Tag Archives for stonehenge replica

LiteFX–Stonehenge Lit From Within

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photo and henge by Anne and David Campbell of Lite FX, used with permission

And now, as they say, for something completely different: LED-lit selenite henges handmade by special effects experts in Scotland (see the link here). You can see similar ones (but without lintels) on this webpage, but alas they are no longer being made for sale, except perhaps if you have the cash to commission one.

David says: “the ‘stones’ are made from selenite, and light is transmitted through them from l.e.d.’s in the base. This has to be done very carefully or the brightness diminishes rapidly. Some models were purely decorative, but some had accurate stone sizes and arrangements that permitted use as a miniature calendar. We originally intended the henges to be used at night and outdoors, and made them run from mains or battery power.”

The ancients might have envied us if they knew we could have miniature Stonehenges that glowed in the dark! Selenite, we’re told, dissolves easily and can’t be used outdoors, but no doubt one day someone will build a full-sized permanent Stonehenge replica that glows. It’s science types who seem most fascinated by Stonehenge and they’re the ones who can sort the details.

Structurally, of course, this isn’t an accurate replica, but we feel inclined to slip them some druids for originality and just total brilliance! Score: 7 druids for the crystal light transmission henge.

Indian River Reptile Zoo–Ontario strikes again!

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photo by Stella Daniella, with permission

Just a few miles from Petroglyphs Provincial Park and Serpent Mounds Park near  Peterborough, Ontario is the Indian River Reptile Zoo. Fans of snakes, lizards, alligators and turtles flock here for cold-blooded fun AND to pose for pictures at Stonehenge. Why Stonehenge at a reptile zoo? We’d love to know!

It’s sort of a funny replica, from what we can see, with some elements that  suggest one of the stone circles at Calanish, and lintels on some of the other stones. But quirkiness can generate druids here at the Clonehenge blog as long as it is not the kind that makes us slap our foreheads.

petroglyphsIts proximity to a famous petroglyph site and the notable Serpent Mound complex (not to be confused with its more renowned Ohio counterpart) intrigues us. The Paju City Stonehenge, too, is near ancient megalithic sites. Near Clonehenge headquarters there is a similar situation with modern megaliths erected in a place surrounded by prehistoric stonework. It brings up a favourite question: do some landscapes speak to our subconcious minds and urge us to do this sort of thing? But, hey, our job here is just to score. We’re giving this thing 7 druids because—reptiles and Stonehenge–random much?

Later note–received this in an email from Edward Loyst: “You asked why a Stonehenge at a reptile Zoo…Well here are the facts. The Indian River Reptile Zoo is my son’s creation. he designed the state of the art building and safe climate controlled facilities exclusively for reptiles. Bryont has now been Curator of this CAZA accredited zoo for 10 years.The zoo is located on 36 acres near Peterborough Ontario and features indoor and outdoor exhibits of snakes turtles lizards and alligators…. as well as an educational lecture centre and a 2km nature trail. The Standing stones as we call them are my creation . My son made the mistake of allowing me to design the picnic area and when he was busy worrying about building a modern reptile zoo I went to a granite quarry 30km away and trucked in several (10) truck loads of giant slabs (stones up to 7tons each) of Belmont Pink Granite and planted them in the picnic area.People love the stones and the good part is there are a dozen more megalithic stones still to be planted. This is all part of my master plan to build a botanical garden with pathways wandering by the stones and flowers. I will send you new pictures later this year when the next section is complete.”

He included a website, a page of which has pictures of megalithia, including a trilithon. And some things that look a lot like Easter Island moai. Thank you! We look forward to those pictures and will do a separate post when we receive them.

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Another Henge for Your Garden, out of Ohio

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photo and henge by Kelly Lawrence, with permission

Another day and another Stonehenge-for-sale, but what a difference a day makes! From Green Mantle Studio in the land of the Indian mounds comes this nice little fired, painted, and water-sealed Stonehenge. They are produced only when ordered, with individual care given to each piece.

Kelly, the artist, explains its origins: “One of my more popular pieces is a Dolmen Toad House which inspired one of my customers to commission me to make a full Stonehenge replica for his garden. He wanted it to represent the monument as it was not as it is today so there are 30 uprights and 30 lintels in the outer ring, 5 trilithons make up the horseshoe in the center and finally the set includes both an altar stone and a heel stone.”

The ditch and bank are up to you. And if you buy one of these, believe me, we’ll be around to make sure you follow through! We are pleased that the dolmen came first and that this replica was someone else’s request. We also approve of a lack of Easter Island heads on the site!

Scoring: 6½ druids for this pleasing American henge. It’s tempting–just to see the looks on our neighbors’ faces. Does it come in Extra Extra Large?

Mysteries of Ancient Stonehenge, or What is resin, anyway?

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from Toscano website

Taking the easy way out today, we’re posting a commercial Stonehenge replica, this one sold by Design Toscano, which sells mostly figurines and statuary for home and garden. This replica is made of resin of some kind painted to look like metal, resin pretty much being any substance that starts out viscous and ends up solid. At least when you buy it, you get a Certificate of Authenticity! 😛

It is a handsome little thing for the den or library if you have one. It looks well proportioned and includes both sarsen and bluestone features. The thing is, there’s something funny about a handsome little Stonehenge for your den. But these are the days of dragons for your den, gargoyles for your library and fairies for your desk, and for a lot of people, Stonehenge fits right in there. One man’s archaeological site is another man’s mystical fantasy.

So what do you think? How many druids do we give this Stonehenge that could double as a pen holder? Score: 5½ druids. It’s not funny enough to score big and yet–we can’t take it seriously!

Cheesehenge, non-virtual

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photo and henge by Kilaana, also see this one

Time for a foodhenge again. That the only cheesehenge we’ve posted so far was a virtual image is a situation that must be rectified, so we return to our henging friend Kilaana for her High Dynamic Range image of this Stonehenge of cheese. For her gardenhenge Kilaana hand cast the stones from cement. The cheese required less work, but she made up for it in the production of the photo.

Kilaana’s pictures make up 4/7 of the Cheesehenge Pool on Flickr, but on the web and apparently in the world, cheesehenges abound. They rank with straw and hay henges, blockhenges, boxhenges, beach stonehenges, cookie[biscuit]henges, and snowhenges (I know there are a few more), as the most frequently made–or at least posted–hengeworks.

As for scoring, we see in the other photos that Kilaana makes a point of placing a few trilithons in the middle of the linteled circle. And going to the trouble of merging three images just for a photo of a cheesehenge shows dedication that demands respect. Score: 6 druids for this yummy henge.

Tourist Trap, Proposed Stonehenge Model for Visitors’ Center, 1998

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photos from Stonehenge II proposal by Aleksandra Mir , more at link.

Posting two rather serious British-made Stonehenge models in a row may be a mistake but a permission we’d hoped for hasn’t come through. The two are very different.  Here “the proposal was to build a Stonehenge replica close to the original, to reduce the volume of pedestrian traffic and save this piece of cultural heritage from further destruction. To compensate for the necessary limited access to Stonehenge I, Stonehenge II would allow full access and promote a wide range of activities on its grounds.”

As you see, tourists would be encouraged to touch and enjoy the model if they wished. However, it seems to us that what tourists wish is to touch the ageless stones of the original, not false new stones, of whatever material.

stonehenge-mir-1This Stonehenge II has not been built, nor is it planned at this point. But as a model we must say that of all the miniatures this is most detailed and closest to the original. We even see Aubrey holes and certainly the ditch and bank, plus every stone correct in size and place. (We also enjoy the giant bird perched on one lintel.)

Scoring–well, keep in mind that we are looking at a model of a nonexistent replica, not a model of Stonehenge itself.  Still, we are forced to give this a good 8½ druids. Full sized, it woud have gotten the elusive 9½. But let’s face it–Peephenge and Cheese curl henge are a lot more fun!

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Henry Browne’s Cork Models–some real history

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photos from the website of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, U.K.

Society often mocks those who are obsessed, but time and time again they are the ones who accomplish much and who see the need for action in their field  long before others do. Such a man was Henry Browne, who lived from 1769 to 1839 and devoted his later years entirely to the study, chronicling and protection of Stonehenge.

The story of how he made his first cork Stonehenge replica is told in a footnote to page 77 of the book  Stonehenge and its Barrows, by William Long. He brought his tools and materials to the site and did all he could to imitate every aspect of the monument as it stood then, in the year 1824. He also made models of his idea of how Stonehenge looked originally.

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Browne may have been the first to notice that the lintels were kept in place with notches and grooves and the first to suppose that lintels originally went all the way around the outside circle. He was among the first to see that Stonehenge needed to be conserved and protected from tourists as well as local residents who broke up stones for building.

A photo of  a Browne model in the Haslemere Museum, taken by the distinguished gentleman from Surrey, Mr. Andy Burnham, originator and Grand Poobah of the highly esteemed Megalithic Portal, may be seen here. This humble blog is to the Megalithic Portal as a child’s wooden block Stonehenge replica is to Stonehenge itself and we are greatly in Mr. Burnham’s debt for providing such a resource!

As to score, well, this man did it right. 9½ druids for Mr. Browne’s models.  They are now, as Mr. Burnham says, precious artefacts themselves.

Icehenge, Fairbanks’ Ephemeral Crystal Vision

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cover of July, 2008 issue of American Surveyor magazine

Oooh, this is a good one! *rubs hands together* In March 2007 a group of people, some of them surveyors, built this Icehenge for the 41st annual Alaska Surveying and Mapping Conference in Fairbanks, which happened to fall at the same time as the Ice Alaska Ice Art Championship competition. Over 100 blocks of ice were used to create a full-sized replica of the inside of Stonehenge, using a pair of arcs of low posts to suggest the outer ring of sarsens.

Let’s see:  Inner bluestone circle? Check! Trilithon horseshoe? Check! Inner bluestone horseshoe? Check! Altar stone? Check! Okay so there are no Aubrey holes or ditch and bank but, people, these builders did their homework. We can subtract a bit for incorrect stone shapes and missing elements and still have a lot of druids left over for this henge!

icehenge-night1Click through this thumbnail (photo by Tula Belton) to see the American Surveyor article pdf with amazing pictures. And check out the Ice Alaska website for another set of pictures.  We like it that, because the sculpture would not live to summer solstice, they decided to orient it toward the sun position at noon on vernal equinox.

Yes, we’re effusing–so sue us. We don’t run across a Stonehenge replica like this every day. (In the future perhaps . . . ?) Score: 9 druids for this huge ice (megapagic?) monument. More, please!

Miniature Stonehenge, Saxony, Germany

stonehenge-miniwelt

photo by Jan Herold, with permission

“Herzlich Willkommen!” says the Miniwelt website. Miniwelt or Miniworld is another park of miniatures, in some ways similar to Cockington Green in Australia or Babbacombe Gardens in England. And, of course, they have a Stonehenge all their own. Here is the official view, from their website.

miniweltWhat do you think? Are these worked stones or molded cement? Tough to say. [Later note: we have it from the photographer that they are indeed stone.] The proportions are certainly better than the Brisbane model and we like it a little better than Babbacombe’s, too. Legoland Windsor still wins when it comes to shape and proportions of the stone, I’m afraid.

The question people have put to us is, Where are the Avebury replicas? Why is it only Stonehenge? We think that a place like this would seem twice as classy if it replaced its Stonehenge with an Avebury, but we doubt it will ever happen!

Score? 6 druids. After all, we see some bluestones in there, and isn’t that a heelstone? Someone gets it, sort of.

Henges We Admire

We probably have 100 pictures in the Henge category on our bookmarks list. Many we hoped to post have proved elusive, most because emails and comments asking permissions for photos have gone unanswered. Since today has been a different kind of day in our world, here is a different kind of post. Normal posting will resume tomorrow, barring unforeseens. These are the best from among the  Stonehenge replicas we have been unable to post.

Plane Henge, another work by the Mutoid Waste Company, in Australia.

What appears to be a wooden Stonehenge model.

A mysterious miniature Stonehenge replica built on a little hill. If anyone knows where this is, please tell us!

iPod Shuffle henge.

A nice garden henge–with added Buddha and  Easter Island head! From, fittingly for today, the Obama Gardens of Hope.

Possibly the best-ever snow henge, those wacky Antarctica people once again! (Do we see bunny ears in there?!)

And one of our very favourites: a virtual glasshenge.

So there you are, some of the henges we’d been hoping to present. Maybe one or two of you will even decide to click on the links! Thank you for your continued interest. Aren’t people amazing? (And wouldn’t the inauguration ceremony have been enhanced by a Stonehenge replica set up somewhere on the Mall?!)