Rosemary Hill (1) (1957–)
Autor(a) de God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain
Para outros autores com o nome Rosemary Hill, veja a página de desambiguação.
Obras de Rosemary Hill
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 1957-04-10
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- UK
- Relacionamentos
- Logue, Christopher (1st husband)
Stamp, Gavin (2nd husband) - Organizações
- Victorian society
- Premiações
- Wolfson History Prize
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Membros
Resenhas
Listas
Prêmios
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 5
- Membros
- 329
- Popularidade
- #72,116
- Avaliação
- 4.2
- Resenhas
- 4
- ISBNs
- 29
- Idiomas
- 1
Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century), who suggested the site was the burial place of Uther Pendragon and that Merlin had magically transported the stones from Ireland. Geoffrey’s contemporary, William of Newburgh, started a long tradition of Stonehenge theory skeptics by commenting “everything the man writes is made up”.
Architect Inigo Jones made a survey in 1655 and decided that Stonehenge was Roman, apparently basing this claim on the fact that no Roman author mentions it. Jones, while a talented architect, wasn’t a terribly good surveyor, and his plan bears little resemblance to Stonehenge (possibly influenced by the way he thought a Roman temple should look).
Walter Charleton (I wonder how that was pronounced?), who decided (1663) that Stonehenge was built during the Danish period. He based this on comments on similar monuments in Denmark made by his Danish friend Ole Worm. Lovecraft enthusiasts will recognized Ole Worm as (Latinized) Olaus Wormius, translator of the Necronomicon, although if Lovecraft’s dates are correct Mr. Worm was several hundred years old when he communicated with Charleton. Disturbing.
Antiquarian John Aubrey made a plane-table survey, also in 1663, and was the first to give a reasonably accurate plan of either the way the stones looked in the present or the original layout of the monument. Aubrey is famous for discovering the “Aubrey holes”, which figure in a lot of current astronomical theories – he said he found them by “algebra”, but doesn’t give any details on how. Aubrey also disproved the claim that the “sarsen” stones were poured concrete (Druidcrete?) by pointing out that similar stones were scattered all over Salisbury plain. The “poured concrete” claim is interesting in itself, since the technology of Roman pozzolan concrete had been lost and was not to be rediscovered for another 150 years or so after Aubrey (depended on whose claims to rediscovery you credit).
Inigo Jones’s pupil, John Wood, and his son (also John Wood) developed the Druidical/Hebraic temple theme and decided that Stonehenge was ultimate based on Solomon’s Temple and, therefore, the remainder of the most perfect building of all time (since the design came directly from God). That led Jones (father and son) to incorporate Stonehenge into the plan for the town of Bath (as the Circus; most descriptions of the Circus claim its influence was the Coliseum, not Stonehenge, but Hill holds for both). The Bath Circus happens to be the world’s first traffic circle; thus the next time you get stuck in one of those things you can blame some unknown Neolithic, the Woods, the Druids, Solomon, or God, as you prefer. The younger Wood latter added the Bath Crescent, thus invoking both solar and lunar symbolism.
William Stukeley made another careful survey, published in 1740, which covered not just Stonehenge but the surrounding archaeological sites on the Salisbury plain. While his surveying and descriptive work were meticulous, his theorizing was a little off level; he concluded that Stonehenge was built by Druids (which still bedevils archaeologists), and further concluding that the Druids were Christians, anticipating the Trinity – and that not only were they Christians, they were Protestants. Stukeley also decided that one of the medieval names for Stonehenge – Chorea gigantum, “Giant’s Dance” – had been corrupted by “monks” and the original was choir gaur, which was (according to Stukeley) a Welsh translation of a Hebrew phrase meaning “circular high place of the congregation”.
Once Druids were decided to be Protestants, it was perfectly acceptable to be one, and the Ancient Order of Druids was founded in 1781. Then (surprising like Protestants, in fact) the Druids began to splinter over fine points of Druidical doctrine, leading to the Gorsedd of Bards (1791), the United Ancient Order of Druids (1834), the Reformed Order of Druids (1834), the United Order of Druids (1839), the Order of Druids (1858), the Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids (1874), the Universal Bond of the Sons of Men (1909), the Ancient Order of Druid Hermetists (1930s), the Circle of the Universal Bond (1956), the Order of Ovates, Bards and Druids (1964), the Glastonbury Order of Druids (1986), the Secular Order of Druids (1986), the Loyal Arthurian Warband (1986), the Cotswold Order of Druids (1990s), and the British Order of Druids (1990s) (initials become significant). The Loyal Arthurian Warband was founded by a biker who legally changed his name to Arthur Pendragon, somehow obtained the prop sword from the movie Excaliber, dressed the part, and demanded free access to Stonehenge and Glastonbury as sacred religious sites of his group. The police confiscated the sword, but Arthur took to chaining himself to the doors of government buildings.
Possibly channeling the John Woods, in the 1970s California sociologist Melvyn Webber incorporated Stonehenge into his design for the planned community of Milton Keynes, which has an Avebury Street, a Silsbury Street, and a Midsummer Boulevard; at the solstice the rising sun shines down Midsummer Boulevard and illuminates a shopping center – which suggests yet another possible use for Stonehenge. Stonehenge influenced other modern sites around the world, including Carhenge in Nebraska and Fridgehenge in Santa Fe; the latter, instead of being aligned on astronomical positions, was instead aligned on Los Alamos and intended to disrupt nuclear work there by creating ley lines, or something. That might explain some things.
Starting in the 1980s, Stonehenge became the site of repeated and sometimes violent confrontations between police and Druids, “hippies”, and members of the general public, usually on Midsummer Day (Hill notes in passing that it was usually not the Druids that caused the problem but people that turned out to mock them). Various laws attempting to fix things, often seemingly without any significant thought from the lawmakers, tended to either make things worse or be egregious civil liberties violations (for example, it was illegal to have a “procession” without a permit, and two or more people walking within 50 yards of each other could be considered a “procession”). Hill notes that during the disturbances police were often stationed on ley lines intersection – she doesn’t comment if the police thought that the ley line “energy fields” would provoke disturbance or that potential disturbers might show up there.
Hills conclusion is somewhat sad, illustrating the reverse tragedy of the commons – when everybody has a say, nothing can get done. It is recognized that tourism is destroying Stonehenge, even though you can no longer get inside the stone circles (Druids get special access on the solstice holidays, and members of the general public can get rationed tickets). Highways pass north, south and west of the site, but every attempt to relocate them or replace them with tunnels is opposed by somebody (for example, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the largest charity in England (according to Hill), protested highway relocation efforts because they would disturb corn buntings, skylarks, lapwings and barn owls.) Other stakeholders in the highway relocation project include the Royal Automobile Club, the Alliance of Pagan and Druid Communities, the Loyal Arthurian Warband (which, not surprisingly, insisted on meeting around a Round Table), the National Trust, English Heritage, the Royal Archaeological Institute, the Stonehenge Alliance, the Friends of the Earth, the Council for British Archaeology, the Salisbury District Council, the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport, the Department of Transport, the General Post Office, the British Archaeological Trust, the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England, Save our Sacred Sites, and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (which is a unit of UNESCO). One imagines that a meeting incorporating all those groups might be interesting to attend. Similarly it is recognized that the visitor center is obsolete and dilapidated, but attempts to build, or even locate, a new visitor center have been thwarted. Hill notes that more than £20,000,000 have been spent on planning and design efforts without anything getting done on the ground.
The final chapter is a very nice “getting there” guide; although not a “visitor guide” per se it tells you how to get to Stonehenge on public transportation and has suggestions for visiting nearby relevant sites such as Durrington Walls, Woodhenge, and museums in Salisbury and Devizes.
The book is organized mostly by theme – antiquaries, druids, architects, Victorians, etc., rather than strictly chronologically, so the narrative bounces around somewhat. Although there’s an archaeological chapter at the beginning, Hill assumes that the reader has a general knowledge of the site – for example, what sarsens, bluestones, and trilithons are. For the American reader, it helps to know some Anglicisms – car park and quango are the examples that come to mind – and have a rough knowledge of English history. Excellent illustrations are slightly hampered by the book’s small format. The bibliography is excellent, covering both up to date (2008) archaeological works and the “cultural” references.
Highly recommended, but you should read a more traditional archaeological book first.
Added later: I haven’t been back in a while but I believe the highways around Stonehenge have finally been rerouted.… (mais)