Tag Archives for Stonehenge replicas

HengeClub, a Blog

the elusive fishfingerhenge or fish stick henge, photo and henge by Anne Jensen, used by permission of the HengeClub blog

If you’re interested in henges you may have run across it already–the blog of homemade henges, HengeClub. Started just this past August, it is made up of posts of photos people send in, of henges they’ve made or (and we like this because we’ve toyed with the idea many times) found henges.

They include henges made out of many pleasingly unsuitable materials, just the sort of things we approve of, including the fish fingers or fish sticks above–now we have thought for a while that those were great henging materials but we’d never found one until we saw it on HengeClub. Thank you, everyone over there!

Most of the henges on HengeClub are rudimentary, not much more than single trilithons, but the sheer number of entries and variety of materials make it worth a visit. We admit we’re a little disappointed to find we’ve never been mentioned. After all, working together perhaps we could raise world awareness of the henge phenomenon!

(Chocolatecoinhenge by Sundaeg1rl)

The existence of that blog, like the popularity of a WebUrbanist post on Stonehenge replicas (most of which WU almost certainly saw first on Clonehenge!) demonstrates that these replicas have become one of those odd little corners of our culture that people keep coming back to. We’re always glad to see more interest in the topic!

Okay, we admit to a little envy–we’ve been asking people to make henges and send them in since November 2008, and we’ve received barely more than a handful. But then our primary draw is our list of large permanent replicas. And our incredulous musings about what strange force impels people to build henges and just how many of these linteled constructions there are and have been! HengeClub is another bit of proof that something very peculiar is going on.

Curiouser and curiouser!

Stonehenge in Other Worlds

blink3d-stonehenge

from a Geeks3d.com discussion of a virtual world development platform

With our April Fool’s Day post out of the way, we arrive at our 150th post. Unremarkable to you, perhaps, but when we started this folly we doubted we would make it to 40 before running out of replicas. Ha! And may we repeat, ha! At any rate, today we would like to address a different kind of Stonehenge replica than usual, the replica in a virtual world.

2382101391_7c8a794ef6In Second Life, for example, we are told there is a Stonehenge near a castle (thumbnail at left by Jocgart). In other virtual worlds there are other virtual Stonehenges. A game called Hellgate: London had a Stonehenge with a different, darker look as you see in the photo below,  from the blog Pumping Irony.

hgl-stonehenge-0011Interesting how the virtual replicas vary just as the real ones do, in color, shapes of and numbers of stones, the condition of the Stonehenge according to age. (Click on the photo at left or the thumbnails to see a larger version and its posting page.)

Below is another, which  may also be from Second Life, photo by Toady. These virtual Stonehenges may capture, even better tha384448063_f62e7e9eccn real life replicas, meanings that Stonehenge has for people, its place in our psyches, individual and collective. Place of magic, place of battle, place of power, place of joy. It seems that as we recreate Stonehenge, we recreate some hidden powerful place in our imaginations, and no world we create can be complete without it!

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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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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?!)