Helen Schultz called my attention to an article in The Guardian on the earliest known detailed sketch of Stonehenge:
They got the date wrong by some 3,000 years, but the oldest detailed drawing of Stonehenge, apparently based on first hand observation, has turned up in a 15th century manuscript.
The little sketch is a bird's eye view of the stones, and shows the great trilithons, the biggest stones in the monument, each made of two pillars capped with a third stone lintel, which stand in a horseshoe in the centre of the circle. Only three are now standing, but the drawing, found in Douai, northern France, suggests that in the 15th century four of the original five survived.
Stonehenge has always fascinated me. Elizabeth and I were there nearly ten years ago, and she managed to get a brilliant photo . . . but it was in the dim, pre-digital age, so we're unsure where the photos from that vacation happen to be at the moment . . .
Posted by Nicholas at December 18, 2006 11:00 AM
Visitors since 17 August, 2004