Talk:Dry stone

message: For goodness sake, who has decided that this thing is called a dry-stone dyke?  I've been walking among them most of my life (which is getting to be a long time) and I've never heard it called other than a dry-stone wall (or just occasionally a dry-stone hedge).  Maybe this is a regional variation, but in that case we need to have a discussion about which region's version takes priority and why.  Can we discuss it here, please?  seglea 16:46, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly.  I too have lived amongst them for most of my life and have never heard them called anything but dykes. To me walls are something that you find in buildings. Dykes are what you find around fields. But I'm quite happy to discuss it. -- Derek Ross 17:04, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: To me a dyke is an earthwork, which might have a path or even a watercourse on top of it.  I've had a look at the website of the Dry Stone Walling Association (www.dswa.org.uk) and they talk pretty much consistently about walls, though in one of their leaflets they talk about a "boulder dyke" as an alternative technical term for a single wall (one where the stones run right through from one side to the other).  I can't speak for Scottish usage, and I guess my knowledge of usage in Derbyshire and the north of England might be derived more from books and maps rather than conversation - though I can never remember any of my local friends calling them dykes.  But I live in the southwest, where we have dry stone boundaries on all 3 major moors and quite a few other places, and I've never heard the word "dyke" used of them, though it's available in the sense that it exists within local placenames - but I think always referring to an earthwork.  I'm away from home at present so can't check my books - Crossing would probably be definitive as far as Dartmoor is concerned.  seglea 06:50, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Actually this looks quite tricky.  I am all for conserving regional usages, and could not agree more about needing to stamp on the spread of southernisms into regions where they don't belong.  If "dyke" is the authentic/older usage in the north of England, that is a good argument for giving it priority, because that's the homeland par excellence of these structures.  On the other hand if most people who want to look them up think of them as walls, and that is not actually incorrect, it seems kind of inhospitable to have a redirect.  How about making the main title "dry-stone wall" and beginning by explaining that "dyke" is probably a more exact term - and then of course using predominantly "dyke" through the article as at present?  seglea 17:31, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I have reorganised the redirect (I'm an admin), and played around with the opening para a bit.  There is actually another good reason for talking about them mainly as dykes, in that a wall can be part of a dyke - you can have single wall dykes and double wall dykes, but we surely don't want to have double wall walls... BTW in saying they were most at home in the north of England, I didn't mean to claim them away from Scotland or Ireland (or Wales, come to that); but I was thinking that they original name for them there would have been Gaelic? seglea 06:13, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

text: In respect to modern usage of the terms it is interesting to look at the locations of Hadrian's Wall and Offa's Dyke. Rmhermen 20:44, May 19, 2004 (UTC)
Good point. I must admit that Romanised Latin-speaking Britons had crossed my mind. -- Derek Ross 20:51, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Dykes?

message: The article currently is very UK-centric, even at one point saying that dry-stone walls are most common in Scotland and the north of England, which I'm not sure is actually true.  While dry-stone wall societies and enthusiasts are most widespread in the UK, the walls themselves are quite numerous in Greece, Italy, Switzerland, France, and other places. --Delirium 07:23, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
:Please add information about dry-stone dykes in these other parts of the world since you know more about them than I do. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 15:16, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
::ive added some info regarding southern africa to address this issue. Anlace 09:35, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent! -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure whether the mention of Zulu is appropriate here, but I shall comment anyway. The Zulu did not exist in 1350 as claimed here. Also, the Zulu are bantu. I don't know enough to correct this, but it certainly was not the Zulu who introduced dry-stone wall wall construction to Southern Africa. A more likely candidate would be the bantu. Halfsnail 08:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Regarding Greece, I was told that the stone walls are uses as part of terracing a sloped property. The higher property owner owns and maintains the wall. ..and that is the extent of my knowledge, so I didn't know how to add it. --Gearspring 23:09, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I just found a flickr picture of what I am talking about:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/docman/3647350/ --Gearspring 23:21, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: gearspring why dont you post the photo within the article and we can see whether it makes a good addition.  the article now suffers from lack of photos of high quality drystone work.  i plan to add a photo of a higher quality older wall with known provenance in the next few weeks. cheers Anlace 13:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately it is not my picture, so I can't give permission.--Gearspring 01:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: added info on inca. Anlace 13:46, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very UK-centric 

message: yes with the surviving name being Dry-stone wall or dyke :} cheers Anlace 15:29, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Given some of the other meanings of Stonewall is it possible that it's some kind of inside joke? Ewlyahoocom 19:08, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: i am somewhat open on the nomenclature throughout the article, but one should note there was strong debate over naming the whole article wall over dyke... further the principal ancient walls seem to be primarily in ireland scotland wales and england and only in southern england have i seen it called wall rather than dyke.  (note there are other regions of europe where some old walls exist, but they are not either as substantial or old as the widespread use of stone dykes in the uk...would like to hear form others in europe and UK on this subject, cheers Anlace 20:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The ancient walls may be primarily in UK (though I question this; is there no dry-stone construction in the Middle East, in Africa, in China?) but modern walls are surely more widespread. Cmadler 13:00, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, there was a debate but we came to an amicable agreement... -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: so as far as the merger, it would seem as though there is consensus to merge rock fence into dry-stone wall.  shall we do it? Anlace 02:24, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

text: merger completed of rock fence into dry stone Anlace 07:31, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Good work, Anlace! -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: merge Rock fence into [[Dry-stone wall]]

message: I am not convinced that lumping all these stone walls under dry-stone walls is appropriate. Most of the stone walls I see in northern and western Wales are stone faced and earth filled often covered in vegetation and topped with a hedge.
More significantly the gaps between the stones are filled with earth which a traditional dry-stone waller would abhor. I would propose that the lead article should be Stone wall  which could reference the more specific article Dry-stone wall. The Stone wall article could then include or reference some of the historic walls such as Hadrian's wall and the Antonine wall. Velela 13:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The strange thing is that we do still rely on them in this day and age. There are thousands of them around the modern world keeping sheep and cattle from straying, or just plain separating one field from another. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stone walls and Dry-stone walls 

message: Is it known how the Inca built those amazing walls?  I recall hearing that that's a "lost art", but can find neither a source for that claim nor a how-to nor a recent example.  Any of which could be a great addition to this interesting article. 151.201.156.108 04:08, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How were Inca walls built? 

message: Inca walls do not fall into the same category as drystone walls: they are made of huge blocks whose sides were cut so as to adjust to the nearest stones; besides, Inca walls were used in fortresses or in palaces. Likewise, the stonework of ancient Greek mausoleums has nothing to do with drystone walling. And by the way, the title of the page should be "Dry Stone Construction" or perhaps "Dry Stone Walling", not just "Dry Stone", which can be anything.--86.217.5.13 (talk) 23:38, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: A Motley crew!

message: I've reverted a Good faith deletion, regarding Stonehenge. The text does not say it's the largest stone circle, it says it's the largest dry stone structure - the point being that (unlike other stone circles) it has joints (connecting the lintels and uprights). 
These are actually mortised (see here) and certainly warrant mention, but I would agree that the text could be improved - perhaps even expanded slightly to make reference to the jointing technique used.
Rgds Obscurasky (talk) 07:02, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stonehenge 

message: I carefully converted adjectival uses of "dry stone" before a noun (e.g. "dry stone wall") to add hyphens ("dry-stone wall"). Personally, I think this is simply conventional English, but I was reverted. One of the arguments was that the Dry Stone Walling Association doesn't hyphenate, which I am tempted to counter by reference to WP:TM. It's the stone that's dry, not the wall – hence a hyphen is surely conventional and uncontroversial. I would note that Collins Dictionary hyphenate, and The Accidental Apostrophe: ... And Other Misadventures in Punctuation shares my position: "Come to think of it, dry-stone walls are different from dry stone walls: the former are of a particular type built without mortar; the latter may or may not have mortar but haven't been rained on lately" [original emphasis]. Thoughts? Dave.Dunford (talk) 22:46, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said in my explanation for reverting your good faith edit, hyphenation is not an exact science. WP:TM doesn't counter anything; the convention is not to hypenhate in this context. Obscurasky (talk) 00:10, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: "The convention is not to hyphenate in this context": my cited sources say differently. But I'm not going to edit-war over a hyphen. Dave.Dunford (talk) 10:14, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Dry stone walling" or "dry-stone walling" 

message: User:Dimadick and I differ on whether this article belongs in the category :Category:Great Zimbabwe. My position is that it plainly doesn't (and if it did, we would logically need to add this article to every category that concerns a dry-stone building). Dimadick's edit suggests that "dry-stone" is a subtopic of Great Zimbabwe, rather than the reality, which is close to the opposite (i.e. that Great Zimbabwe is an example of a dry-stone building). This seems a misuse of categorisation, just it would be to add City to :Category:London. Any thoughts? Dave.Dunford (talk) 13:02, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The article's history section specifically states: "Great Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, Africa, is an acropolis-like large city complex constructed in dry stone from the 11th to the 15th centuries AD.[5] It is the largest of structures of similar construction throughout the area." So it is relevant to the category, and we do not have a category on dry-stone buildings to reverse the relationship as you suggest. One of Wikipedia's problems with undercategorization. Dimadick (talk) 13:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, of course Great Zimbabwe is a important dry-stone construction, but that's not the point. The point is your (to put it politely) individual interpretation of how categorisation works, rather than any problem of undercategorization. If you want to create :Category:Dry stone buildings and add Great Zimbabwe to it, I'd have absolutely no problem, but adding Dry stone to :Category:Great Zimbabwe is simply the wrong way round. Are you going to add Building and Palace and Ruins to :Category:Great Zimbabwe as well? By your weird logic, they belong there, and in every other category that references a building, palace or ruin. Dave.Dunford (talk) 13:16, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: I see you've decided to edit war. Think about my analogy to City/London above. London is a city, but not all cities are London. Hence, we don't put City in :Category:London, we put London in :Category:Capitals in Europe and so on. Can you not see the point? Great Zimbabwe is a dry-stone structure, but not all dry-stone structures are Great Zimbabwe. Dave.Dunford (talk) 13:23, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Great Zimbabwe