Fig. 20.—Showing the careful tooling of the Sarsens.
Finally, I reach the third point of importance from the present standpoint; the excavations produced clear evidence touching the mode of erection. Prof. Gowland’s memoir deals only with the leaning stone, but I take it for granted that the same method was employed throughout: the method was this.
Fig. 21.—Face of rock against which a stone was made to rest.
(1) The ground in the site a stone was to occupy was removed, the chalk rock being cut into in such a manner as to leave a ledge, on which the base of the stone was to rest, and a perpendicular face rising from it, against which as a buttress one side would bear when set up. From the bottom of this hole an inclined plane was cut to the surface down which the monolith which had already been dressed was slid until its base rested on the ledge.
(2) It was then gradually raised into a vertical position by means first of levers and afterwards of ropes. The levers would be long trunks of trees, to one end of which a number of ropes was attached (this method is still employed in Japan); so that the weights and pulling force of many men might be exerted on them. The stronger ropes were probably of hide or hair, but others of straw, or of withes of hazel or willow, may have been in use for minor purposes.
(3) As the stone was raised, it was packed up with logs of timber and probably also with blocks of stone placed beneath it.
(4) After its upper end had reached a certain elevation, ropes were attached to it, and it was then hauled by numerous men into a vertical position, so that its back rested against the perpendicular face of the chalk which had been prepared for it. During this part of the operation, struts of timber would probably be placed against its sides to guard against slip, a precaution taken when the leaning stone was raised and until the foundation was properly set.
As regards the raising of the lintels, and imposts, and the placing of them on the tops of the uprights, there would be even less difficulty than in the erection of the uprights themselves.
