Henge for a Chameleon–1946, Somewhere in a London Zoo

copyrighted photo used with © on it. Click photo to visit page.

This is brilliant! British Pathé, a digital news archive, includes a video of chameleons climbing over a small Stonehenge replica at the London Zoo, like huge bizarre creatures of a past age. Brought to our attention by the magnificent yet under-appreciated Pete Glastonbury (unfairly gifted photographer whose speciality is ancient sites), this is probably the oldest existing video of a small Stonehenge replica.

Click >here< to see the British Pathé page, Prehistoric 1946, with video. (Totally worth clicking on just to hear the stentorian 1946 announcer and the ever-so-clever attempt at a humourous ending! ) The text on the page says, “Several shots of a chameleon moving around model of Stonehenge in a London Zoo. Some good close up shots of chameleons. This animal is half brother to lizard and looks like one. Man organises chameleons with hands – probably a zoo keeper.”

The replica is just four trilithons, but there it is, a bit of Stonehenge replica history. No scoring for this. It’s too awesome, too sexy for its trilithons! Please, if you have any old photos or videos of Stonehenge replicas, we want–no–we need to see them!

[This reminds us of the Stonehenge for Lizards post. Hmmm, there’s also the Stonehenge at the reptile zoo and the chocolate replica with the plastic lizards. We detect a pattern!. David Icke, where are you when we need you?! 😉 ]

Note: For those who don’t know, subscribers to our Twitter feed get links to extra henges from time to time, including our Friday foodhenges. In case you’re interested. Anyway, have a great weekend. Happy henging!

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!

A Little Stonehenge, a Cucumber, and Eleven

photos by Somara aka snarkygurl, with permission

[Strictly speaking this is not a Stonehenge replica, but a replica of a Stonehenge replica. The rare clonehenge clone!]

What a movie! What a cake! The movie This Is Spinäl Tap made the Stonehenge replica a household idea. We’ve often wondered what percentage of the 250 and counting posts we’ve put up would be here if it weren’t for Spinal Tap. Well, there is no doubt about today’s entry!

The baker/artist and photographer writes: “A friend of ours wanted to surprise her husband with a Spinal Tap cake for his birthday. She didn’t care what it looked like, so I had free reign to do what I wanted. I like it, other than the part where I accidentally made the strap too long, and where I lost the wrestling match with the white frosting.”

Well, we think she did an excellent job. Even got that cucumber-wrapped-in-tinfoil in there although much reduced in size!

And, speaking of reduced in size, our focus is, of course, the little Stonehenge replica, a trilithon, actually. We like the way the colouring on it is marbled to make it look like stone. It is very nicely done. Plus, it looks delicious. We hope it was.

Please note that the dials on the amp do say 11. That’s one higher! By the way, you can see our other posts concerning Spinal Tap here and here.

Score: 5 druids. It’s not much smaller than the one in the movie, after all. And we’re guessing Somara had a lot less money to work with. It’s not easy to get this kind of likeness in an edible replica. Nicely done!

Stent Henge–and A Happy 2010 to All!

photo from ADAMANT, used w/o permissions–permission pending

Happy New Year, Gentle Readers! The first henge of the year is one that will be hard to top. It’s made of stents of the sort used to prop open coronary arteries. The copy accompanying it reads:

“A reader reports one of his dearly departed co-workers spent a great deal of time creating a scale model in stents of Stone Henge. Stent Henge was created with pieces of scrap Nitinol self expanding vascular stents embedded in cured Sylgard 184 elastomer. It is a nearly perfect reproduction of the layout of the famous stone circle in England in a compact package just about the perfect size for a paper weight. It took nearly a year of work during slow periods. ” [links added by us]

We wonder, how do you even do something like this over a year? Do you add the clear silicone slowly, layer by layer? We don’t know, but the outcome is impressive and accurate. See the section that has retained its lintels? And the inner trilithon horseshoe?

Whoever made this used a photo of Stonehenge as it stands today as a guide. Perhaps he kept it in his chamber–or maybe he knew it by heart! I suppose we shouldn’t go on in that vein. (Don’t beat us!) Heh. Our New Year’s resolution is to actually be funny. Wish us luck!

Score: 7½druids. It’s made of unusual materials, and someone has taken pains to make it accurate. That’s what we like here in Clonehenge country. Posthumous kudos to the builder of this eccentric beauty!

Wearing Stonehenge: Show Your Love with Tiny Megaliths!

photo from the website of the Vangar Emporium

It’s getting toward the gifting season (groan!), so here’s a fun little set of items  for any Stonehenge enthusiast on your gift list. We were impressed with these because most earrings out there that are being called Stonehenge earrings bear no resemblance whatsoever to Stonehenge.  These are rather nice little trilithons of spotted stone (okay–in the real Stonehenge it is the short bluestones, not the tall sarsens of which the trilithons are made, that are spotted, but we’ll let that pass because we like the look).

And there’s the nice little pendant to go with them. The whole set would go well with an outfit of solid black, or a wardrobe of solid black if you’re that sort.

We can’t help but imagine these finding their ways onto the ears and chests of cute little wannabe Wiccans who have glittery moon tiaras and only a dim concept of Stonehenge that somehow involves Druids and Irish music or bagpipes although they’re not sure why. But quite serious archaeologists who know about Beaker folk and the cursus and what-not might wear these earrings, too. The stone shapes and proportions are well done and there’s an off-balance sense about them that echoes the cobbled-together look of the real monument.

Score: 6 druids, because good Stonehenge jewellery is hard to come by. Sadly for our Stateside readers, the website selling them is in the U.K. So far we haven’t found anything comparable on Etsy.

By the way, this site also sells small Stonehenge candle holders and even little witches hung from strings to hang from your ceiling or perhaps your . . . ahem . . . Yule tree. And that’s only on their Stone Age/Pagan/Celtic page. Who knows what joys await? Happy winter solstice shopping, or whatever you like to call it!

Packing Foamhenge: A Mini Tour de Force

henge and photos by Drew at thinkythings.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

We look at a lot of websites while doing this blog. Many times we get distracted and spend way too much time looking at non-henge-related pages. But never have we seen a site that so sweetly reveals a quirky and interesting mind the way thinkythings.org does. He discusses an odd assemblage of topics, from a 1940s woodpecker toothpick dispenser to what phrases you can make with a set of children’s alphabet blocks (warning–R-rated!) to (our favourite!) common or famous first names that are also verbs (with categories for variations you end up thinking of if you try listing them yourself), and many other odd things that somehow elicit a smile.

This is the kind of stuff we hope for from the internet, brilliant things arising not from the drive for money, but from the sheer quirkiness we each possess. (Don’t get us wrong–we’re not averse to money. Clonehenge remains nonprofit, like some people who remain virgins, not out of virtue but because of a dearth of interested petitioners!) One of topics that this unusual and prehensile mind touches on is the topic of Stonehenge, Stonehenge made with eco-foam, a material used for packing peanuts that will dissolve in water and disappear, hence “eco“.

In Drew’s words, “In 1994, a small team of software engineers at a consulting company in Cleveland, Ohio discovered that Eco-Foam does not dissolve when it is only slightly dampened. The part of the foam that comes in contact with the moisture becomes tacky, and this property can be used to stick Eco-Foam peanuts together or to other objects. The natural consequence of this discovery was to build a scale model of Stonehenge.”

Of course, he endeared himself to us in the first paragraph where he asserts that “if the Druids worshiped at Stonehenge, it was without knowledge of the site’s origins or purpose, for Stonehenge was completed 1500 years before the Celts arrived in Britain.” Hurray! It could only be better if he explained about the Beaker people. As if this weren’t enough, it is obvious from the photos, especially those from above the model, that the builders looked very closely at detailed layouts of Stonehenge. (Here is an aerial view for comparison.) This model is brilliantly made and of an unexpected material. Cha-ching!

Score: 7 druids! That’s high for a small henge, but this fellow even makes a point on his Odd Things page of giving the true definition of the word henge. You can’t beat that with a stick! As they say. Whatever that means.

Thank you, Mr. Drew, whoever you are. You serve as a model for those who aspire to make a better henge. And a better blog.

Witch Henge–Be Prepared for Serious Mojo!

photo by Bob Bradlee of Stonehenge Collectables

This item has witches on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 druids by itself, but once I turned it on, that’s when the magic happened! The evil gleeful witches began to revolve around the fire, which glowed like the eyes of a wolf howling at the moon. I don’t know how I lived until now, without this tasteful objet d’art!

After I plugged it in that first time, my life changed. Mail poured in, all full of checks for thousands of dollars. I’ve had to stop going to public places because of the throngs of ardent admirers I attract. When I step into the garden, bunnies and hedgehogs follow me and colourful birds light briefly on my shoulders or in the nearest branches and sing to me sweetly. Flowers open as I near them, and fill the air with a wonderful fragrance.

Indoors, dust has stopped settling on the furniture. The whole place cleans itself  now. My health has improved, I’ve lost weight, and I look ten years younger. I could go on, but of course there is this odd henge to discuss!

This is a resin model made by Lemax for their Spooky Town collection (called Witches’ Cove–do they mean coven or is it a reference to the Cove at Avebury?). There are the four uprights lintelled, one trilithon and some fallen stones. Then  there are six witches, or are they just Welsh women in traditional dress, who having swept up at Stonehenge are now burning the debris?

The witches (could one of these be Juniper?!) do revolve in a circle and the fire does light up. The owl, vulture, raven, black cat, skull and bones are there to add atmosphere. It’s surprising there’s no jack-o-lantern. Do you think someone said, “No–that would be over the top!” Heh. You can see more photos here.

Seriously–who comes up with this stuff (and why six witches instead of three?). We love the addition of the autumn leaves in the grass. How often do maple leaves blow onto the grass at Stonehenge, do you think? How much does EH pay per year to have someone come in with a leaf blower? No.

Score: We are waffling on whether this is so bad it’s good, or whether it’s just bad. Okay, I suppose we got a chuckle out of it. We’ll give it 5½ druids–or six witches! We considered just naming this post ROFLMAO. But then we thought of the wolf shirt.

Happy Halloween, Samhain, or whatever you celebrate! And seriously, if any of you witches out there do dress and party like this, send pictures!

Watermelonhenge, or, Where the So-Called Monkey Gets His Smile

henge and photo by monkey, with permission

The season is over in the northern hemisphere, but here it is–watermelonhenge, or, as monkey (a white stuffed monkey who looks curiously like a dog) calls it, watermelon stonehenge. And as monkey says, “everybody loves a good henge.” Especially when it’s tasty! He offers a tutorial here. And we belatedly discovered he has his own website here.

Of course this is not the only watermelonhenge on teh intarwebs (here’s one),  but it is the nicest. Monkey seems to benefit by being a world traveler and possibly having influential friends. It’s hard to tell about someone who uses a vague etymological term for his name. He’s not our first monkey with a henge, by the way. Some of you may remember this sweet children’s henge with a mother and child monkey pair along with a dog, which is, frankly, what monkey still looks like to us!

But on to the henge–nicely done for a foodhenge. Only two trilithons in the middle and not many fallen uprights, but at least he got the outer circle and didn’t just make it a ring of trilithons. That’s so last century! Anyway, we make allowances for foodhenges, as you know. And that incredible smile on monkey’s face tells us he is very happy with how the whole thing turned out.

Score: 6½ druids. We can see how someone clever with a knife could make quite a nice little watermelonhenge for a party plate. We recommend tapering the uprights so they’re smaller at the top. Why not give it a try? Look how well this fellow did and he just has fingerless stumps for hands! Well done, monkey! Let us know if you do a bananahenge. We already have a dog bone henge.

[And if you want to serve a non-henge watermelon plate for Halloween, we suggest this.]

Okay, Don't Make Us Come Over There! (Beach Stone Henge, Wales)

photo by Thelma June Jackson, with permission

It’s the Welsh. Well, it may not be the Welsh, but it is Wales. Remember this one? Well, the madness continues as the force emanating from Carn Menyn in the Preseli Hills forces people to reproduce Stonehenge everywhere all the time. In Wales, all children’s blocks are shaped like sarsens and every garden has at least one Stonehenge. Police patrol the roads to stop people building Stonehenge replicas on them at all hours. In restaurants everything is served in little trilithons. People even wear little Stonehenges on their heads!

Okay, well, we may be exaggerating just a wee bit. But, look, there’s no denying this is a second beach pebble henge. Two is more than one! We rest our case.

This is clearly a holiday henge. The builder did that ring of trilithons inside but then made a cairn of small stones in the middle and a partial ring of stones that he or she just laid flat around the outside, drawing a line, probably with a finger, to complete the circle. To us this says someone intended to build a Stonehenge replica and then when it started to get complex said, “Bugger this, I’m on holiday!” and did the rest in a hurry.

Still, it caught the eye of a passerby and here it is, an example of what you can do when you’re on a beach and the weather (or the water) is not nice enough for swimming. Beach stone henges are one of the most common types of Stonehenge replicas, but they can be a gateway henge, leading to a henge obsession that can disrupt your life and your relationships! Be forewarned.

Score: 6 druids. Looking at that beach, on second thought, please do make us come over there!

[Here’s another pebblehenge.]

Kansas State Fair Crinoid Stem Stonehenge Models

photos by Ace Jackalope, used with permission

Well, it was going to be watermelonhenge today, but after encountering some technical difficulties we decided to go with this brilliant entry from the 2009 Kansas State Fair: Stonehenge models made from fossil crinoid stems (crinoids are a kind of sea animal that resembles a lily, more or less, many of them anchored to the sea floor by stems). As our new friend Mister Jackalope posted, “Morgan Reves of Pottawatomie County, Kansas, treated the public to this special exhibit: two models of Stonehenge – past and present – made of fossil crinoid stems.”

Why fossil crinoid stems? We don’t know, but they are common. Presumably Morgan had a bag of them sitting around and was struck one day, as people are, with the idea that she (or he?) could make little Stonehenges with them. What we love is that the two models on display show the monument as it was, or is thought to have been, at its fullest stage, and in its modern, partially toppled condition (seen above).

As you can see on the left, diagrams and explanations of Stonehenge, and possibly of fossil crinoid stems, accompanied the models. Was this a science fair project or some other kind of display? We can only speculate, but we’re glad it was there to add to the weird materials list for Stonehenge replicas!

As relatively common and obvious as fossils are, they were bound to be noticed and used by the megalith builders at least once. While there may be others, the most famous real megalithic site to feature a fossil is the long barrow at Stoney Littleton (yes, they really give places names like that over in Great Britain–Tolkien didn’t make that up!). You can see a photo of the fossil ammonite on a stone at the front of it here. There is no chance that the builders didn’t see it, but what they thought of we can never know.

Score for these crinoid stem henges: 6½ druids. Fine work, Morgan Reves! The diagrams pick up the features, like the bluestones and the ditch and bank, that the models don’t show.

We end with a quote from an email we received from Ace Jackalope himself: “There’s a blog just for Stonehenge replicas? Surely the Internet has now fulfilled its greatest possible potential!”

Yes, it’s true. Just as in the Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan humans were created in order to build a replacement part for a Tralfamadorian spacecraft that had broken down near Earth (and Stonehenge is a message in Tralfamadorian), so these internets were built  for this and this alone. Everything else is simply an outgrowth of this ultimate process. Enjoy!