Hacker News

by Ryan Harman

Devil's Arrows: Ancient builders hauled 55k-lb stones 11 miles for UK stone row (sciencedaily.com)

45 points by bookofjoe 3 days ago

cjs_ac 5 hours ago

Also, Stonehenge was built (partially) from parts of other stone circles, from as far away as Wales: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029203

graemep 3 hours ago

and at least one stone came from Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207lqdn755o

chrisweekly an hour ago

Ken Follett (of "Pillars of the Earth" fame) wrote a terrific semi-historical* novel called "Circle of Days" that portrays a vivid picture of the people and circumstances that could've led to the creation of Stonehenge.

*"semi" qualifier bc there's so little known for sure -- but it's at least plausible, and his extensive research doesn't contradict things that can be verified.

dmichulke 6 hours ago

25-tonne stones for 18km in case you wondered

SECProto 4 hours ago

Or 3928 stone stones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(unit)

walthamstow 3 hours ago

Stones are the Fahrenheit of weight. Useful for the human body but fuck all else.

robertlagrant 6 hours ago

For anyone confused, British people would generally use tonnes (or tons, but maybe not know the difference exactly) and miles.

nickt 5 hours ago

Or about 3 double-decker buses for the length of 171 footy pitches.

gnufx 4 hours ago

That's not dimensionally correct! Double-decker bus is a unit of length, and footy pitch is too prosaic to be an approved unit: https://www.theregister.com/bootnotes/2026/05/31/the-reg-onl...

frereubu 3 hours ago

tantalor 3 hours ago

blater 4 hours ago

to clarify for those of a nautical bent - that's about half a blue whale for about 4/5ths of a dozen nautical miles

ChrisRR 6 hours ago

Imperial is confusing at the best of times, but couldn't they have said 24.5 tons instead of 55,000 lbs?

Xmd5a 3 hours ago

Sir ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ton

> he long ton,[1] also known as the imperial ton, displacement ton,[1][2] or British ton,[3] is a measurement unit equal to 2,240 pounds

guenthert 5 hours ago

They could have said 3300 stones stones ...

euroderf 5 hours ago

That rocks.

masfuerte 5 hours ago

That's the way they like it. American road signs have mad shit like "No trucks over 15,000 lbs".

hamdingers 2 hours ago

This is an is-ought inference. Americans have not been given an option and use the units they're provided with, which is a frustrating mix of everything depending on context.

Nobody seems to like it this way.

walthamstow 4 hours ago

Surely they don't actually like drill bits measured in fractions of an inch, do they?

edoceo 4 hours ago

dboreham 2 hours ago

The American thousands of pounds thing is even more weird than that: I buy gravel from the gravel pit. They weigh my truck and dump trailer in lbs and then charge me per ton. Everyone talks about tons: e.g. I'd call a dump truck operator and ask him to deliver 18 tons of rock, not 36,000lbs. But the weighbridge and road signs and regulations about vehicle and axle weight are always in lbs. If you only read things and never talked to other people you'd never know tons existed.

cucumber3732842 2 hours ago

thechao 5 hours ago

That's because we measure weight in tonnage.

close04 4 hours ago

JKFSOM 21 minutes ago

Meanwhile, in Egypt...

spikels 3 hours ago

Strange they don't mention how many stones. Image shows two. There are three today and four, maybe five, originally.

hashim 4 hours ago

The word for this structure is apparently a menhir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir. The article calls it the tallest in the UK but its Wikipedia page calls it the second-tallest. This is the actual tallest, interestingly also in Yorkshire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudston_Monolith.

ButlerianJihad 6 hours ago

This must be the origin of the saying, “People who start stone rows shouldn’t build glass houses”.

vogelke 4 hours ago

Lovely.

surfingdino 3 hours ago

Must have been a contractor. The permies would wait for the procurement process to pick someone to move those stones for them. /s

dgan 3 hours ago

Need 7 more paragraphes telling us that the stones, weren't in fact, chosen from the nearest location, but were chosen from a distant location.

Without ever telling *how" they were moved of course, that would give out too much

dogscatstrees an hour ago

Quite easy. They were moved like this:

https://youtu.be/YpNuh-J5IgE