# Stonehenge - Where did the missing stones go? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2014, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519 "2014-04-07T01:36:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/21 "2014-04-07T20:27:18Z")
I doubt any of the central stones would have been poor enough quality to have eroded away; they are made of Welsh bluestone, which is harder than granite - and (assuming the human transport theory is correct) they were hauled hundreds of miles to site - if you’re going to do that, you wouldn’t transport the crappy examples. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/22 "2014-04-07T20:31:07Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I doubt any of the central stones would have been poor enough quality to have eroded away; they are made of Welsh bluestone, which is harder than granite - and (assuming the human transport theory is correct) they were hauled hundreds of miles to site - if you’re going to do that, you wouldn’t transport the crappy examples. You’re probably right, but would people know if a stone had a central flaw? Anyway, erosion could account for some of the other missing stones, or even sinking. How much excavation has been done? I’ve only been there once, and I read a lot right before visiting it, but it was a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/23 "2014-04-07T21:00:02Z")
There was a problem with the docking clamps on the Millenium A-02 series, so some of the stones got lifted out and only dropped off once they were out of atmo. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/24 "2014-09-23T18:08:33Z")
BBC recently showed an excellent documentary about Stonehenge. (The two 53-minute episodes are both available at YouTube.) With [many new underground discoveries obtained by magnetometers and radar](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29126854), this is a “must-see”, I think, for those interested. … And due to unusual weather in 2013 the missing stone riddle is partly solved: Parch marks appeared on the grass exactly where the missing stones should have been. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/25 "2014-09-23T18:16:39Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > At nearby [Avebury](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury) (where there is also a big and ancient stone ring - more impressive than Stonehenge in some ways), the village intersects the monument - and there are houses that incorporate suspiciously large stones in the construction of their walls. Yep. Been there and had lunch in the pub. This was about 20 years ago, but the thing I like about it was that you could wonder about and even touch the stones if you wanted. Stonehenge is pretty much off limits these days. ---
**Author:** ![buckgully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb9ed0/32.png) [@buckgully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buckgully)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/26 "2014-09-23T18:25:54Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > There was a problem with the docking clamps on the Millenium A-02 series, so some of the stones got lifted out and only dropped off once they were out of atmo. Let’s not forget the time when G’sron Tb’alla forgot to purge the phlogiston filter on the aft drive sprocket. Poor guy couldn’t shamble for more than a galactic week after that. Er. I mean… I love Earth! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/27 "2014-09-23T18:41:03Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > If you go to Salibury, you can see chunks of the ex-monastery in many of the facades of the old buildings around town. Compared to the effort of chopping a new block out of a quarry, using a pre-liberated chunk of rock is incredily simple, especially if it has also been moved quite close to you. Actually, you can see a few houses in Salisbury that include pieces of Stonehenge itself. I think one of the cathedral’s (former) outbuildings is among them. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/28 "2014-09-23T18:45:47Z")
It was the only place they could get material for Black Sabbath’s full-sized Stonehenge replica. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/29 "2014-09-23T19:12:37Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > BBC recently showed an excellent documentary about Stonehenge. (The two 53-minute episodes are both available at YouTube.) {…} [Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath](http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu5Fk2yEDIjwfHbU8FgV1Vg/videos?flow=grid&view=0&sort=da) “Before Stonehenge there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge. But, er… But a big, bad wolf came and blew them down.” Eddie Izzard - Dress To Kill CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/30 "2014-09-23T20:00:23Z")
Yes I saw that too. Wth the recent cropmarks showing up where the missing stones once were, it looks like the ‘never finished’ theory is pretty much dead (for now). ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/31 "2014-09-23T20:32:04Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > [Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath](http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu5Fk2yEDIjwfHbU8FgV1Vg/videos?flow=grid&view=0&sort=da) > > “Before Stonehenge there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge. > But, er… > But a big, bad wolf came and blew them down.” > Eddie Izzard - Dress To Kill > > CMC fnord! You laugh now… > **[Woodhenge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodhenge)** > > Woodhenge is a Neolithic Class II henge and timber circle monument within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in Wiltshire, England. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Stonehenge, in Durrington parish, just north of the town of Amesbury. > Woodhenge was believed to be identified from an aerial photograph taken by pilot and World War I veteran Gilbert Insall, VC, in 1926, during the same period that an aerial archaeology survey of Wessex by Alexander Keiller and O. G. S. Crawford (Archaeology O... ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/32 "2014-09-23T20:47:27Z")
Probably already answered, but: > [@](#): > > One theory is ‘they were never there’ -i.e. Stonehenge was never finished. This is definitely incorrect. They have used ground penetrating radar plus excavation and seen not only where the major stones of the henge were placed, but a lot of other stones further out, plus the remains of earlier wooden structures in the area. It was definitely finished…many times, in fact, and partially torn down or re-arranged several times, as the complex was re-purposed or reconfigured or expanded. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/33 "2014-09-23T23:18:06Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Hell, people in the Middle Ages were known to reuse sarcophagi! Charlemagne was buried (or so they think) in a 3rd century Roman sarcophagus. The village where I was brought up was build on a Merovingian cemetary. The stone sarcophagi were conveniently reused as watering places for cattle. There were many of them when I was a kid (and they all dissapeared since and I wonder what they did with them. thrown away or destroyed, probably). Also one was gathering the water of a spring, and you could see one in the coping of a well at the post office. Around 1980, a municipal building contractor dug up a couple. They were broken to be reused in the fundations of a house he was building nearby. So, even in modern times, people on the overall give more importance to their immediate and mundane than to the historical value of things. Last year, I don’t remember in which latin american country, a precolombian pyramid was secretly partially demolished by a contractor to reuse the stones to build a road. Someone mentioned that marble columns have often been reused in later monuments. But in the past, marble was often not even reused but plainly turned into plaster. So went many antique statues. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2014, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/34 "2014-09-23T23:43:01Z")
Avebury reminds me of the creepiest thing I watched as a kid: [The Children of the Stones](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Stones)! Happy day! ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/35 "2014-09-24T01:30:00Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Just about. > > [http://qi.com/infocloud/henge](http://qi.com/infocloud/henge) > Although not as big as Stonehenge the alleged (as there is no absolute certainty that it is) rock where the pilgrims landed first in Plymouth suffered a similar fate and after losing 2/3 of the original size due to pieces chipped away by souvenir hunters and tourists, the rock was more protected after the 1880’s. > > And the same thing happened with Stonehenge, after so many years of neglect they took the chisels away from the tourists in the 1900’s and roped the stones in the 1970’s. > > [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stonehenge-visitors-used-be-handed-chisels-take-home-souvenirs-180949976/](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/stonehenge-visitors-used-be-handed-chisels-take-home-souvenirs-180949976/) to remove toads??? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/36 "2014-09-24T06:43:55Z")
> [@XT](#): > > This is definitely incorrect. They have used ground penetrating radar plus excavation and seen not only where the major stones of the henge were placed, but a lot of other stones further out, plus the remains of earlier wooden structures in the area. It was definitely finished…many times, in fact, and partially torn down or re-arranged several times, as the complex was re-purposed or reconfigured or expanded. Indeed Stonehenge was rearranged many times. But there is no guarantee that the last re-arrangement was ever finished, especially since some of the lintel stones are missing and would not have left any holes whether they were there or not, since they would have been suspended in the air. Anyone approaching the last incarnation of Stonehenge from The Avenue would have seen the front of the monument, which was almost certainly complete; but they wouldn’t have been able to see the stones at the back so well. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/37 "2014-09-24T15:06:33Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Indeed Stonehenge was rearranged many times. But there is no guarantee that the last re-arrangement was ever finished, especially since some of the lintel stones are missing and would not have left any holes whether they were there or not, since they would have been suspended in the air. > > Anyone approaching the last incarnation of Stonehenge from The Avenue would have seen the front of the monument, which was almost certainly complete; but they wouldn’t have been able to see the stones at the back so well. Sorry, I don’t have a cite handy for this one, but looking at the lintel stones and doing analysis you can see both groves and pins (a mortise and tenon type configuration IIRC) and the evidence that the stones had been set (wear on the remaining stones for example). I remember reading this a few years ago and it was based on then current archeological evidence that the stone circle had been completed…there was no doubt…including the lintel stones. Based on most of the posts in this thread, it’s not really that much of a mystery what happened to them. As someone up thread said, it’s more a mystery how any of them survived in tact on the site for 4-5k years. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/38 "2014-09-24T15:38:20Z")
If you have access to BBC iPlayer there’s been a two-part series on Stone Henge in the last month which goes over the recent discoveries made using the LIDAR scanning. > **[BBC Two - Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath, Episode 2](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j29ht)** > > A closer look at the stone circle and the ancient civilisation that flourished around it. It’s only online for another 3 days so watch it while you can. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/39 "2014-09-24T16:29:35Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Indeed Stonehenge was rearranged many times. But there is no guarantee that the last re-arrangement was ever finished, especially since some of the lintel stones are missing and would not have left any holes whether they were there or not, since they would have been suspended in the air. > > Anyone approaching the last incarnation of Stonehenge from The Avenue would have seen the front of the monument, which was almost certainly complete; but they wouldn’t have been able to see the stones at the back so well. Good username/post combo. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2014, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519/40 "2014-09-24T16:37:44Z")
Here’s a bit more detail on the ‘never finished’ theory > **[Stonehenge was built by cowboys... so hasn't it lasted well!](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2671664/Stonehenge-built-cowboys-lasted-well.html)** > > Professor Ronald Hutton described the prehistoric wonder on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, as 'a unique and possibly failed experiment'. > [@](#): > > When they put up one of those great sandstone blocks in the outer circle, it slipped when it was being put in its hole, fell over and broke in half. > ‘If you were a decent bunch of builders what you’d do then is, after a great deal of screaming and complaining, chuck the two broken bits away and bring another one intact and do it properly. > ‘They didn’t. They put one broken bit on top of the other broken bit, jammed a lintel on top and hoped they’d stay together. They didn’t, they fell over quite soon after. > > ‘So these people are working under pressure, they don’t have the resources or the time to get another stone. This is the heart of the disaster that Stonehenge ended up being. I think he is talking about Stone 11, which is still mostly upright, but is too small to support a lintel. The idea seems to be that it stood underneath a lintel, looking like a proper upright but not supporting anything. I doubt that was the original plan, but it probably looked okay from most angles. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonehenge-where-did-the-missing-stones-go/685519.md?page=3)