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▲Devil's Arrows: Ancient builders hauled 55k-lb stones 11 miles for UK stone row (sciencedaily.com)
29 points by bookofjoe 3 days ago | 21 comments
dmichulke 2 hours ago [-]
25-tonne stones for 18km in case you wondered
SECProto 1 hours ago [-]
Or 3928 stone stones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_(unit)

walthamstow 1 minutes ago [-]
Stones are the Fahrenheit of weight. Good for the human body but fuck all else.
robertlagrant 2 hours ago [-]
For anyone confused, British people would generally use tonnes (or tons, but maybe not know the difference exactly) and miles.
nickt 1 hours ago [-]
Or about 3 double-decker buses for the length of 171 footy pitches.
gnufx 52 minutes ago [-]
That's not dimensionally correct! Double-decker bus is a unit of length, and footy pitch is too prosaic to be an approved unit: https://www.theregister.com/bootnotes/2026/05/31/the-reg-onl...
frereubu 2 minutes ago [-]
It's a shame it's not about area then at least we could agree on Wales as a unit.
blater 35 minutes ago [-]
to clarify for those of a nautical bent - that's about half a blue whale for about 4/5ths of a dozen nautical miles
2 hours ago [-]
cjs_ac 2 hours ago [-]
Also, Stonehenge was built (partially) from parts of other stone circles, from as far away as Wales: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029203
ChrisRR 2 hours ago [-]
Imperial is confusing at the best of times, but couldn't they have said 24.5 tons instead of 55,000 lbs?
guenthert 2 hours ago [-]
They could have said 3300 stones stones ...
euroderf 1 hours ago [-]
That rocks.
2 hours ago [-]
masfuerte 2 hours ago [-]
That's the way they like it. American road signs have mad shit like "No trucks over 15,000 lbs".
walthamstow 1 hours ago [-]
Surely they don't actually like drill bits measured in fractions of an inch, do they?
edoceo 25 minutes ago [-]
Yes, in USA the bits are in fractions and stuff you purchase will have instructions like, drill 3/8 hole for a wall anchor, or 2+1/4 hole for a door-bolt set.
thechao 2 hours ago [-]
That's because we measure weight in tonnage.
close04 45 minutes ago [-]
In the EU and UK the weight of the vehicle is on the signs too [0], or the weight per axle [1].

[0] https://hgvlgvtraining.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/weig...

[1] https://freesvg.org/img/B13a.png

hashim 48 minutes ago [-]
The word for this structure is apparently a menhir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir. The article calls it the tallest in the UK but its Wikipedia page calls it the second-tallest. This is the actual tallest, interestingly also in Yorkshire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudston_Monolith.
ButlerianJihad 2 hours ago [-]
This must be the origin of the saying, “People who start stone rows shouldn’t build glass houses”.
vogelke 1 hours ago [-]
Lovely.
dgan 11 minutes ago [-]
Need 7 more paragraphes telling us that the stones, weren't in fact, chosen from the nearest location, but were chosen from a distant location.

Without ever telling *how" they were moved of course, that would give out too much

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