Tag Archives for stonehenge replica

Lonnie Hamargren: Las Vegas Nevada’s Stonehenge

hamargren

photo from Rare Visions & Roadside Revelations, with permission

Imagine that you are the neurosurgeon to the stars and that as you work with stars the concept of celestial stars begins to fascinate you. You have money and a place on your roof beneath the dry clear skies of Vegas that has room for a planetarium, and–hey, why not?–a pyramid, and–what the heck!–Stonehenge. What do you know: you must be Dr. Lonnie Hamargren!

Of course, there are a lot of other random, amazing, bizarre pieces of culture in his collections, but we leave others to reveal those. For us the point of interest is what we believe to still be  his work in progress on the roof: a Stonehenge replica. When we last checked, it was unfinished, pending a shipment of copper plates (!?).  You can see what exists of the replica so far on the roof in the photo above. A little short of halfway down the page at this [link], you can see his hand with a sign saying, “Stonehenge wasn’t built in a day!”

It’s always difficult to score an unfinished replica. We’ll give him 5½ druids util he can show us a completed structure. We are happy, though, to post our first Silver State Stonehenge replica outside of Burning Man!

Stonehenge in Silver

silversculptatsiteThis replica is a meticulous copy of Stonehenge rendered in sterling silver. A page on the site says “The replica was on display at the English Heritage visitor’s center at the Stonehenge site for three years. It is now available in a limited edition to interested collectors.”

Believe me, we would like to make fun of this tiny silver Stonehenge. But it’s hard for us to deny that it is a beautiful thing. The minutely detailed stone-for-stone silver model of the monument is mounted on a base of gleaming black granite so that it looks like a piece of exquisite jewellery.

Yes, we know that it is still rather peculiar that people would bother to do this. And, yes, we know that the thing has no real use or reason for being. But that could be silver-draketrilithionsaid of most of the things we post on this blog.  Our inner magpie was aroused as soon as we laid eyes on this.

The artists, Drake and Waldon Lewis, are brothers from California. They don’t say on their website how much a copy of this replica would cost, but we imagine it is a pretty penny. It would make a great centerpiece for your Stonehenge collection. Score: 8 druids. It would be hard to resist placing tiny red ants among the ‘stones’ and taking pictures!

silver-sh

A Couple of Museum Replicas

hong-kong1

photo from the website of the Hong Kong Space Museum

We found a couple of partial replicas that should be mentioned, but neither is complete enough, nor do we have good enough pictures, to warrant a full post for each. The one above is in Hong Kong’s Space Museum, part of a demonstration of ancient astronomical history.

The site says it “has a special effects projection of the midsummer sunrise over the Hell [sic] Stone of Stonehenge to gradually recreate the illusion of dawn.” Yes, we know the Hell Stone is a dolmen in Dorset, but who are we to correct such a delicious misspelling?

clock-museumThe second is a trilithon (Yes, we have learnt to spell it properly!) at The National Watch and Clock Museum in Pennsylvania. In this case it is part of their Ancient Timepieces Gallery.  It is rather a handsome thing, from what we can see, but not proportioned accurately to the trilithons at Stonehenge itself.

We’ll give the Hong Kong structure 5 druids for now, and the Pennsylvania trilithon 4. What is interesting is how their juxtaposition underlines the why behind the “surprising” finding archaeologists are always making that this or that ancient or “primitive” culture had a very detailed understanding of the movements of the bodies in the heavens. Astronomy, for millennia, was timekeeping, and every society, even the simplest, had a need for it.

(second photo from the website of the National Watch and Clock Museum)

Baconhenge, Site of your Seasonal Celebration

baconhenge_zoom-2

photo by Carol Squires for the Anticraft

This one’s a little messier than usual (especially if you add syrup), but it has made a play for the big time as few foodhenges have, even getting some attention on National Public Radio in the States, an interview (with the builder, not the henge) which you can hear at this link.

We are pleased with Carin Huber at the AntiCraft for beginning her Baconhenge page with this sentence: “Technically, a henge is actually an oval or circular earthwork, with a surrounding bank built up of the earth excavated from a ditch inside the bank.” She also uses words like trilithon and lintel, although technically there do not appear to be any trilithons in this model.

Carin says: “Let Baconhenge be the site of your seasonal celebration! Let bacon stand in for the sacrificed Year King, French toast for the Grain Goddess, the eggs in the frittata for the Cosmic Egg, and the vegetables for the bountiful Earth on which we live.” Lining it up with the sunrise is optional.

Score: Well, the recipe says it feeds 6 druids, so let’s go with that. We’re always glad to see interesting variations on the henging art!

Winter Solstice Henge, Washington State Again

laura-g-2

photo by littlemysteries, with permission

What kind of secret waves are broadcast through the air in Washington State? It has become Michigan’s only rival for the slogan, The Stonehenge State. (See the Clonehenge page, The 44 Large, Permanent Replicas) We’ve heard there may be another Stonehenge replica outside Seattle and believe me, we’re looking into it.

This henge was temporary, though, and only a partial one. It was built in a backyard in Clarkston, Washington, littlemysteries tells us, “for a Winter Solstice gathering and ritual,” out of  “wire, papier mâché [re-spelled by us just because we like diacritical marks], old wallpaper, and paint (and possibly other materials, I’m not sure)”

Remarkably, this is the only case we know in which the replica was privately built for a solstice ritual. We’re lucky to have a record of it.

Score: 6 druids, at least one of them awarded for the motivation of the builders. It’s good that Washington supplies the West Coast with henges, because California and Oregon seem to be falling down on the job.

P.S.: littlemysteries, we see those melting peeps in your photostream, and the peepicide, too! Frankly your peep-related behaviour worries us a little. Is one being drowned? And what’s with the tag peepdeath?! (What is it about peeps that spurs violence? See the bottom photo on this PeepHenge page.)

Lego Doctor Who: The Secret of Stonehenge

lego-dr-who

from the Lego Doctor Who by thegreattotemaster

How can we resist posting this one? The strange genius who generated this objet d’art lives in Iceland. This salt ceramic dough henge is just the sort of odd thing we like. Here is the video of the 2nd episode. The link for the first is here. (The haziness of the video, by the way, is an indication of pre-dawn in the story. The light improves as the clip continues.)

As we said, we sense there is some kind of strange genius going on here and, if he continues on the path he’s on, we expect great things from the totemaster!

Note the trilithon, bluestones–this builder has taken time to look at Stonehenge. Score: 7 druids, and, yes, they were awarded partly for attitude!

Dominohenge: Not to Be Toppled

domino

photos and henge by errordactyl and brother, with permission

As we’ve said before, anything vaguely rectangular and three-dimensional eventually becomes the material for a henge, and dominoes are no exception. Here’s a link to another one [link] with added amusing comments.

We like the one above because someone actually looked at Stonehenge (see photo below) and noticed the trilithons grouped in the center and that many of the lintels in the sarsen circle are down. The use of two dominoes for each upright was thoughtful, too.

domino-2We can’t quite make out what the little coloured figures are but we’re going to take them as bluestones. If you want, the glass can be a UFO. Why not?

Score: 6½ druids. We’re glad that errordactyl thinks  Stonehenge is f***ing awesome. But we’re not sure we agree with the commenter on the other dominohenge who implies that Stonehenge would look better if it had dalmation-type spots. Don’t give the vandals any new ideas. And leave the toppling to the pros!

Pavel Pavel’s Stonehenge, Czech Republic

strakonice2

photo from Strakonice promotional materials

Pavel Pavel, a Czech engineer, built this trilithon in the town of Strakonice in order to demonstrate a method of lifting heavy lintels into place without modern machinery, hoping to show how Stonehenge could have been built. So like its closest Stonehenge replica neighbor, Stonehenge in der Oberpfalz, it qualifies as a Stonehenge replica because of the intention of its builders. More recent (and better) pictures than this one show an arc of boulders placed with it to form a circle.

Delightfully, Pavel Pavel’s interest in prehistoric stone-moving techniques resulted in another experiment. He also had an Easter Island head made of concrete and used it to show how those sculptures might have been walked over the land with the help of a surpisingly small number of people. (Does enjoying the eccentricities of automatically- translated pages make us bad people?)  So, while we are not certain, the town of Strakonice may qualify for our list of places* that have BOTH a Stonehenge replica and a moai. How did we not find this one sooner?!

Score: 5½ druids. It’s little more than a trilithon, after all. But it’s another proof of the world’s fascination with the Wiltshire wonder!

*Kennewick Stonehenge, Texas’s Stonehenge II, Harry Rossett’s Stonehenge, and Tom’s Stonehenge from the Gardens of Hope–and those are just the ones we know of!

Wood Block Henge, and The Story of Garden Henge

bored-friends

photo by David Lewis, with permission

“Garden Henge was a very mysterious place. No-one knew who had built it, or how long ago it had been built, and there were all kinds of stories told about strange things that happened at Garden Henge at night.” It may be made of wood and open to the public, but I think we all know the reference being made in this charming bit of a children’s story. To clinch it we have the pictures. We challenge anyone to name another circle of uprights with lintels or with trilithons in the center. Stonehenge has no peer!

This henge is made of blocks from a wooden tower play set by Garden Games. It is like a giant Jenga game, for those of you who are more familiar with that. Jenga blocks, too, end up in their share of henges. As do blocks of all kinds, sometimes with unrealistically peaceful stuffed animals!

We found the story simple and charming, with just the right balance of peril and comfort for a young child. The toppling arch is a good reminder of why people are kept away from Stonehenge most of the time. Score: 7 druids for the story and the henge.

Sad that the real situation of Stonehenge keeps it from being the sort of thing that children might stumble upon in a story, hide under in a storm, and get spirited away to another time and place in the time-honoured tradition of the children’s fantasy tale!

Window of the World Stonehenge, Shenzhen!

shenzhen-the-stone-henge-11

photo by Franklin Cardenas, with permission

Since starting this blog we have seen some miniature examples of gardens with scenes from other parts of the world. There was Cockington Green in Canberra, Babbacombe Model Village in Greater London, Miniwelt in Saxony, and of course Legoland Windsor. In Shenzhen, China, a city near Hong Kong, there is a not-so-miniature version of this idea, Window of the World.

It’s really the creme-de-la-creme of ersatz tourist worlds, and their Stonehenge replica does not disappoint. It is the most realistic replica yet, from what we can see in the pictures. The stones are convincingly stained to resemble lichen and please do check out the lintel-knob on top of the sarsen seen here [link]! Of course you have to watch out where you take the picture if you don’t want to get the Eiffel Tower in the background!

Beijing has a similar park, called The World Park and we will try to bring you that one another day, but we don’t think its Stonehenge can compare with this one. Score: 8 druids for the builders at Shenzhen, who, well, know how to make a good copy!

Share