OFF: The latest tempest over Stonehenge

[Karen Kusic]

The latest tempest over Stonehenge

How much of Britain’s ancient circle is a 20th-century
re-creation?

LONDON, Jan. 9 —  Tourists flock from all over the
world to gaze at Britain’s Stonehenge — but the
famed circle of huge stones is as much the work
of 20th-century engineers as prehistoric humans.
Researcher Brian Edwards has uncovered
photographs showing fallen stones at the site in
southern England being hauled into place using
cranes and scaffolding during facelifts over the
last 100 years.

   NOW THERE IS pressure for official guidebooks to
be rewritten instead of presenting tourists with the idea that
the stones have been standing untouched for thousands of
years.
   “For too long people have been kept in the dark over
the Stonehenge restoration work,” Edwards, a postgraduate
research student at the University of the West of England,
was quoted as saying by British newspapers Tuesday.
   “What we have been looking at is a 20th-century
landscape which is reminiscent of what Stonehenge might
have looked like thousands of years ago,” he said. “It has
been created by the heritage industry and is not the creation
of prehistoric people.”
   English Heritage, which operates the tourist site, denied
that there had been any coverup.
   “What was carried out in the 20th century was
structural stabilization work. To say that we are trying to
cover this up in some way is just not true,” English Heritage
spokeswoman Elspeth Henderson told the Independent.
   “The Stonehenge visitors’ guidebook is due to be
updated, and we will be considering what happened during
the 20th century, but no decision has been made.”

http://www.msnbc.com/news/513457.asp?bt=nm&btu=http://www.msnbc.com/tools/newstools/d/news_menu.asp

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