Devil's Arrows: Ancient builders hauled 55k-lb stones 11 miles for UK stone row

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 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		and at least one stone came from Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c207lqdn755o

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dmichulke 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

25-tonne stones for 18km in case you wondered

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SECProto 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Or 3928 stone stones

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

	▲	walthamstow 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Stones are the Fahrenheit of weight. Useful for the human body but fuck all else.

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robertlagrant 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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nickt 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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

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gnufx 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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...

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tantalor 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's not too prosaic, it's just too imprecise. There is no standard size, and some regulations even allow a range of sizes.

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

	▲	gnufx 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think that's relevant for Register units. Clearly there's a standard brontosaurus somewhere, for instance, otherwise how could we have the conversion table? However, sorry, I was wrong about the football pitch, at least as a unit of area, equal to 194.89nWa per the original article: https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2007/08/24/so-whats-the-...

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frereubu 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a shame it's not about area then at least we could agree on Wales as a unit.

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blater 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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

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spikels an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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ChrisRR 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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Xmd5a an hour ago | parent | next [-]

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

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guenthert 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They could have said 3300 stones stones ...

	▲	euroderf 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That rocks.

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masfuerte 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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

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dboreham 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

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 a minute ago \| parent [-]
		A lot of the older "no vehicles over X" signage is denominated in tons.

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walthamstow 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

	▲	edoceo 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, in USA the bits are in fractions and stuff you purchase will have instructions like, drill 3/8 hole for a wall anchor, or 2+1/4 hole for a door-bolt set.

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thechao 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's because we measure weight in tonnage.

	▲	close04 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In the EU and UK the weight of the vehicle is on the signs too [0], or the weight per axle [1]. [0] https://hgvlgvtraining.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/weig... [1] https://freesvg.org/img/B13a.png

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hashim 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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ButlerianJihad 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

	▲	vogelke 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Lovely.

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surfingdino an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

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dgan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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