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Sarsen Stone
Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found extensively across southern England on the Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire. Geology Sarsen stones are the post-glacial remains of a cap of Cenozoic silcrete that once covered much of southern England. This is thought to have formed during Neogene to Quaternary weathering by the silicification of Upper Paleocene Lambeth Group sediments, resulting from acid leaching. Etymology There are several potential sources for the word "sarsen." The first is that word "sarsen" is a shortening of "Saracen stone" which arose in the Wiltshire dialect. In the Middle Ages, "Saracen" was a common name for Muslims, and came by extension to be used for anything regarded as non-Christian, whether Muslim or pagan in contrast to Christianity. The second is that "sarsen" is vernacular variation of the Indo-European "sasan," name given ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarsen In Wiltshire
Sarsen stones are silicification, silicified sandstone blocks found extensively across southern England on the Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire. Geology Sarsen stones are the post-glacial remains of a cap of Cenozoic silcrete that once covered much of southern England. This is thought to have formed during Neogene to Quaternary weathering by the silicification of Upper Paleocene Lambeth Group sediments, resulting from acid leaching. Etymology There are several potential sources for the word "sarsen." The first is that word "sarsen" is a shortening of "Saracen stone" which arose in the Wiltshire dialect. In the Middle Ages, "Saracen" was a common name for Muslims, and came by extension to be used for anything regarded as non-Christian, whether Muslim or pagan in contrast to Christianity. The second is that "sarsen" is vernacular variation of the Indo-European "sasan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lambeth Group
The Lambeth Group is a stratigraphic group, a set of geological rock strata in the London and Hampshire basins of southern England. It comprises a complex of vertically and laterally varying gravels, sands, silts and clays deposited between 56-55 million years before present during the Ypresian age (lower Eocene). It is found throughout the London Basin with a thickness between 10m and 30m, and the Hampshire Basin with a thickness between 50m and less than 25m. Although this sequence only crops out in these basins, the fact that it underlies 25% of London at a depth of less than 30m means the formation is of engineering interest for tunnelling and foundations. History The formation was first known as the Plastic Clay by Thomas Webster in 1816 after the Argile plastique of Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart. It was called the Mottled Clay by Joseph Prestwich in 1846, but in 1853 he proposed the name Woolwich-and-Reading Beds to emphasise the differing local aspects of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blowing Stone
The Blowing Stone is a perforated sarsen in Kingston Lisle, Oxfordshire, England (). The stone is in a garden at the foot of Blowingstone Hill just south of the Icknield Way (B4507), about west of Wantage and about east of White Horse Hill. Blowingstone Hill is part of the escarpment of the Berkshire Downs, at the crest of which is The Ridgeway National Trail. Notability The stone is capable of producing a booming sound if someone with the required skill blows into one of the holes the right way. According to legend it could be heard atop White Horse Hill, where 19th-century antiquarians thought King Alfred the Great's Saxon troops had camped, and that this was how Alfred summoned them for the Battle of Ashdown against the Danes in 871 CE. Literature Thomas Hughes' 1857 novel ''Tom Brown's School Days'' refers to it as the ''Blawing Stwun'' and calls the village ''Kingstone Lisle''. It is also one of the "sacred stones" mentioned in William Horwood's '' Duncton Wood'' (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hertfordshire Puddingstone
Hertfordshire puddingstone is a conglomerate sedimentary rock composed of rounded flint pebbles cemented together by a younger matrix of silica quartz. The distinctive rock is largely confined to the English counties of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire but small amounts occur throughout the London Basin. It is quite commonly found in fields in and around Chesham, where pieces can be seen as boundary stones and in rockeries. Despite a superficial similarity to concrete, it is an entirely natural silcrete. A fracture runs across both the pebbles and the sandy matrix as both have equal strength unlike concrete where the pebbles remain whole and a fracture occurs only in the matrix. Like other puddingstones, it derives its name from the manner in which the embedded flints resemble the plums in a pudding. It forms the local base of the Upnor Formation of the Lambeth Group (lower Eocene, 56-55 million years ago). Geological origin The flints were eroded from the surrounding c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curb (road)
A curb (American English) or kerb (British English) is the edge where a raised sidewalk/pavement or road median, road median/central reservation meets a street/other roadway. History Although curbs have been used throughout modern history, and indeed were present in ancient Pompeii, their widespread construction and use only began in the 18th century, as a part of the various movements towards city beautification that were attempted in the period. A series of Paving Acts in the 18th century, especially the 1766 Paving and Lighting Act, authorized the City of London Corporation to create footways along the streets of London, pave them with Purbeck stone (the thoroughfare in the middle was generally cobblestone) and raise them above street level with curbs forming the separation. The corporation was also made responsible for the regular upkeep of the roads, including their cleaning and repair, for which they charged a tax from 1766. Previously, small wooden bollards had been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Stukeley
William Stukeley (7 November 1687 – 3 March 1765) was an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman. A significant influence on the later development of archaeology, he pioneered the scholarly investigation of the prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury in Wiltshire. He published over twenty books on archaeology and other subjects during his lifetime. Born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, as the son of a lawyer, Stukeley worked in his father's law business before attending Saint Benet's College, Cambridge (now Corpus Christi College). In 1709, he began studying medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, Southwark, before working as a general practitioner in Boston, Lincolnshire. From 1710 until 1725, he embarked on annual tours of the countryside, seeking out archaeological monuments and other features that interested him; he wrote up and published several accounts of his travels. In 1717, he returned to London and established himself within the city's antiquarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Megalith
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging geographically from Sweden in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the south. The word was first used in 1849 by the British antiquarian Algernon Herbert in reference to Stonehenge and derives from the Ancient Greek words " mega" for great and " lithos" for stone. Most extant megaliths were erected between the Neolithic period (although earlier Mesolithic examples are known) through the Chalcolithic period and into the Bronze Age. Types and definitions While "megalith" is often used to describe a single piece of stone, it also can be used to denote one or more rocks hewn in definite shapes for special purposes. It has been used to describe structures built by people from many parts of the world living in many different periods. The most widely known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avebury
Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in south-west England. One of the best-known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans. Constructed over several hundred years in the third millennium BC, during the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, the monument comprises a large henge (a bank and a ditch) with a large outer stone circle and two separate smaller stone circles situated inside the centre of the monument. Its original purpose is unknown, although archaeologists believe that it was most likely used for some form of ritual or ceremony. The Avebury monument is a part of a larger prehistoric landscape containing several older monuments nearby, including West Kennet Long Barrow, Windmill Hill and Silbury Hill. By the Iron Age, the site had been effectively abandon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heel Stone
The Heel Stone is a single large block of sarsen stone standing within the Avenue outside the entrance of the Stonehenge earthwork in Wiltshire, England. In section it is sub-rectangular, with a minimum thickness of , rising to a tapered top about high. Excavation has shown that a further is buried in the ground. It is from the centre of Stonehenge circle. It leans towards the southwest nearly 27 degrees from the vertical. The stone has an overall girth Girth may refer to: Mathematics * Girth (functional analysis), the length of the shortest centrally symmetric simple closed curve on the unit sphere of a Banach space * Girth (geometry), the perimeter of a parallel projection of a shape * Girth ... of and weighs about 35 tons. It is surrounded by the Heelstone Ditch. See also * List of individual rocks References * Atkinson, R J C, ''Stonehenge'' (Penguin Books, 1956) * Cleal, Walker, & Montague, ''Stonehenge in its Landscape'' (London, English Heritage 1995) * C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric Megalith, megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones, held in place with mortise and tenon joints, a feature unique among contemporary monuments. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice. The stones are set within Earthwork (archaeology), earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic British Isles, Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred ''tumuli'' (burial mounds). Stonehenge was constructed in several phases beginning about 3100 BC and continuing until about 1600 B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMSO
The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the United Kingdom and is responsible for Crown copyright. The OPSI announced on 21 June 2006 that it was merging with the National Archives. The merger took place in October 2006. The OPSI continues to discharge its roles and responsibilities from within the structure of the National Archives. Controller of HMSO and Director of OPSI The Controller of HMSO is also the Director of OPSI. HMSO continues to operate from within the expanded remit of OPSI. The Controller of HMSO also holds the offices of Kings's Printer of Acts of Parliament, King's Printer for Scotland and Government Printer for Northern Ireland. By virtue of holding these offices OPSI publishes, through HMSO, the ''London Gazette'', '' Edinburgh Gazette'', '' Belfast Gazette'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God in Abrahamic religions, God of Abraham (or ''Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the last Islamic prophet. Alongside the Quran, Muslims also believe in previous Islamic holy books, revelations, such as the Tawrat (Torah), the Zabur (Psalms), and the Injeel (Gospel). These earlier revelations are associated with Judaism and Christianity, which are regarded by Muslims as earlier versions of Islam. The majority of Muslims also follow the teachings and practices attributed to Muhammad (''sunnah'') as recorded in traditional accounts (hadith). With an estimated population of almost 2 billion followers, Muslims comprise around 26% of the world's total population. In descending order, the percentage of people who identify as Muslims on each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
