cjs_ac5 hours ago
Also, Stonehenge was built (partially) from parts of other stone circles, from as far away as Wales: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029203
graemep3 hours ago
and at least one stone came from Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207lqdn755o
airin_storiesan hour ago
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chrisweeklyan hour ago
Ken Follett (of "Pillars of the Earth" fame) wrote a terrific semi-historical* novel called "Circle of Days" that portrays a vivid picture of the people and circumstances that could've led to the creation of Stonehenge.
*"semi" qualifier bc there's so little known for sure -- but it's at least plausible, and his extensive research doesn't contradict things that can be verified.
dmichulke6 hours ago
25-tonne stones for 18km in case you wondered
SECProto4 hours ago
Or 3928 stone stones
walthamstow3 hours ago
Stones are the Fahrenheit of weight. Useful for the human body but fuck all else.
robertlagrant6 hours ago
For anyone confused, British people would generally use tonnes (or tons, but maybe not know the difference exactly) and miles.
nickt5 hours ago
Or about 3 double-decker buses for the length of 171 footy pitches.
gnufx4 hours ago
That's not dimensionally correct! Double-decker bus is a unit of length, and footy pitch is too prosaic to be an approved unit: https://www.theregister.com/bootnotes/2026/05/31/the-reg-onl...
frereubu3 hours ago
It's a shame it's not about area then at least we could agree on Wales as a unit.
tantalor3 hours ago
It's not too prosaic, it's just too imprecise. There is no standard size, and some regulations even allow a range of sizes.
gnufx2 hours ago
I don't think that's relevant for Register units. Clearly there's a standard brontosaurus somewhere, for instance, otherwise how could we have the conversion table? However, sorry, I was wrong about the football pitch, at least as a unit of area, equal to 194.89nWa per the original article: https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2007/08/24/so-whats-the-...
blater4 hours ago
to clarify for those of a nautical bent - that's about half a blue whale for about 4/5ths of a dozen nautical miles
[deleted]6 hours agocollapsed
ChrisRR6 hours ago
Imperial is confusing at the best of times, but couldn't they have said 24.5 tons instead of 55,000 lbs?
Xmd5a3 hours ago
Sir ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ton
> he long ton,[1] also known as the imperial ton, displacement ton,[1][2] or British ton,[3] is a measurement unit equal to 2,240 pounds
guenthert5 hours ago
They could have said 3300 stones stones ...
euroderf5 hours ago
That rocks.
[deleted]5 hours agocollapsed
masfuerte5 hours ago
That's the way they like it. American road signs have mad shit like "No trucks over 15,000 lbs".
hamdingers2 hours ago
This is an is-ought inference. Americans have not been given an option and use the units they're provided with, which is a frustrating mix of everything depending on context.
Nobody seems to like it this way.
walthamstow5 hours ago
Surely they don't actually like drill bits measured in fractions of an inch, do they?
edoceo4 hours ago
Yes, in USA the bits are in fractions and stuff you purchase will have instructions like, drill 3/8 hole for a wall anchor, or 2+1/4 hole for a door-bolt set.
dboreham2 hours ago
The American thousands of pounds thing is even more weird than that: I buy gravel from the gravel pit. They weigh my truck and dump trailer in lbs and then charge me per ton. Everyone talks about tons: e.g. I'd call a dump truck operator and ask him to deliver 18 tons of rock, not 36,000lbs. But the weighbridge and road signs and regulations about vehicle and axle weight are always in lbs. If you only read things and never talked to other people you'd never know tons existed.
cucumber37328422 hours ago
A lot of the older "no vehicles over X" signage is denominated in tons.
thechao5 hours ago
That's because we measure weight in tonnage.
close044 hours ago
In the EU and UK the weight of the vehicle is on the signs too [0], or the weight per axle [1].
[0] https://hgvlgvtraining.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/weig...
JKFSOM23 minutes ago
Meanwhile, in Egypt...
spikels3 hours ago
Strange they don't mention how many stones. Image shows two. There are three today and four, maybe five, originally.
hashim4 hours ago
The word for this structure is apparently a menhir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir. The article calls it the tallest in the UK but its Wikipedia page calls it the second-tallest. This is the actual tallest, interestingly also in Yorkshire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudston_Monolith.
ButlerianJihad6 hours ago
This must be the origin of the saying, “People who start stone rows shouldn’t build glass houses”.
vogelke4 hours ago
Lovely.
airin_storiesan hour ago
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surfingdino3 hours ago
Must have been a contractor. The permies would wait for the procurement process to pick someone to move those stones for them. /s
dgan3 hours ago
Need 7 more paragraphes telling us that the stones, weren't in fact, chosen from the nearest location, but were chosen from a distant location.
Without ever telling *how" they were moved of course, that would give out too much
dogscatstreesan hour ago
Quite easy. They were moved like this:
