A Reductionist Theory

[poliphilo]

So Stonehenge was once "the A & E of Southern England".  

This latest theory is based on the perception that the Preseli blue stones are what it's all about -and Welsh peasants- even into the modern era- regarded the springs around the blue stones as having medicinal powers.

Tenuous, very tenuous.

But even if we concede that the stones were seen as curative, was this their primary quality, or a by-product of their being holy?  In the normal run of events the holiness comes first.  Lourdes, for instance, is what it is because a Divine personage once appeared there.  The Holy heals, but it heals because it's Holy. 

Pilgrims flocked to the shrine of St Thomas Becket from all over Europe: some of them hoped for physical healing- and a very few of them experienced it- but to call Canterbury Cathedral a medieval A & E would be to miss the point, I think.

Comments

[wolfshift.livejournal.com]

I saw that story recently and I thought it was pretty tenuous indeed. The whole notion of determining the "purpose" of Stonehenge, or any other such site, seems a little strange to me, in fact. There's so little evidence, and yet so many interpretations. How much need is there really to go beyond "Stonehenge was a sacred site"? What do such theories add to our knowledge? Ah well. Perhaps I just find the impenetrable mystery of it more fascinating than any potential answer.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're right, no great religious building has a single purpose. What's Canterbury Cathedral for? What's St Peter's Rome for? These buildings mean different things to different people- and have all sorts of uses. Even very well-documented religious buildings are, in fact, deeply mysterious.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

You're right, any healing qualities are due to the holiness, not the other way round. I have a theory about why the blue stones were moved to Stonehenge, but it's a bit nutty, though good enough for fiction. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear your theory. :)

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

You are right, that was rather reductionist. I watched the programme carefully because Tim Darvill was one of the lecturers on the "Megaliths" course back in April, the day before the started that dig.

What he focused on, and the programme didn't go into, was that the stones in the Presceli Hils were next to sacred springs and the whole point of Stonehenge was to create a copy of that landscape in an outpost of that particular tribe. Only in Salisbury Plain there are no springs. He thought that healing might have been offered by pouring water over the bluestones and letting it trickle over the penitent / sufferer / supplicant.

Agreed the healing would be a consequence of the sacred nature of the stones, not a primary feature. Probably the BBC being sensational. There will be a new prime-time medical series starting up soon, with a Bronze Age Charlie Fairhead dispensing nettle poultices and triaging victims of arrow accidents.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've got to say I just don't buy this idea of his. I think the stones were sacred because they belonged to the God (or Goddess) and any healing function was secondary.

Bronze Age Casualty sounds like a great idea. I'd watch it.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that Stonehenge would have served a variety of purposes and its primary function was, cynically, to raise the status of the Stonehenge site and its settlement. I base this on nothing more than my observation of other sites of pilgrimage, commerce, politics and sociality: they all attempt to create a centerpiece to draw people there.

Stonehenge: one of the greatest tourist traps ever built.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't disagree with any of that. It's certainly one of the functions of any pilgrimage site to rake in the money.

One of the things I'd really like to know (but never will) is how Stonehenge related to the even more fabulous nexus of Bronze Age monuments at Avebury, just up the road.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I agree - all that I know about healing places suggests that the healing comes from the holiness - and the good will of the visitors- not the other way round.