Also, Stonehenge was built (partially) from parts of other stone circles, from as far away as Wales: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029203

25-tonne stones for 18km in case you wondered

The word for this structure is apparently a menhir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir. The article calls it the tallest in the UK but its Wikipedia page calls it the second-tallest. This is the actual tallest, interestingly also in Yorkshire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudston_Monolith.

Ken Follett (of "Pillars of the Earth" fame) wrote a terrific semi-historical* novel called "Circle of Days" that portrays a vivid picture of the people and circumstances that could've led to the creation of Stonehenge.

*"semi" qualifier bc there's so little known for sure -- but it's at least plausible, and his extensive research doesn't contradict things that can be verified.

Imperial is confusing at the best of times, but couldn't they have said 24.5 tons instead of 55,000 lbs?

Sir ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ton

> he long ton,[1] also known as the imperial ton, displacement ton,[1][2] or British ton,[3] is a measurement unit equal to 2,240 pounds

Checks out, 55,000/2,240 is 24.55, so 24.5 works. Short ton gives 27.5, metric 24.9. Pick the wrong one and you're off by three tons.

They could have said 3300 stones stones ...

That's the way they like it. American road signs have mad shit like "No trucks over 15,000 lbs".

Drove a U-Haul across the US: bridge signs say tons, but door-jamb GVWR plates say pounds. They're short tons, 2,000 lbs, so not metric either.

I’m beginning to conclude that about 47% of all ancient activities in England consisted solely of either moving comically huge rocks around, or attempting to convince the remaining 53% to do their fair share.

Strange they don't mention how many stones. Image shows two. There are three today and four, maybe five, originally.

This must be the origin of the saying, “People who start stone rows shouldn’t build glass houses”.

Lovely.

Meanwhile, in Egypt...

Must have been a contractor. The permies would wait for the procurement process to pick someone to move those stones for them. /s

We've used both. Contractors ship faster because the invoice clock's ticking, but they cost about double and walk away right when the thing needs maintaining.

Lol. First time I ever heard permie as a slur for the second best worker categorization

Need 7 more paragraphes telling us that the stones, weren't in fact, chosen from the nearest location, but were chosen from a distant location.

Without ever telling *how" they were moved of course, that would give out too much

Horses

The headline says "hauled" and still skips the part where anyone explains the hauling.

Quite easy. They were moved like this:

https://youtu.be/YpNuh-J5IgE

Quick trick I use: divide pounds by 2.2 to get kg. 55,000 lb is about 25 metric tonnes. A US short ton would make it 27.5.