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Gah!!!
Look, “Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis , and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of.”
Alright? It’s all mystic wossname and kings burning bannocks, oiled-up body-builders pushing big wheels for no good reason and watery tarts handing out swords.
Bronnze ones, obviously.
I did, didn’t I? Checks - yes, I think I did. I think we’re entitled to give ordinary folk some leeway in eliding “the stone was shaped/erected in the neolithic” to “the stone is neolithic”.
Thankfully, the “Actually,…” disorder is not that virulent a spreader. There are still some people not yet afflicted.
Sorry to give anyone the impression that you were implying the original “Druids” had anything to do with the monument.
It could be Bronze or even Iron Age. Some standing stones were used as grave markers. These were erected even into the “Dark Ages” after the fall of Rome. Some were part of circles or processional lines. These were erected in the stone age.
I don’t know all the details of the monument. The only way to date it would be to dig underneath the stone and look for charcoal or other organic material to carbon date it. However, now that the stone has fallen and been moved about, we can never be sure.
I guess I am triggered regarding the way people blur all the various prehistoric/historic artifacts that were constructed over thousands of years into a pseudo historical fairy-tale “Once upon a time” time. I think the reality is more interesting.
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If only he had called the right guys.
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OK. You did.
I overlooked that what I read in your post was a quote from @Michael_Lavin
My bad.
And this lot
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Well, obviously the bull failed to contact the NMS two months ahead of time, so I think he’s the original lawbreaker. /s
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Back when I was into that sort of thing, it seemed that “druid” was the term in Gaul more akin to “professor” than “priest”, as it seemed it was the only academic title. Druids were more about the knowledge, it’s just that they didn’t see the divine as separate from the rest of knowledge. So the bureaucrats and archaeologists are in my eyes the true heirs of the druids. Modern druids are more a sort of cargo cult, funhouse-mirror copy.
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When visiting Stonehenge, we also visited another nearby site that had a series of stones and IIRC “witches thrones”. You could do a trick with these bent copper wires aligning if you were leaning on the stone. I am not sure what caused that, I will have to look it up.
IIRC, around that area is where I found a sample of chalk.
Maybe this?
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Dowsing could be done around the Avebury stones. Although it is done all over the place.
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I think there’s a bit of a misunderstanding here. To explain the reaction of the “bureaucrats” (really, Thom? I used to be one of those):
There are thousands and thousands of monuments like this. They can’t all be monitored 24/7 by badly underfinanced heritage authorities. In general that is no problem, though, because as long as nobody is messing with them, generally sites like this don’t deteriorate much. When the bull knocked over the stone that was unfortunate and it resulted in a bit of lost information but it wasn’t actually that bad from an archaeological perspective. The only real way to gain information about a stone like this is to excavate around and under it. With a standing stone like this normal excavation will not yield much information besides showing whether there was a pit dug and infilled later for example. However, with the help of soil micromorphology and palynology (pollen studies) it is possible, if the soil conditions are right, to tell, for example whether it was erected on tilled land or forest. The evidence used for this is damaged but still available even after a stone has tumbled. It is, however, completely destroyed when a druid digs a hole to straighten up a fallen stone.
I hope this makes clear why the authorities reacted the way they did. From an archaeological perspective no damage was done and no action necessary before the druids intervened.
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Oh you sweet summer child…
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I THINK we were at Avebury… I will have to dig out the pics sometime. I remember it was quite a trip from Stonehenge.
I said that I’m not normally cynical about bureaucrats! (though I recognize that the word is often pejorative).
Your explanation does help to make it make sense, though. It absolutely gels with my personal experience, and experiences of people I know, working with and within these cultural and historical institutions.
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I would sue you, but as my legal team includes a kitsune with a troubled past and a wendigo with a drinking problem they’re just as likely to turn on me as to see the case through.
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Might I recommend Carnival Row, if you have access to Prime? There’s a lot going on, but it really comes close to the concept I snarked about here.
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I thought about Carnival Row when I saw that post. Did it actually go anywhere? I found the start intriguing but not intriguing enough to carry on watching. 
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I have not seen that yet and don’t have prime, but I might see about checking it out at some point. I thought it had gotten bad reviews?
Also, what was the Will Smith movie on the netflix? Bright? Seems sort of similar, fantasy in a modern setting with crimes.
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