Stonehenge 1875 family photo may be earliest at monument | Hacker News Reader

Stonehenge 1875 family photo may be earliest at monument

bbc.co.uk

63 pointsbauc9 comments

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn310-concrete-evidence...

Most of the one million visitors who visit Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain every year believe they are looking at untouched 4,000-year-old remains. But virtually every stone was re-erected, straightened or embedded in concrete between 1901 and 1964, says a British doctoral student.

These photos may be good evidence of realignment and alteration since the big sarsen falls in the eighteenth century.

Thanks for that information. It always struck me as strange how these massive stones haven’t suffered by sinking into the ground.

Thanks! Yes, very true, there are pictures of them being restored.

Hmm, I seem to remember when I last visited Stonehenge that they said right up front that the stones had been screwed with in the early 20th century. Maybe not, I could have seen that elsewhere. It's been probably 20 years since I've been there.

It's true of a lot of ancient sites; Newgrange in Ireland is essentially a modern reconstruction, complete with a reinforced concrete substructure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange#Modern_conservation,...

That's pretty early. This supposedly realistic watercolour from the 1570s was created by a Dutch artist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehenge_Lucas_de_Heere...

There's another drawing here from ~1740.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/stonehenge-souvenirs

> The earliest known photograph of Stonehenge, not featuring a family, is thought to date from 1853 - 22 years earlier.

What a difference between the set of photos! The dignified, prim, well-dressed families in the early days, and the more recent photos they showed at the bottom of the piece.

It is likely that the people in the earlier photos were more well to do than the people in the later photos.

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