tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post354456253373631981..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Stonehenge: Decoded! ; or, What's so Secret about the Past?Cord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-53350812118792822642008-06-11T00:46:00.000-04:002008-06-11T00:46:00.000-04:00...can there really be a conversation between the ...<I>...can there really be a conversation between the living and the dead -- the past and the present? Or is the past destined to be a kind of straw man, whose script is always written by the living? </I> <BR/><BR/>What a wonderful way to phrase this question. It is certainly a mystery that confounds and inspires both intellect and spirit. <BR/><BR/>I enjoyed your post very much - thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-47994057779738493852008-06-08T13:44:00.000-04:002008-06-08T13:44:00.000-04:00Mary Kate, thanks for this post on a topic near to...Mary Kate, thanks for this post on a topic near to my heart. I like how you brought Bakhtin into it, as well as your sensitivity towards the temporal orientation of the monument. It is interesting how every age makes it own Stonehenge, and I am going to agree with Sylvia that "our" Stonehenge is multitemporal/multicultural -- that is, stresses the cohabitations of peoples and times that cluster around the stone. Those kinds of cohabitations are precisely the ones, in our most utopian moments, we imagine for our nations.<BR/><BR/>Sylvia, great link. I have just finished reading an article in National Geographic that is rather skeptical of the "prehistoric Lourdes" hypothesis, mainly for the absence of disabled bodies ... but who knows. The essay (which is quite good) also looks at the source of the bluestones on the Preseli Mountains in Wales, where Stonehenge-like standing rocks occur naturally and where springs have from time out of memory been associated with healing. I like the idea that nature made the first standing stones, and that Stonehenge is just the human version of this art.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-77987870443349365972008-06-07T12:00:00.000-04:002008-06-07T12:00:00.000-04:00Certainly the "dead past" can be treated as a stra...Certainly the "dead past" can be treated as a straw man, but haven't you been surprised by evidence of the past?<BR/><BR/>If you have, doesn't that answer your question?Steve Muhlbergerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18136005762428407135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-22566645556141338212008-06-07T07:14:00.000-04:002008-06-07T07:14:00.000-04:00I am hoping it will work if I post a link here to ...I am hoping it will work if I post a link here to a neat-o video of the many phases of Stonehenge from the 'Time Watch' crew, at BBC:<BR/><BR/>http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/stonehenge/video.shtml?video=cgi<BR/><BR/>There are other interesting Stonehenge links on that page, too. This must be part of the current fantasy of Stonehenge: wanting to understand not just what it 'originally' was, but everything it ever was. Built in a day by Merlin, indeed! We much prefer the narrative of a millenium-long building project, whose aims no doubt changed considerably during that time. We positively revel in its many mutations and transformations, not to mention its many avatars in different cultural moments throughout its history.<BR/>sylviaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com