# Stonhenge STILL Has Secrets?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 1, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529 "2008-04-01T15:08:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/1 "2008-04-01T15:08:07Z")
It is hard for me to belive that this thing hasn’t been studied to death, yet, new excavations are going on:[http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7813&eeid=5787100&\_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne](http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7813&eeid=5787100&_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne)
Anybody know if this team will unearth something special?
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### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/2 "2008-04-01T15:18:44Z")
I hope that they discover that it was just a big circular set of druidic public toilets.
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### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/3 "2008-04-01T15:23:13Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
It is hard for me to belive that this thing hasn’t been studied to death, yet, new excavations are going on:[Currently.com - AT&T Yahoo Email, News, Sports & More](http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7813&eeid=5787100&_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne)
Anybody know if this team will unearth something special?
[/QUOTE]
According to the article, the focus of this excavation will be the first bluestones put in place. The researchers already located the source of those stones, in Wales.
There hasn’t been a dig within the central circle of stones since 1964. Archaeology has progressed considerably since that time.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/4 "2008-04-01T15:28:36Z")
No, they won’t find anything special, and certainly not anything frightening or dangerous . . . Nothing at all . . . Heh-heh-heh . . . _Cthulhu ftaghn!_
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/5 "2008-04-01T15:34:02Z")
Turns out it was just Cthulhu’s chamber pot.
But there are things man was not meant to smell…
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/6 "2008-04-01T15:37:30Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
It is hard for me to belive that this thing hasn’t been studied to death, yet, new excavations are going on:[Currently.com - AT&T Yahoo Email, News, Sports & More](http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=7813&eeid=5787100&_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=0&ck=&ch=ne)
Anybody know if this team will unearth something special?
[/QUOTE]
Read the article you linked to. The answer to your question is there.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/7 "2008-04-01T15:37:39Z")
[It does tend to get annoying . . .](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38680)
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/8 "2008-04-01T15:50:13Z")
Say, this reminds me, have they yet started to excavate [the tomb of Shih Huangdi](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=273053)?
I mean, its location has been known since 1974. It’s right there between the terracotta regiments.
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### Author:  [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/9 "2008-04-01T15:55:49Z")
Didn’t someone try this before here? Cecil covered it right? I seem to remember this being on the staff reports at one point a few years back…
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/10 "2008-04-01T16:11:45Z")
I recall an episode of [_The Goodies,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goodies) set in Roman Britain:
BILL: And what have **we** got to be proud of?!
TIM: Well . . . Stonehenge!
BILL: Oh, yeah! We built that thing! It’s been sitting out there for two thousand years! Still doesn’t fly.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/11 "2008-04-01T18:00:43Z")
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
Didn’t someone try this before here? Cecil covered it right? I seem to remember this being on the staff reports at one point a few years back…
[/QUOTE]
[Staff Report on Stonehenge, 2003.](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mstonehenge.html) But nothing about any impending excavation, which is what the OP is about. Based on that report, Stonehenge still **does** have some secrets, in that nobody’s entirely sure what culture(s) built it or what religious significance, if any, it had to them.
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### Author:  [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2008, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/12 "2008-04-02T00:09:57Z")
I don’t really have anything to add here but this is a good opportunity to post two pictures I took at Stonehenge when I was on vacation two weeks ago: [Picture #1](http://www.image4u.org/interface2x/Stonehenge%20-%20The%20Skies%20open.jpg) and [Picture #2](http://www.image4u.org/interface2x/Stonehenge%20Sky.jpg).
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2008, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/13 "2008-04-02T00:18:54Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Based on that report, Stonehenge still **does** have some secrets, in that nobody’s entirely sure what culture(s) built it or what religious significance, if any, it had to them.
[/QUOTE]
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, there lived a strange race of people – the Druids. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge.
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### Author:  [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2008, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/14 "2008-04-02T00:39:32Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco]
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, there lived a strange race of people – the Druids. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge.
[/QUOTE]
How long before the guy who insists on listening to Spinal Tap all the time while digging mysteriously falls down a pit?
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### Author:  [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2008, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/15 "2008-04-02T01:08:09Z")
I hope that just a whoosh about the Druids, as Stonehenge surely predates the Druids.
Haha, I just read a remark from Enc. Brit, where a knowledgeable chap (R.J.C. Atkinson, archaeologist from University College, Cardiff.) says that:
\*\*“No one will ever have a clue what its significance was.” \*\*
[http://library.eb.co.uk/eb/article-9069811?query=Stonehenge&ct=](http://library.eb.co.uk/eb/article-9069811?query=Stonehenge&ct=)
Spoilsport man! Nothing to stop archaeologists having one hell of a time looking, is there? 🙂
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2008, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/16 "2008-04-02T02:24:31Z")
[QUOTE=Celyn]
I hope that just a whoosh about the Druids, as Stonehenge surely predates the Druids.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a reference to [this scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXGbwIkvh38&NR=1) from [this movie.](http://imdb.com/title/tt0088258/)
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### Author:  [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2008, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/17 "2008-04-02T03:08:07Z")
Ah, all righty, if it’s a _Spinal Tap_ quotation, me is whooshed. ☹ Oops.
Sorry, but you will know that people have said sillier things about Stonehenge and other stone circles etc, so I was sort of trying not to let anyone else be misled. It’s just that there _are_ people who will twitter on about druids when they visit Stonehenge or Callanish or anywhere.:smack: :smack: :smack: Sorry.
I have my very own mini henge, actually. Well, more like a local neighbour sort of henge of slightly more recent construction than normal. 😃
> [@](#):
>
> While manager of the Glasgow Parks Astronomy Project, Duncan Lunan designed and built the first astronomically-aligned stone circle in Britain for around 5000 years. …
[http://www.astra.org.uk/Glasgow%20Branch.html](http://www.astra.org.uk/Glasgow%20Branch.html)
It is very small and everyone who sees it immediately starts giggling about Spinal Tap (no, it’s not _that_ small).
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2008, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/18 "2008-05-30T14:08:20Z")
[Stonehenge is a burial ground!](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/29/AR2008052901973.html?hpid=moreheadlines)
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2008, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/19 "2008-05-30T14:20:15Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco]
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, there lived a strange race of people – the Druids. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge.
[/QUOTE]
It’s supposed to be pronounced, “Stone’enge.”
Who were these strange people called the Druids, and what would they say to us if we were here tonight?
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stonhenge-still-has-secrets/443529/20 "2008-05-30T14:32:29Z")
There once was a daring young Druid
Whose manner of living was luid
He’d engage Druid lasses
In small talk – no passes –
But the next thing they knew they’d been scruid!
– Isaac Asimov
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