fullest stage, and in its modern, partially toppled condition (seen above).

crinoid 2 As you can see on the left, diagrams and explanations of Stonehenge, and possibly of fossil crinoid stems, accompanied the models. Was this a science fair project or some other kind of display? We can only speculate, but we’re glad it was there to add to the weird materials list for Stonehenge replicas!

As relatively common and obvious as fossils are, they were bound to be noticed and used by the megalith builders at least once. While there may be others, the most famous real megalithic site to feature a fossil is the long barrow at Stoney Littleton (yes, they really give places names like that over in Great Britain–Tolkien didn’t make that up!). You can see a photo of the fossil ammonite on a stone at the front of it here. There is no chance that the builders didn’t see it, but what they thought of we can never know.

Score for these crinoid stem henges: 6½ druids. Fine work, Morgan Reves! The diagrams pick up the features, like the bluestones and the ditch and bank, that the models don’t show.

We end with a quote from an email we received from Ace Jackalope himself: “There’s a blog just for Stonehenge replicas? Surely the Internet has now fulfilled its greatest possible potential!”

Yes, it’s true. Just as in the Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan humans were created in order to build a replacement part for a Tralfamadorian spacecraft that had broken down near Earth (and Stonehenge is a message in Tralfamadorian), so these internets were built for this and this alone. Everything else is simply an outgrowth of this ultimate process. Enjoy!

Gingerbreadhenge: An October Classic

henge and photo by The Dude, with permission

Cold weather is arriving here in Clonehenge Land. We may have our first frost tonight, and may have to run the furnace for the first time when we get up in the morning. And as the cold nights and chilly mornings roll in, thoughts run to warming comfort foods like gingerbread. Not the cookie kind, mind you, but the nice spicy cake kind, served warm with homemade whipped cream and maybe a cup of cocoa or Irish coffee for those so inclined.

What’s that? We’re wandering off the subject of Stonehenge replicas? Sorry, we were carried away by cozy reminiscing! Gingerbread is not an unheard-of henge material (what is?). Other gingerbreadhenges do exist, but most are the cookie kind. This appears to be a nice straightforward cake type. We think it took a little work.

It’s just the sarsens, rather too many, with a circle instead of a horseshoe of taller trilithons in the center. Still, a nice one as foodhenges go. Something like this could be decorated with some leaves and berries for a holiday centerpiece this Christmas. Keep it in mind and send us a photo!

Score: 6½ druids. Thus do we welcome the colder days!

Asian Cupboard Henge: Stonehenge-Generated Art

syjuco stonehenge

“Pacific Super (Stonehenge),” by Stephanie Syjuco, used with permission

Stonehenge as a basic form for art is a recurring theme on Clonehenge. The Whitney-exhibited artist whose work this is, Stephanie Syjuco (her website is here), was born in the Philippines and lives in San Francisco, and one of her themes is the interplay of eastern and western cultures as it manifests in the marketplace as the average person experiences it. Her statement for this artwork:

“Description: downloaded an image of Stonehenge from the internet and used it as a template to go shopping at Pacific Super, a chain of Asian supermarkets in Daly City. I chose products based on how their shape and size would “fit” into my own recreation of Stonehenge. The resulting model is made of mainly inexpensive food products imported from China, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand. ‘Pacific Super’ addresses issues of global production, consumption and cross-cultural translation, using the familiar image of a world-famous ‘mystical’ European landmark and everyday Asian goods.”

We’re willing to bet that the original builders of Stonehenge never saw this one coming! Little did they know the multitude of messages they would someday help people communicate. If only we were the direct inheritors of their estate. Think of the royalties!

Looking at this as a structure, we can tell Stephanie was working from an image (*applause* sadly, many people don’t bother). We can see the outer circle and taller inner trilithon horseshoe. There are fallen stones and even a hint at bluestones. This one is very nice for what it is, rising above the average trilithon circle made of cupboard boxes (and oh, yes, there are some!).

Score: 6 druids, maybe 6½ because we like that clean photograph look, plus–we sometimes use that kind of soap!

By the way, a friendly wave and hello to any readers blown our way by search-engine winds while navigating for more about the newly discovered bluestone circle near Stonehenge. We invite you to have a look around the blog. We’ve posted photos or links to well over 200 Stonehenge replicas and there are more to come. We suggest a look at our interview and the list of Large Permanent Replicas for a start!

Tiny Tick-Tock Stonehenge Clock

photo by Stonehenge Guy, Bob Bradlee of Stonehenge Collectables

You’ll find it on Ebay, this curious little Stonehenge with a clock on its side, made by Westland Giftware. Who thinks of these things? Who was the person who said, let’s make a tiny little Stonehenge-ish thing and put a small clock face on it? You have to wonder.

But clockmakers and astronomers are among those most aware of Stonehenge. We showed you a trilithon replica at a clock museum in a post about two museum replicas. Stonehenge is seen partly as an ancient timekeeper, so combining a clock with Stonehenge isn’t completely random. Not that we mind things that are completely random–they’re often our favourites!

This item is wrong in so many ways–proportions are all wrong, it’s all one solid piece . . . And yet, can you feel it? That pull? We can feel it calling us to buy it and set it to gather dust on the shelf above the computer where we do our Clonehenging. It’s kind of, well, you know–cute. Stonehenge isn’t supposed to be cute! Bad Stonehenge replica!

Score: 5 itty bitty, tiny little druid fairies! Aww, can’t you just see them dancing? And picture their footprints in the dust on our shelves? Wait, what’s that the cat has in her mouth? Uh oh, gotta go!

CLONEHENGE

A blog about Stonehenge Replicas. We kid you not.

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