Stonehenge replicas and derivatives

This is a list of Stonehenge replicas and derivatives that seeks to collect all the non-ephemeral examples together. The fame of the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge in England has led to numerous efforts to recreate it, using a variety of different materials, around the world. Some have been carefully built as astronomically-aligned models whilst others have been examples of artistic expression and/or tourist attractions.

Astronomically-aligned replicas

Maryhill's full-size replica of Stonehenge

• The only astronomically-aligned, full-scale, "exact" replica of (a pristine) Stonehenge in natural stone (granite) is at Esperance in Western Australia (esperancestonehenge.com.au). Some of the blocks weigh more than fifty tonnes and the replica cost over A$250 000 to build.
• The Maryhill Stonehenge: A full-size concrete replica of Stonehenge, as it would have been originally built, saw construction commence and was originally dedicated on July 4, 1918. Built in Maryhill, Washington by Sam Hill, it was the first monument in the United States to honor the dead of World War I (specifically, soldiers from Klickitat County, Washington who had died in the still on-going war). The altar stone is placed to be aligned with sunrise on the Summer Solstice. Hill, a Quaker pacifist, was mistakenly informed that the original Stonehenge had been used as a sacrificial site, and thus constructed the replica as a reminder that humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war. The monument was originally located in the center of Maryhill, which later burned down leaving only the Stonehenge replica. A second formal dedication of the monument took place upon its completion on May 30, 1929. Sam Hill, who died in 1931, lived long enough to see his Stonehenge completed.^[1]
• There is a full scale, limestone replica of Stonehenge on private property in Fortine, Montana. The property, owned by inventor Jim Smith, also houses a full golf course, an air museum, a fish hatchery and a vineyard.

Stonehenge replica on campus of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa

• A Stonehenge replica is located on the campus of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa in Ector County, Texas. About twenty stone blocks, similar in size, shape, and appearance to the ancient Stonehenge in southwestern England, were unveiled in the summer of 2004.
• Stonehenge Aotearoa in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand is a modern adaptation aligned with the astronomy seen from the Antipodes, it was built by the Phoenix Astronomical Society from wood and sprayed concrete.^[2]
• Foamhenge is a full-size, astronomically-aligned Stonehenge made out of foam near Natural Bridge, Virginia.^[3] "It is the only American Stonehenge that really is an exact replica of the time-worn original." "I went to great pains to shape each 'stone' to its original shape."^[4]
• British Foamhenge; a full size, correctly aligned replica made from carpet tubes and polystyrene was constructed for a UK TV show entitled "Stonehenge Live" broadcast in June 2005. The positions of each stone were accurately plotted using RTK GPS, which has centimetric accuracy. The replica quickly became known as "Foamhenge". It was removed soon after filming, and the 'stones' remain in storage (January 2006).
• Missouri S&T has a half-scale replica built from solid granite located on campus.^[5]
• A full-scale replica in sandstone was commenced in the rural township of Buckland in Tasmania in the first years of the 21st century (www.flickr.com/photos/ron-alenka/284418892/) but demolished by order of the municipal authorities. In keeping with the original Stonehenge, it did not have the necessary planning approval from the local council.

Less accurate replicas

• Carhenge was constructed from vintage American cars near Alliance, Nebraska by the artist Jim Reinders in 1987.^[6]
• Bavarian Strawhenge; a full-size replica was assembled in Kemnath in Bavaria in 2003 from 350 bales of straw and used as a music venue.^[7]
• Canadian Strawhenge is in Ontario.^[8]
• Phonehenge is made of old-fashioned British telephone booths and is located at Freestyle Music Park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
• Phonehenge West was an unrelated folk art construction in Los Angeles County, California, eventually demolished by authorities for building code violations.
• In the late 1970s, in Glasgow, an astronomically aligned stone circle has been built in Sighthill Park.^[9][10][11]
• Mudhenge was erected for the 1996 Burning Man Festival.^[12]
• Munfordville Stonehenge built by a local stonemason in Kentucky and set up along compass lines^[13]
• Twinkiehenge, another Burning Man replica, constructed in 2001 out of Twinkies.^[14]
• Stonehenge II in Texas is constructed from a sand-like material.
• Stroudhenge; East Stroudsburg University, in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, has a small replica located on its campus called "Stroudhenge".
• Mystical Horizons, located near Carbury, North Dakota, consists of six granite walls of varying heights that are intended to represent a 21st-century design. It functions as a working solar calendar. It was built in 2005.
• Tankhenge existed in the border zone of Berlin in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Wall. Tankhenge was constructed from three ex-Soviet armoured personnel carriers.
• Stonehenge microstructure; scientists from the National University of Singapore created the smallest 3D replica of Stonehenge. Measuring only 80 micrometres in diameter, the Stonehenge microstructure was created by a process called silicon micromachining which uses a high-energy proton beam writer to produce 3-D microshapes and structures of high structural accuracy on the surface of materials such as silicon.^[15]
• Fridgehenge; another modern take on Stonehenge once existed outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, constructed out of junked refrigerators, known as 'Fridgehenge'. The site was created by the artist Adam Jonas Horowitz.^[16] The site no longer exists, all fridges have been removed after a complaint, confirmed on 5 August 2008.
• In 1995, Graeme Caims of Hamilton, New Zealand, built a replica of Stonehenge out of 41 refrigerators.
• At the 2007 Glastonbury Festival, graffiti artist Banksy constructed a "Stonehenge" made from portable toilets.
• Achill-henge is a 2011 concrete structure on Achill Island, off the northwest coast of Ireland.
• In 2012 British artist Jeremy Deller created a life-size inflatable bouncy castle- style replica of Stonehenge titled 'Sacrilege' which first appeared in Greenwich Park, London and other parks in the capital; the interactive artwork has since toured nationally and internationally.^[17][18][19]
• Bladehenge is the name of a Charlotte Moreton sculpture located at Solstice Park, Amesbury only 2 miles from Stonehenge. The final piece of the Solstice Park Sculptures, Bladehendge is inspired by aeronautical forms of propellers and turbine, with three twisting steel monoliths designed to recall Stonehenge. It was installed in 2013.^[20]

Other replicas

Snowhenge - Standing 6.5 feet (2.0 m) tall and 30 feet (9.1 m) in diameter, consisting of nearly 1,000 cubic feet (28 m³) of packed snow.

The rock band Black Sabbath featured a Stonehenge stage set for the 1983-1984 Born Again tour that ended up being too large to fit in most venues. This was parodied in the movie This is Spinal Tap, when the band orders a Stonehenge set but it arrives in miniature due to a confusion between feet and inches. There was also a Chicago-based heavy metal band named Stonehenge that actually owned the trademark to the name. Stonehenge met with underground success in the 1990s and 2000s performing with acts such as Pantera, Iced Earth, Trouble and Manowar.

In 1984, the artist Richard Fleischner constructed an abstract Stonehenge-like series of granite blocks at the University of California, San Diego as part of the Stuart Collection called The La Jolla Project, and is affectionately known as Stonehenge by students and faculty.

In 2005, British TV's archaeological television program Time Team created a replica of a timber circle located near Woodhenge as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

In February 2010, Peter Salisbury, founder of the Michigan DRUIDS, created a 1/3 scale replica of Stonehenge at the MacKay Jaycees Family Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan appropriately named Snowhenge.^[21]

Comparable archaeological sites

Aside from modern replicas, several other archaeological sites have had Stonehenge's name partially or fully incorporated into their own names. America's Stonehenge is an unusual and controversial site in New Hampshire. A henge near Stonehenge containing concentric rings of postholes for standing timbers, discovered in 1922, was named Woodhenge by its excavators because of similarities with Stonehenge. The name Woodhenge is also used for the American site of Cahokia. The timber Seahenge in Norfolk was named as such by journalists writing about its discovery in 1998.

In November 2004, a 7 m diameter circle of postholes was found in Russia and publicised as the Russian Stonehenge. Other prehistoric sites elsewhere, often also with proposed astronomical alignments, are often described by journalists as being that region's '"answer to Stonehenge".

In May 2006, reports emerged of an "Amazon Stonehenge" Calçoene, 390 kilometres from Macapá, the capital of Amapá state, near Brazil's border with French Guyana. It comprises 127 stones, possibly forming astronomical observing points.^[22]

Other alignments

Manhattanhenge, New York.

• Box Tunnel, a railway tunnel in England allegedly designed so the sun would shine through it on the engineer's birthday.
• Manhattanhenge; in New York City, due to the street grid's skew of about 28.9° and the strict grid plan on most of the Manhattan isle, the sunset is aligned with the street grid lines in May and July, as well as the sunrise in December and January. This phenomenon is known as Manhattanhenge.
• Raleighhenge in Raleigh, North Carolina alignment of the street grids brings sunrise alignment.^[23]
• MITHenge; similarly, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the sun shines directly down the Infinite Corridor twice each year.
• National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, England.

Gallery

• 

  Replica at Maryhill, Washington

• 

  Detail of the Stonehenge Aotearoa exterior

• 

  Missouri S&T's half-scale replica

• 

  "Stonehenge" made of portable toilets by Banksy

• 

  by Environmental Sand-painter Brian Pike

References

1. Becker, Paula (June 14, 2006). "Altar stone of Stonehenge replica built to memorialize World War I soldiers is dedicated at Maryhill on July 4, 1918. HistoryLink.org Essay 7809". HistoryLink. Retrieved 2008-07-26.
2. "Go to Stonehenge-aotearoa.co.nz - Offline". Astronomynz.org.nz. Retrieved 2015-09-29.
3. Adamiak, Jessica (August 2011). "Foamhenge, Natural Bridge, VA". Travel + Leisure Magazine. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
4. Archived October 27, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.
5. "Missouri S&T Stonehenge". mst.edu. Missouri S&T Rock Mechanics & Explosives Research Center. Retrieved 18 November 2008.
6. Archived January 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
7. "Portail d'informations Ce site est en venteg". Strohhenge.de. Retrieved 2015-09-29.
8. Archived February 24, 2005, at the Wayback Machine.
9. "Sighthill Park stone circle". Brocweb.com. Retrieved 2009-09-01.
10. Alison Campsie (2010-06-02). "Astronomer bids to rejuvenate stone circle". The Scottish Herald. Retrieved 2010-06-09.
11. "Re-newed Stone Circle in Sight". Local News Glasgow. 2010-06-05. Retrieved 2010-06-24.
12. Archived March 4, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
13. Archive copy at the Wayback Machine
14. "Burning Man Galleries". Burning Man Galleries.
15. Archived February 11, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
16. "Quirky New Mexico - Enchanted State Oddities and Unusual Attractions - Page 2". legendsofamerica.com.
17. Kirsty Scott. "Jeremy Deller's inflatable Stonehenge gives Glasgow a bounce in its step". the Guardian.
18. "Public Art Online News - Stonehenge on tour – Jeremy Deller's 'Sacrilege' arrived at Whitstable Biennale". publicartonline.org.uk.
19. "Jeremy Deller's Inflatable Stonehenge lands in Hong Kong - Flux Magazine". Flux Magazine.
20. "Solstice Park Sculpturews" (PDF). Solsticepark.com. Retrieved 2015-09-29.
21. Peter Salisbury. "Snowhenge". snowhenge.blogspot.com.
22. Archived April 16, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
23. Rice, Tony. "Rising sun creates 'Raleigh-henge'". WRAL.com. Retrieved 2015-09-29.

Further reading

• Burl, Aubrey (1976). The Stone Circles of the British Isles. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-02398-5.
• Burl, Aubrey, and Max Milligan (1999). Circles of Stone. The Harvill Press. ISBN 1-86046-661-3.
• Burl, Aubrey (2007). A Brief History of Stonehenge. London: Robinson. ISBN 978-1-84529-591-2.
• Mooney, J (2005). Encyclopedia of the Bizarre. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. ISBN 978-1-57912-482-3.

External links

• Roadside America: American Stonhenges
• STANHENGE... a plan for the real deal!
• Hear the sound within the MaryHill Replica
• Acoustic measurements of the MaryHill Replica