Devil's Arrows
The Devil's Arrows ( German "Teufelspfeile" ) are a 170 m long stone row , consisting of three menhirs , which were preserved as the remainder of a row originally consisting of four or five stones. The row is less than 200 m east of A1 road , on either side of Roecliffe Lane to the west of Boroughbridge , in North Yorkshire , in England . It dates from either the late Neolithic or the early Bronze Age .
The menhir at the southern end is in an enclosure on the south side of the street. It is almost seven meters high and (after the Rudston ) the second tallest menhir in Great Britain . It has a slightly oval cross-section of 1.4 × 1.2 m. During the excavation in 1881 it was found that its base is 1.8 m below the surface of the earth.
The other two stones are north of the road. The alignment is not a straight line. The middle monolith , about 110 m away from the southern menhir, is slightly offset to the west, about 6.7 m high with an oval cross-section of 1.5 × 1.2 m and inclined slightly to the south. When excavated in 1709, it was found that its base is 1.5 m below the surface of the earth and earth, stones and clay were used as packing material. The compaction of this material may have resulted in the current slope.
The last menhir stands about 60 m from the middle at the northern end of the alignment, is rather stocky and 5.5 m high. Its strongly oval cross-section is 2.6 × 1.4 m, with its long axis perpendicular to the orientation. During the excavation of 1876 it was found that its base is 1.4 m below the surface of the earth.
All stones are made of so-called Millstone Grit (a sandstone ), heavily weathered and with fluted tips. The stones are believed to have come from a rock exclusion about seven miles southwest known as Plumpton or Plompton Rocks, which has similar corrugations to those found on the arrows.
literature
- Rodney Castleden: The Stonehenge People. An Exploration of Life in Neolithic Britain 4700-2000 BC. Routledge & Paul, London et al. 1987, ISBN 0-7102-0968-1 .
- Homer Sykes: Mysterious Britain - Fact and Folklore George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. 1993 p. 29
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 5 ′ 35.6 " N , 1 ° 24 ′ 13.3" W.