If there was a prize for the most bizarre tourist development of recent years, it’d have to go to Stonehenge Aotearoa. Apparently, this rather ugly re-creation of Salisbury’s famed landmark will help people to rediscover the basics of astronomy. Right.
The fact that it’s built of bland, shapeless, concrete blocks, and apparently, shows that we really are “standing on the shoulders of Maori giants” (you think they looked that one up?) does enough to discredit it. But then, you read this:
Inside, with an eye to performances and weddings that will be held here, the stones are also wired for sound.
…and you cringe.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Eugene 02.17.05 at 3:42 pm
I have to agree that it is somewhat hokey. Especially
that mentioning about standing on the shoulders of Maori
giants. I’m laughing over how they used wood lintels with
concrete sprayed on them. How can people learn astronomy from
a henge that was built in the Northern Hemisphere and has a
different star map and seasonal differences?
Eugene
Malc 02.17.05 at 4:50 pm
Well, as I’m sure that Richard Hall would be glad to tell us (as he is the president of the Phoenix Astronomical Society which built the henge) they have “adjusted” it so it points to the south celestial pole and the like.
Ivan The Crank 02.17.05 at 7:38 pm
I couldn’t help but notice that Richard is the person to ask about all this, as it says in the article:
“Instead, Stonehenge Aotearoa, which opened this weekend, is a full-scale adaptation of its Salisbury Plain ancestor, built to work for the Antipodes.”
“The aim of the Kiwi Stonehenge is to help people rediscover the basics of astronomy.”
“You can read as much as you like in a book how the sun and the moon work, how people use stars to navigate by, or to foretell the seasons,” says Richard Hall, president of the Phoenix Astronomical Society which built the henge.
“You stand here amongst the henge and you show people exactly how it works. Somehow it simplifies it and it becomes that much more easy to understand,” he said.
So, there it is, according to Richard.
Rob 02.18.05 at 2:57 am
As an amateur astronomer whose one real astronomy course in college was archaeoastronomy (including the study of Stonehenge, the Illinois Woodhenge, and Mayan calancers), I can point a few things out:
1. Most of the astronomical alignments aren’t all that sensitive to which hemisphere is used. Seasons are, in fact, exchanged, but solstice alignments will still be there, as will the summer and winter alignments. Lunar alignments will work as well. I don’t remember there being any stellar alignments at Stonehenge (not including the sun). There’s a couple possible stellar alignments at Woodhenge, but those weren’t proved.
Some of Stonehenge’s shape comes from where it was built. Other henges in England show that the location for Stonehenge may have been chosen to optimize one of these shapes. I’d have to actually look at latitude to figure out if the southern modern henge would share that one shape, but it’s inconsequential in my opinion.
As far as learning astronomy - you could learn some observational concepts, but there wouldn’t be nearly as much modern astronomy learned by the average sightseer. It’s more “gee whiz” science at that level. Then again, during a blackout, people called 911 to ask what the lights in the sky were. It will do some good, I suspect…
Of course, to get some of the alignments at Stonehenge took hundreds of years of observation. At least the modern henge could benefit from a calculator.