William Stukeley
William Stukeley , FRS , FRCP , FSA , (born November 7, 1687 in Holbeach , Lincolnshire , † March 3, 1765 in London ) was a British antiquarian ("antiquarian") from Yorkshire .
Life
He was born at Stukeley Hall in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, the son of a lawyer. He received his MB from Corpus Christi College , Cambridge and then studied medicine at St Thomas' Hospital in London . In 1710 he set up a practice in Boston , Lincolnshire , but moved to London in 1717. In 1717 he was elected a member of the Royal Society , in 1718 a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London , of which he was secretary for nine years. In 1719 he received his MD and in 1720 he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians .
Stukeley was a friend of Isaac Newton and published his biography in 1752. The famous apple anecdote that was later decorated goes back to this. Stukeley reports in Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's life of a conversation with Newton in 1722:
- After dinner, the weather was warm, we went into the garden and drank tea in the shade of some apple trees, just him and me. In the middle of another discourse, he told me, he was just in the same situation when the idea of gravity occurred to him. “Why should this apple always fall vertically to the ground”, he thought to himself: The occasion was the fall of an apple when he was in a pensive mood: “Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but steadily towards the center of the earth? Sure, the reason is that the earth attracts it, there has to be a gravitational pull of matter, and the sum of the gravitational pull of matter of the earth must be at the center of the earth, not on either side. That is why this apple falls vertically or towards the center, if matter attracts matter, it must be proportional to its quantity, that is why the apple attracts the earth and the earth attracts the apple. "
Methods
Stukeley carried out excavations, and it seems that he was the first to create and document profiles . He described and documented the Stonehenge cursus and interpreted it as a Roman chariot race track Although his drawings show a straight end, but he describes it as convex, "like the end of a Roman circus." He interpreted the long bed at the end of the course as a judge's platform. Stonehenge itself overlooked the center of the racetrack and offered a good vantage point on "[...] the wide plain and the mass of racing cars, riders and pedestrians [...]". He also saw Dyke Hills (Dorchester) and Raw Dykes (Leics) as racecourses, they are now interpreted as the walls of an oppidum or Roman aqueduct.
Some of the terms he introduced, such as "cursus" and "cove", are still in use in British archeology today.
Works
- Stonehenge, a temple restor'd to the British Druids, 1740 (Stukeley's 'Stonehenge': an unpublished manuscript, 1721-1724 / edited by Aubrey Burl and Neil Mortimer, New Haven; London: Yale University Press 2005).
- Palæographia sacra. Or discourses on sacred subjects, 1736
- Itinerarium curiosum: or, An account of the antiquities, and remarkable curiosities in nature or art, observed in travels through Great Britain. 2nd edition, London, Baker & Leigh, 1776. New publication Farnborough: Gregg 1969 ( limited preview in Google Book Search)
- The Philosophy of Earthquakes, Natural and Religious. Or an Inquiry into their Cause, and their Purpose, London 1750, Printed for C. Corbet over-against St. Dunstan's Church, Fleetstreet ( limited preview in Google Book Search)
literature
- David B. Haycock: William Stukeley. Science, religion, and archeology in eighteenth-century England . Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2002. ISBN 0-85115-864-1 .
- Stuart Pigott: William Stukeley, an 18-century antiquary . Thames & Hudson, London 1985. ISBN 0-500-01360-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stukeley, William |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English archaeologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 7, 1687 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Holbeach , Lincolnshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 3, 1765 |
| Place of death | London |