Sky Project Stonehenge Model

stonehenge-setup

photos from Digital History Wiki page, by Creative Commons license

This small replica was part of a project aimed at better understanding how people interact with presentations of historical subjects, one of a group of projects done under the tutelage of William J. Turkel of the University of Western Ontario. Note the computer monitors also showing Stonehenge.

stonehenge-modelThis made us think it would be great to set up computer monitors in a circle with a nice Stonehenge model in the middle, and have them all showing Stonehenge, constantly rotating. But back to the study, the conclusion arrived at here was that people are impatient and easily distracted, and, extrapolating, it’s difficult to teach us anything. Duh!

This is a nice little model, though, and we award it 6 druids. We want to add a couple of links to photos of small models we can’t get permissions for. Here  is an early model, from the late 1800’s or early 1900’s (scroll down on that page, and note the other model in the background). And here is a very clean well-done model from the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, photo taken in 1964.

Clearly people have gone to great lengths to make these models accurate to their idea of what Stonehenge is or was. What is this hold it has on us? We’re four months into Clonehenge now, and we still don’t have an answer for that!

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