Once upon a time, sarsen stones spoke. Hush! Do you want to hear them?
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2018-11-02

Once upon a time, sarsen stones had a voice. A long time ago, sarsen stones were alive. But they have become silent stones, dead stones. Sarsens used to be able to change things, to change people, to make things happen. They have become a mere cypher; a stand-in for labour, a stand-in for ancestors: or a prop; holding up things like roofs, lichens, and gates. It is time to give sarsens back their voice, to re-animate them.
In the earliest enquiries into southern Britain’s sarsens, the stones are full of vigour and life. They have names, identities, character: they breed, they grow, they move, they do things. But sarsens have been threatened, and damaged. Between the 1850s and 1930s in north Wiltshire (UK) there was a sarsen genocide. This prompted an intervention. Sarsens needed protection, so they were cared for because of their character, their presence.
This led to them becoming boulders of sand frozen in time by silica cement. They became mineral resources to be exploited, a nuisance to be dealt with. They were merely a convenient rock; as building components in archaeological monuments they were nothing more than scaffolding for rites and rituals. A local stone of no special merit, not worthy of the love, the fear, the respect they once garnered. They were silenced. Worse, they became dead stones.
But sarsens live and breathe. They sweat. They are fought over. They still attract visitors. They are ecosystems that are part of a living, growing, changing world. They should get their voices back. They should be heard. Listen!

Author: Miss Whitaker, Katy - University of Reading (Presenting author)