32 



Recent Excavations at Stonehenge. 



more heavy blows were struck, the material detached was then 

 brushed away, the blows were repeated, but near the edge of the 

 cavity, the material again removed, and this was continued until 

 the groove was completed. 



The rib between each groove was broken away by side or vertical 

 blows of the same implement. 



Here I would point out that very few small chips of sarsen were 

 found, although larger pieces were common. This is just what we 

 would expect from this mode of dressing, as the material broken 

 away would be either in a more or less pulverulent form or in 

 pieces of considerable size. 



On some of the stones, notably on Nos. 59, 54, and 52, transverse, 

 but much narrower and shallower, grooves are seen which were 

 made with the same mauls for facilitating the removal of the 

 longitudinal ribs and the cutting down of the surface. 



The sarsen uprights of the outer circle have each two tenons, 

 and those of the horseshoe a single tenon, projecting from their 

 upper extremities, which fit into corresponding mortices on the 

 lintels and imposts. They were evidently troublesome to make, 

 as with the exception of those on Nos. 60 and 56, they are generally 

 of more or less irregular shapes and rude workmanship. In the 

 case of the recently fallen upright, No. 22, they are merely low 

 shapeless bosses of only about an inch or so in height ; but even 

 the best hewn could have been fashioned without difficulty, by the 

 patient use of the quartzite hammerstones. 



The hollowing out of the mortices on the lintels and imposts 

 was a very easy matter. It was, I think, effected with water , and 

 sand by the very efficient process of turning round a stone of less 

 size than the cavity until the required depth was attained, a method 

 practised in Japan in the manufacture of stone mortars. 



I am informed by Professor Flinders Petrie that precisely the 

 same process was employed in Egypt in the much more difficult 

 operation of making the exquisitely executed bowls of diorite and 

 other hard stones so well known to Egyptologists. In his excavation 

 at Abydos he had the good fortune to discover the site of an actual 

 workshop where these vessels were made and in which there were 



