Ley Lines and Avebury Henge, the Better Version of Stonehenge
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- tomscott.com - / tomscott - On the winter solstice, I trekked out to a cold and muddy Avebury Henge, out in Wiltshire, to talk about two things: first, the peculiar and mostly-British belief of ley lines, and second, the fact that it's basically a hipster version of Stonehenge: bigger, cooler, and you've probably never heard of it.
Oh - and if you want to play about with ley line data yourself, I made www.tomscott.co... a couple of years ago. It still gets me occasional disappointed emails from believers.
And yes, I know that's Ben Goldacre in the by-line of the Guardian. He wrote the article about it; Matt Parker did the mathematics, but most of those references have since gone offline. (I'm willing to bet someone'll comment about that without reading the description within the first few hours after this goes up.)
Once I went to Stonehenge, and after seing that, we discovered that Avebury existed, then we drove up to that village. It was already very dark when we arrived, but we could see the stone circle up close. Also we walked around the village, the chapel, the grave. After that, we entered the only pub in the village, and we had the best fish & chips I've ever had. One of the tables of the dinning area is actually an old well, and you can have dinner while looking down to the depths. It was a day I'll never forget.
I’m so jealous it hurts. I hate California. SO MUCH.
The things i'd do to experience that day just like you did
It was a nice day, to be honest, although it takes some time to arrive by car from Stonehenge.
@@thomasinajefferson9971 i've lived 10 minutes from Avebury for all 17 years of my life but I'd give a lot to go live in California, the grass is always greener i guess
@@thomasinajefferson9971 I'd suggest making plans to move out of CA, then spending a week or two focused on appreciating some of the amazing things about it here (weather, natural beauty, friendly people, or whatever it is that might ring your bell). Drink in a bit of what's best at the end, and then enjoy your next step wherever you're off to. :)
(I'm also in California and have plans to move, but there area some wonderful things about it here that I know I will miss.)
My guess, the stone circles were built after several particularly successful drinking sessions. The general thinking behind them was, 'This will confuse the hell out of people in a few thousand years...' and 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'
The pot smoking Hippy's probably had some input as well.
Alchohol is called spirits for a reason.
That is why I write totally incomprehensible comments on youtube.
Like this one.
There's a stone circle near where i used to live, on top of a hill...
It was made when the local clay quarry was being worked, it's on top of a now overgrown spoil heap. Someone who didn't know the local history of the area (or couldn't figure it out from the giant pit nearby) might think it was a legit old circle. But in maybe a hundred years, it's creation will be far beyond living memory, and the landscape will have weathered, so something a bored guy with a JCB did one day might get taken seriously...
A friend and I have often used to burry things, or create sculptures with natural materials in obscure enough places most likely not to be found solely for the purpose that one day in 100s of years, some one will find it and be confused forever.
Tom looks so excited to touch the ancient stones and that’s just so pure.
I'd be more excited to touch a new stone
Its the first time I've been wished a "Happy Winter Solstice".
I like that. So Happy Winter Solstice to everyone !
And a pleasant Festivus to you.
+ArchaicMuse It's Summer Solstice next, so make sure yours is a great one.
+ArchaicMuse It's Summer Solstice next, so make sure yours is a great one.
+ArchaicMuse It's Summer Solstice next, so make sure yours is a great one.
+ArchaicMuse It's Summer Solstice next, so make sure yours is a great one.
.. can anyone picture Tom Scott as a Druid in his past life?
*past
Funny, he doesn't look Druish.
He should narrate WW2 documentaries
He could've been a droid in a past life, considering his knowledge of technology.
Applying this poultice of willow bark will ease the pain in the cut. That is something you might not have known. 🌲
You can touch the stones of Stonehenge on the solstices. I did this summer solstice in June, and some guy climbed onto the top of them, danced for a while and then fell asleep. He got jumped by 12 police officers and subsequently arrested when he got down.
***** Haha, I must agree.
Serves him right for doing that.
You're politely asked not to climb on the stones at Avebury.
If you fall off, there's a good chance you'll land in sheep droppings.
So you *can* dance on the stones then. Don't let anyone tell you you can't!
Nice I told you thats what I was for seeing.
I paid £30 to see Stonehenge but found you can go through a field at the side quite legally and stand within ten foot of the people that have just paid!!!!
Avebury is much better, bigger and free.
Technically that gate is for the admittance of religious observers. If you are a committed Pagan, Druid, Wican or _brother mason_ (spit!) then you should use it.
Otherwise you should pony up the cash, it's the -capitalist- _British_ thing to do.
ᚱᛰUᛠӖᚱ ᚦᗩӖϻᛰᚤ If you are a Committed Pagan etc., you should be committed, to a mental institution. Just another group of people believing in fairy tales. No better than people who pray to their invisible friend in the sky!
There are public footpaths that cross the land where the Leeds Castle (Kent) people want to sell you a ticket, too. Scam.
Sam I am
That is tragically myopic
We got in for free as members of English Heritage. So have paid really.
"There've been a lot of new age pagans around, some drumming, some just smokin' pot" lmao
That bit made me laugh 😂
I've an odd story about Avebury - wife and I visited years ago, and I went back to the car while she was still wandering the village. I stopped to take a pic of the stones on the way. Anyway, we got back from our trip there, and eventually got the photos back from whoever developed film back then (yup, many years back!).
Turned out we'd both taken a shot from the same place, same angle, etc. Weird.
Wouldn't it be kind of funny if the only reason they built it was because it looked cool.
"Dude, this is going to fuck with sooooooo many peoples heads in a couple of thousand years, it's gonna be hilarious"
Using stones to make Stone Age art. No wonder we're confused today, it's too simple.
That definitely is one of the reasons
I love Avebury and have been several times, including the twice I walked the Ridgeway Long Distance Footpath that starts nearby. I took my wife there once. She described it as a bunch of stones standing around not doing very much.
I reckon she's right, you know
I'm American but that sounds so very British to me!!
In the 1970s we had a school trip to Stonehenge (still able to walk up to the stones), Avebury, Silbury Hill (we could still climb it then) and West Kennet Long Barrow, which you can still go in.
Been to all of these with my family as a kid! The barrow was awesome!
We were at Silbury Hill last weekend. People were climbing up still, despite the signs saying not to - erosion / damage of the monument, etc., which you could see via all the footpaths worn in around the structure. Still a lot of selfish, thoughtless people out there. Rather than just enjoy the sight of a prehistoric monument and pay due respect, they have to 'conquer' it for their selfies.
Stonehenge is so mainstream, Avebury henge is much better. Stonehenge isn't even a real henge! #RealHengesHaveCircularBanksWithInternalDitchesWhereasStonehengeIsTheOtherWayAround #HengeHipster
sporkafife There is another take where I described Avebury as "like a hipster Stonehenge", but it didn't quite work as well!
*****
"Bigger, Better and in 93 rocks per hendge HD quality!" The new iHenge?
Check your privilege.
+sporkafife YOU'RE NOT EVEN A REAL HENGE! poser!!
"Well.. we dont really know what a henge is but we are quite certain that we have built THE BIGGEST HENGE IN THE WORLD! Oh yeaaaah!"
I like to think that they just did it for a lark. Like a really difficult to setup prank that confuses everyone because no one could tell what they were trying to do by setting a tonne of rocks in a big circle.
haha.... like "This will really fuck people over a few millenia from now, theyll think its something important but its just us all high as a kite and pissed as a nit" lol
I loved Avebury when I trekked out to check it out - I basically had to wade through herds of sheep as I wandered around to check out the stones. It was very, very cool - and definitely more of a "real" experience than when I went to see Stonehenge years later.
Avebury is to Stonehenge what a Cathedral is to a church
+IPete2 What a superb analogy.
You like talking nonsense.
This video inspired me to visit Avebury and I actually watched it on very spotty 3G on my phone while standing next to the stones. Very surreal but fun experience.
Kennet Long Barrow is also worth a visit.
Your show is the best by the way. I love the nice way you present everything, from silly bridges to how touching a henge stone is actually really cool :D
I almost bought the lease to the red lion back in the 90's. I only regret the things I didn't do.
I went on a amazing trip to the Orkney islands to see the standing stones and burials. They are amazing
You saw burials? Where?
I'm certainly glad that during my recent trip through that part of England, we decided to take a small detour to visit Avebury. It was certainly worth it.
Hello fellow latecomers from the AI video
Nice to see you here
never been to the video but been to the actual stone site before. do I blame the ai for that too ? :)
some drumming, some just smoking pot.... gold Mr Scott, solid gold.
David Lowery I think that was the day I and about 20 lads from
Liverpool was in Avebury Stone Circle ⭕️
Stonehenge doesn't have a henge, oh and I live near here as well. Plus you've got West Kennett Long Barrow and Silbury Hill nearby, and a plethora of chalk white horses in the area. The yearly smattering of crop circles, and the Ridgeway for me is why I love being a Wiltshire boy.
+Mark Keen Hi Mark Am always in the Village everyone knows me in Red Lion I got Florrie and all the ghosts n orbs check my Avebury vid mate please I got major captures from SH also yeah the whole Wiltshire area is awash with this things I love the place
Stephen Criddle When I was touring Britain in 2009, The Red Lion did the best pub meal I had in the four weeks I was there.
Down on the chalk... I've always wanted to visit, mostly due to the later works of Sir Terry Pratchett.
Tom Scott saying "smokin' pot" is the most hilariously white thing I've ever seen
It's a phrase I never expected Tom to say
“Engaging in a spot of recreational mind-altering activity”
Why white? Just curious, I'm not criticising in any way, just seems "white" is out of place in that sentence
@@howardchambers9679 f
@@howardchambers9679 i think just because the only people who ever call it pot would be old white people or police
Castlerigg stone circle near Keswick in the lake district is also well worth a visit. Proper Zen.
It's amazing when you see something that you've seen in real life before. It kinda lets you connect with people on rhe internet :) nice holidays man and greets from Switzerland :)
I just came from his new video about asking ai to generate video titles
I'm not in the least religious but when you moved the camera to show you touching the stone, I got a weird shiver. Maybe I was more than a tourist when I visited that village in my youth
Avebury was where Children of Stones was filmed, it's an awesome kids show!
And to make it better, it's available on RUclips. They don't make kids programmes like that anymore.
Been there many a time. And also Stonehenge during the Big Freeze of 1962-63 as a little boy and Brrr, but really good feeling of freedom then. Keep up the good work Tom.
AI sent me here.
Thanks AI!
In the seventies there was a spooky children’s series called “Children of the Stones” that was set in Avebury. I never finished the whole series for some reason and wished I had. Now, thanks to RUclips it’s available again.
As a kid of the 70's I still have vivid memories of being terrified by the ITV show "Children of the Stones." Fast forward about 30 years and I was driving from Ooop North to a job at Blandford Forum and without warning found myself driving along the very same road right through the Avebury Henge - SPOOKY doesn't begin to describe it!
Happy Day!
Really enjoyed that, thanks! As a descendant of ancient Britons, I don’t think it matters that we don’t know all the answers, just nice to be connected! BTW - great pub in the middle of the circle, great connection to more recent times🙂
Just coming back to this video after the AI script video...
RIP Woolworths.
I say the same thing about constellations: If you give someone enough dots, they can draw any picture they like.
Kaleb Bruwer I have always said that the Arabs or whoever came up with those pictures superimposed on stars, MUST have been on drugs to connect those stars and say they look like anything!
there’s also the markers left across ley lines, “if others have seen these leys, they might have been marked them with standing stones, buildings, roads, fences, hedges, and so on.” people would point stones in the direction of leys, and there are spirit roads/corpse roads, to guide the dead, which can fall on, or be a sort of minor ley line.
Fair play. I thought I was going to be taking that mickey out of another deluded ley liner. But this short piece was well illustrated and presented.
There's a little bit of me that, as a Pagan, wants to get wrankled and snarly about Tom charitably not begrudging me having a set of religious beliefs he doesn't happen to share. Then again, I imagine that is a fair bit of a stretch for someone raised in a country that still officially has a state religion. And, of course, I take it in the spirit of goodwill in which it was intended.
That said, if I didn't already think highly of Tom Scott, or if I heard a similar statement from someone I didn't know, I might (depending on my mood) be tempted to tell them that their begrudging could be be folded until it was bedecked in sharp corners, then be stowed in their behind.
U kno wut....Whatever!😜🤙🇺🇲
What ever winter solstice celebrations you choose, I hope that are filled with joy, my friends!
Truly, the power of Woolworth stores is beyond our knowing.
Unfortunately the ubiquitous "they" realized that us ordinary people had discovered the existence of the mystical Woolies lay lines, and closed all the Woolworth stores to hide the magic from us.
OMG I WAS THERE WITHIN DAYS OF YOU FILMING THIS!!!! When we were there, Druids were doing some cool ceremonies
I really miss your ending tagline, Tom.
What a great little video tom...many thanks.
happy winter solstice to you too! and keep being awesome!
thank you for giving us hours of entertainment and tons of knowledge for free!
I absolutely love you're videos. I hope to make educational videos similar to yours someday.
In my village, it was all over the tabloid press a few years back that it could be the ancient home of Camelot. This was after a book claimed that two lay lines met here near the site of an old theme park called "Camelot"...
There are plenty up here in the north. Very cool sites! We have recumbent and Flankers in ours and they are known as the great crowns of stone weighing up to 24 tons!
So what you're telling us is... Woolworths and red phone boxes were all built on the route of leylines?
I'm surprised nobody has answered this with a testy and condescending explanation, completely missing the joke.
Short and sweet. Love it, and thank you for the history lesson.
Happy summer solstice for me XD (south america)
I've been to Avebury Henge! I thought it was really cool. Watch out for the cow plop when you trek through someone's pasture to get close to a stone, however, ha ha.
Hope everyone had a lovely Solstice! :)
It's been in double-figures all week in Norfolk. Quite warm for a Winter Solstice.
When you were filming that video, you were about 10-20 miles from me and I was completely unaware that even winter solstice was a thing or of your existence.
That's cool. Tom went up to Mount Evans in Colorado about a week before I did.
Tom was less than an hour away from me in the Atlanta area in December and I didn’t know
You didn't know there was a shortest day/longest night of the year?
theuncalledfor deficient public school system... or too busy down at the henge smoking up during Science classes...
Hey Tom, great video.
I always thought Stonehenge (and perhaps other henges) would have made good supports for a wooden or fur structure in the middle of a village. Obviously, if people 5000 years ago did arrange stone columns and build on top of them with wood or furs, the only thing that would remain would be a circle of stone columns after the organic bits withered away or burned.
I've always been curious why we jump to the "spiritual purpose" explanation before practical considerations. But, I imagine professional archaeologists know some important details that I haven't considered... I'm curious to hear what others think!
Many of the stones in Stonehenge were transported a great distance, which suggests a purpose other than simple practicality.
TRiG.
TRiG (Ireland) Ah, interesting. Yeah, that would indeed throw a wrench in that explanation. Thanks!
Evan Yates I personally wouldn't shy away from the spiritual answer in terms of explaining the ancient motives, (see my reply to HisRoyalCarlness somewhere near this comment) but all the New-Age hippy cult stuff is revivalist bollocks no more than a century or so old based off some crazed fools trying guesswork and getting most of it wrong. 'Arthur Pendragon' only recently started 'remembering' that winter Solstice is actually the one to celebrate...
And TRiG (Ireland) it isn't only Stonehenge, quite a few stone monuments appear to have been moved from a great distance. The weirdest is near my town, if the evidence is to be believed. It's a several hundred ton bunch of sandstone rocks that don't match in mineral composition to the surrounding sandstone, which there is a lot of. If evidence is found to support the hypothesis, it is not only one of the oldest and largest (by sheer mass of each object) neolithic sites in Britain, but one of the most redundant and strange. It also never lost its charm and power with the people, as there are teenagers etchings on the rock from since before the town around it was built up until the present day.
Crusty Pete's Day Old Meat Platter Thanks, I read your other comment and what you say makes sense. I'm amazed they could transport huge blocks like that back then, if that is what happened.
Crusty Pete's Day Old Meat Platter
So they moved sandstone blocks a great distance to an area which already had plenty of sandstone? That *is* interesting.
TRiG
I've actually been in Avebury. It's pretty cool, you can see how the stones were used to build the village
Was never sure if those things were a real thing after seeing them in the later Shadowrun RPGs. You can never learn enough!
Avebury is calling me home. Past life time connection remembered.
If I ever stop by Britain and it ever happens to be a solstice or equinox, this site will def be on my to-do list.
+XamiNaxamis If you see cloaked hooded figures with lit torches chanting and heading your way I would recommend running.
And don't trust the local publican either. That food might be laced with something to make you more compliant to their ritual so to put it.
+XamiNaxamis You can go to Avebury at any time. It is always there. Touch some of the bigger ones and feel insignificant.
My brother took me there when I was little. An amazing place.
People who respect others no mater what, even if they don't agree on stuff, have my respect.
I have been to both Avery and Stonehenge and prefer Avery. Less touristy and you get a better feel for the place.
I remember going there with my nan when I was a kid.
Go to the West Kennett Long Barrow!!
It’s a Neolithic barrow that’s been excavated and you can go inside!!
I know it’s a couple days late but, happy winter solstice everybody! ☺️ x
You definitely can't draw lines between Woolworth stores anymore - not in the UK anway. They form an empty set as far as I know. I think the name persists as an online-only website! Happy Solstice.
Technically, for every subset of 3 Woolworth stores, you can draw a line through all of them! :D
I think the point I was making was that Woolworths went bust during the downturn in 2008, and now have 0 stores in the UK. I think it's impossible to draw a (non-degenerate?) line through 0 points!
I was just asserting a vacuous truth: you can assert anything at all about all members of the empty set!
@@RoyWiggins A vacuous truth is what we are being offered in this content. Of course one can draw a line between any set of random dots. However, to plot a line (only visible from space) intersecting the greatest land mass of the country and somehow conjure forth 'holy wells' along it, is not something one could achieve with an rnd(ley) function.
The St Michael line (as featured in this video for a couple of seconds) is 100% real. If anyone thinks that the roman catholic church decided to build St Michael and St Mary churches all along it just for a laugh, then they're clearly hitting the communion wine too heavily.
If you were lucky to get into newgrange for winter solstice you'd be flyin
Surely the best place to celebrate the winter solstice is in Newgrange in Ireland. On that day the sun comes through the entrance and lights up the chamber inside the mound.
Tom scott is slowly becoming cuter every video I watch
I live in Amesbury, right next to Stonehenge. I imagine this is true of anyone living near a 'World Wonder', but I sometimes feel like the only one who can see that it is just some rocks. Tourists have asked me multiple times for directions to the stones and every time I want to shout 'THEY'RE JUST STONES. IF YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THEM DON'T PAY FOR IT! THERE IS A MOTORWAY RIGHT THERE FROM WHICH YOU CAN LOOK AT THEM AS YOU PASS BY!"
I like Avesbury 'cause my family and I would get a drink in the pub nearby and have a pleasant stroll in the area. Avesbury really is better.
When you get right down to it, the pyramids and great cathedrals are 'just rocks'. The point is that they're seeped in history, in myth, and in meaning. They provide a link to our distant past. They've survived for millennia (albeit with the occasional need to restore the stones, depending on which site you're talking about...), and they form part of not only our national heritage, but also the heritage of humankind. There is something more visceral and human about touching the stones than glimpsing them through the car window. So 'just rocks' is something of an understatement.
I realise you're probably being purposefully flippant, but it is easy to under-appreciate these things when you live right by them. Although there are indeed plenty of free neolithic sites all over the country which people could just as easily visit, I think it's good that so many people flood over to Stonehenge, leaves all the other places nice and quiet.
I do agree with the idea of wanting to touch them and such, but that is the thing about Stonehenge; you can't. If you could stand in the circle or touch the stones, then I wouldn't really mind. I just don't like the idea of paying money to see the stones from only slightly closer than you otherwise could.
As far as I am aware the stone circles along those lines are actually methods of predicting eclipses that people used years in the past. Which is why that henge is so big because it is full whilst Stone henge if you look closely has twenty eight dips in circles around each henge, and farther smaller ones so that it could be predicted the type of moon, length of day and time of year using them.
www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-projects/hm/0102-1-stonehenge/eclipses.htm
This link explains a lot of how this works so I'd suggest checking it out maybe. :3
Watching this on the winter solstice 2022 :))
Hottest I've been in was 121 F which is around 50 C when I was maybe 8 or so. I do remember it was somewhere in the deserts in California. I know it was a record, and I can only imagine I was headed to Palm Desert, which is where we had our yearly family vacation. Generally only Death Valley gets temperatures that hot, which is like 150 miles to the north of the Palm Springs area, sorta near the closest you can get to Vegas without leaving the California border into Nevada.
Heheh. I remember going to Wendy's and getting a little squirt gun toy with my kid's meal.
Tom, I love your videos
Right across the road from Stonehenge there's a far more fun 'woodhenge' (I found it walking to a Beefeater's for tea) that's a bunch of little concrete pillars about a foot (30cm) high in place of where there was once a woodhenge and it's better than stonehenge because you can jump from one little pillar to the other.
2:13 you can totally begrudge it. You can begrudge it as much as you want. Everyone should begrudge it.
is this where they made that really weird tv show from the 70s or 80s
Yes. Cool series. Children of the Stones. Still worth watching.
@@tamfuwing1 i watched it once. its was weird but an interesting insight into 70s british culture
Happy Winter Solstice Tom!
+Tom Scott - final comment - Watch 'Children of the Stones' starring Gareth Thomas (Blakes'7) and Ian Cuthbertson that was filmed in Avebury in 1977.
+Mark Keen As good a film as there ever was.
Happy Day!
And he's still wearing a red shirt and grey jumper, what is it about them?
Peru has ley lines as well. Or at least, a similar concept. Most of the sacred sites of the native andreans are laid down across 42 radial lines that all lead back to the Temple of the Sun in the Imperial Capitol of Cusco. They may not be "ley lines" as the New Agers describe them, but they are purposefully built connections between sacred places across vast distances.
"Well, we will never know the reasons... " is not going to end well.
I used to live near there and its definitely a magical place...just a shame there's a road going through the middle of it!
In my city if you draw a straight line on the map you can connect 12+ tim hortons coffee shops in it. Now some might think thats a weird phenomenon but its because they're all on the same road.
As someone that lives a 15-20 minute drive from Avebury, it’s so much better than Stone Henge. I go there whenever I can
The Ley Line you show is the St Michael’s Ley Line, aligned with the setting sun on Samhain, like the Carnac Stones in France. Free wisdom...
The Woolworths thing was Matt Parker? I didn't realize he'd been around that long...
does the kirin tor know yet?
Their are some great places like this in Scotland, Callanish stones and the Clava cairns to name a few
I found you can get more sites to align if you use a thicker pen.
It's Burrow Mump, not 'Barrow Mump' as it appears on your map, but it's only a tiny mistake. Not a criticism at all, I love your videos! :)
Would love to see Richard Gansey III chart the ley lines between phone boxes.
Thanks for this video!
A while ago my father and I went to stonehenge for a solstice, but the queues were so long we would've missed the sunrise so we diverted to Avebury instead, saw a pagan circle and joined in. Great time, felt very connected to nature.
A defensive barrier around a last stand for a settled landscape.
i think ley lines where sacred sites built on top of meteorite impacts. would explain the alignment as they break off from an asteroid and land going the same direction.
Great info.....great delivery..... thank you.
Now look what you made me do! I have just purchased "The View Over Atlantis" to see what all the fuss is about.
Your viewers in the southern hemisphere share the sentiment but likely resent the bias. Happy Summer solstice.