Community | February 20, 2012 | 4 comments

Stonehenge design was 'inspired by sounds'

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17073206

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17073206

Music could have been an inspiration for the design of Stonehenge, according to an American researcher.

Steven Waller's intriguing idea is that ancient Britons could have based the layout of the great monument, in part, on the way they perceived sound.

He has been able to show how two flutes played in a field can produce an auditory illusion that mimics in space the position of the henge's pillars.

Mr Waller presented the idea at the AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

He told the BBC: "My theory is that the ancient Britons, when they were hearing two pipers in a field, were experiencing sound wave interference patterns, where in certain locations as you walked around the pair of pipers, you would hear loud or quiet zones.

"If you could look at it from an overhead view, it would look like the spokes of a wheel. And, as you walk around the circle, every time you come to one of these sound-wave cancellation points, it feels like there is this massive invisible object in front of you.

"Put all this 'vision in your mind' together and it forms a Stonehenge-like structure."

Mr Waller is an expert in "archaeoacoustics", which examines the role sound might have played in ancient cultures....

Continued:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17073206
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  2. tags:
    sound,  Stonehenge,  Archaeoacoustics
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