One Pile of Rocks vs. Another

[Oakman58]

When you've seen this impressive structure made of hand-cut stones...

 

 

this looks like nothing more than some big rocks.

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I’ve seen Stonehenge, but it was unimpressive having seen the great pyramids of Egypt.

[Globaliser]

15 hours ago, Oakman58 said:

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I’ve seen Stonehenge, but it was unimpressive having seen the great pyramids of Egypt.

 

And that is why many of us here are surprised by how insistent some people are on seeing it.

[BarbinMich]

Comparing the Pyramids, built by a very advanced civilization, to Stonehenge, built by neolithic people, is not a fair comparison.  We recently watched a documentary on Stonehenge, which was quite interesting.  I think this is it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU4USFjLbkw.    Both were built within 500-1000 years of each other.  Even though of crude construction compared to the pyramids, the stones are "aligned in the direction of the sunrise of the summer solstice and the sunset of the winter solstice" per Wikipedia and hence their significance to the people who placed them.  IMHO, Stonehenge was a major accomplishment for a culture that was more hunter/gatherer than that of their peers in Egypt.

Edited November 24, 2018 by BarbinMich

[LHT28]

many people  like to view places in the world  other  do not

Just like  the North Cape  in Norway   not very exciting  other than to say you have been there

 

 

 

[sailing canary]

3 hours ago, LHT28 said:

many people  like to view places in the world  other  do not

Just like  the North Cape  in Norway   not very exciting  other than to say you have been there

 

 

 

Or the Four Corners 'Monument'! Seriously underwhelming - two crossed lines in the middle of nowhere!!!!😀

[LHT28]

13 minutes ago, sailing canary said:

Or the Four Corners 'Monument'! Seriously underwhelming - two crossed lines in the middle of nowhere!!!!😀

Yet  people continue to go to those places   why?

because they want to

Who are we to say  what people should see/do  with their time & money

[Sauer-kraut]

Just goes to show that when you have an inexhaustible supply of slaves as builders one can create massive piles of rocks. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Sauer-kraut

[fairywren]

But I bet you didn't have to fight off the hawkers at Stonehenge...

[Oakman58]

13 hours ago, fairywren said:

But I bet you didn't have to fight off the hawkers at Stonehenge...

 

Oh my goodness that is so true.  I think all of the Major tourist sites had aggressive vendors hawking their wares.

Fortunately the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid are not on most tours so when we visited those two pyramids we were the only ones there…other than our guide and our security guards.

The Bent Pyramid still had large sections where the finishing stones are still in place.  You could appreciate how smooth the finished sides of the pyramids looked after they were completed 4600 years ago.

To give you an idea of the size and scope of the Bent Pyramid, look at the base of the pyramid on the extreme left in the photo below.  Those black dots are three Tourist Police.

[tartanexile81]

It always amazes me too that so many cruisers visiting the UK are so keen to visit Stonehenge. I have only seen it from a distance and that was enough. But these days, with social media, certain places seem to get over-hyped by tourists. As well as Stonehenge, Skye is Scotland is another example. Yes, it's pretty enough but you can't see a thing for the masses of tourists and to be honest there are many many, equally or more beautiful sites in Scotland. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by tartanexile81

[dsrdsrdsr]

Context is valuable.  I've been to the oldest house in Los Angeles, and wouldn't say the experience was worthless just because my own house is bigger and older.

[Oakman58]

11 hours ago, dsrdsrdsr said:

Context is valuable.  I've been to the oldest house in Los Angeles, and wouldn't say the experience was worthless just because my own house is bigger and older.

 

Jeez, I hope you didn't pay money to see that.  Anything built by Europeans in the U.S. isn't very old and not all that interesting.  Structures built by American Indians in the Southwest are much more fascinating. 

[Bob++]

I think that we are all fascinated by old structures to some extent. I went on a trip to see Stonehenge when I was a schoolboy and we could all wander around them without restrictions. More recently we drove past the old stones and gave them a wave; we stopped at Avebury for lunch, but like their bigger neighbour, the stones there had to be re-sited in the 20th century. The sheer scale of the pyramids is astonishing, and the idea that they were built by slave labour has long since been debunked. And yes, the squalour of the Cairo suburbs with the swarms of not-quite-beggars does spoil the experience.

 

Old is a relative term and I suspect that people from 'The New World' might be more impressed than those of us who have fairly ancient buildings within easy reach - a relative of ours lives in a house that existed before Europeans discovered America for example. On the other hand, there is a buildings museum nearby, where one of the most popular exhibits is a prefab from the 1950s.

[dsrdsrdsr]

5 hours ago, Oakman58 said:

 

Jeez, I hope you didn't pay money to see that.  Anything built by Europeans in the U.S. isn't very old and not all that interesting.  Structures built by American Indians in the Southwest are much more fascinating. 

Not a lot.  I had a couple of hours to kill while changing trains.

[Oakman58]

On a positive note, sightings at Loch Ness were awesome. 

 

[kctwinmommy]

Yep! We had intended to see Stonehenge, because our son wanted to. But even he realized the amount of time it would take (long lines) and how goofy expensive it was now (it wasn't like that when I saw it as a kid), he was fine with us skipping it. We just drove by, slowly, like 100's of other people! And that was enough for us. It's become too commercialized it seemed, compared to when I saw it as a kid, and my husband as a young guy stationed there for the military.

 

I guess it's just all what people like to do though. And there are always going to be people who want to see it, and I'm sure I've gone to things that they don't care for. 😃