The Mystery Of Stonehenge
29th July, 2010
A MODERN-DAY engineer who ‘rebuilt’ Stonehenge will be reliving his experience at a public talk organised by the Institution of Civil Engineers South West.
Mark Whitby will be telling members of the public how he and a team of 120 volunteers built a full-size 90-ton trilithon using wood, rope, force and modern know-how over a series of three weekends.
Mr Whitby, a former president of ICE, had set out to understand how the famous stones were moved and laid with such precision all those thousands of years ago.
The experiment, instigated and filmed for the BBC series Secrets of Lost Empires in the 1990s, saw Mr Whitby and archaeologist Julian Richards devise and test methods of moving the largest stones, both down and uphill.
Mr Whitby’s talk will look back at the engineering logic he and his colleagues brought to the problem.
Mark Whitby’s firm Whitbybird merged with the Nordic practice Ramboll in 2008. He is a founder of the engineering club and www.engineering-timelines.com. He is also a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers and non-executive director of the solar energy company Evoenergy.
The talk will be held on Tuesday 21 September from 6pm at Rook Lane Chapel, Bath Street, Frome, in Somerset. The cost of the talk is £6 per ticket to include canapés and non-alcoholic drinks (a cash bar will be available on the night). Tickets can be bought directly from Jo Plimmer at Rook Lane Arts by ringing 01373 468040.
