466 ANNUAL REPORT SIVHTHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 194 



by a thousand or more years, huge figures cut from single blocks 

 of stone were dragged upon a kind of sledge over ground which was 

 freely watered to make the figure skid forward when hauled by ropes. 



The final skilled work of dressing was completed on the site. It 

 is impossible today to detect the rough tooling on the exposed surface 

 of the Sarsens. Time and weather have played their part in obliter- 

 ating it, but underneath the ground, where the bases of the stones 

 have been protected by the earth, the toolmarks are as clear and 

 sharp as when the stone left the craftsman's hands some 4,000 years 

 ago. In the process of straightening the upright of the Great 

 Trilithon in 1901, a thin slab of the surface of the stone became de- 

 tached. A portion of this slab is in the Salisbury Museum and shows 

 the toolmarks very plainly. 



Very considerable skill would have been called for in the cutting of 

 the tenons and making of the mortise holes. 



In the case of the outer circle, each upright would have had two 

 tenons ; the uprights of the horseshoe on the other hand would have 

 had only one. Still more difficult would have been the cutting of the 

 toggle joints and their subsequent adjustment. This can only have 

 been carried out after the lintels were raised and placed upon the 

 uprights. 



The tools used appear at first sight to be of the roughest descrip- 

 tion. Some are of flint and some of compact Sarsen, but so far no 

 trace of any metal tool has been discovered. Most striking of all are 

 the large mauls of Sarsen, which range between 36 and 67 pounds in 

 weight. Some of these are roughly spherical, others have a broad 

 flat base. Some of them may have been slung on a rope with two 

 ends which could have been swung by two men to give a crushing 

 blow. The spherical stones might very well also have been used to 

 grind the mortise holes with sand and water, a common practice 

 among stone-using peoples. There are likewise smaller Sarsen ham- 

 mers ranging from 1 to 6 pounds, also roughly spherical, and flint 

 hammer stones which show extensive bruising due to use. Apart 

 from these there are axes and hammer axes of flint. From the ex- 

 cavation at the Great Trilithon alone, over 120 tools were recovered. 



Digging the foundation holes was carried out with picks made from 

 the antler of the red deer, very many of which have been found. The 

 usual method was to utilize the first branch or "brow tine" as a pick, 

 and to cut off the rest. Many splinters of these picks have been 

 found embedded in the chalk of the foundations, as well as unmis- 

 takable pick holes in the chalk. The antlers were many of them very 

 much larger than those of the present-day red deer. Some are shed 

 antlers, and others have been taken from animals killed in the chase 

 and retain their horn cores. 



