Stonehenge: Difference between revisions

[[Vandalism]] of Stonehenge has been occurring for centuries. Until the 17th century, stones disappeared from the site, to be employed at build sites.<ref>{{cite journal |access-date=3 July 2024 |archive-date=7 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100707013904/http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/site/news_rece_ston.php |author1=Robert Layton |author2=Julian Thomas |date=1999 |language=en |periodical=[[World Archaeological Congress]] |quote=Up until the 17th century stones occasionally went missing to help build bridges or houses |title=Proposals for a tunnel at Stonehenge: an assessment of the alternatives |url=http://www.worldarchaeologicalcongress.org/site/news_rece_ston.php}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> In the 19th century, tourists employed chisels to cut rock chips off of the megaliths as souvenirs.<ref name=BBC>{{cite news |access-date=3 July 2024 |date=22 May 2008 |language=en |quote=At one time, chisels would be handed to people visiting Stonehenge, so they could chip away at the ancient monument to get their own souvenirs. But the practice has been outlawed since 1900 |title=Chisels once given at Stonehenge |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wiltshire/7414750.stm |work=[[BBC]]}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>

Although the first years of the ''Free Festival'' (annual, from 1975 onwards) saw "very little vandalism", Stonehenge had to be fenced off from 1978 onwards.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Barbara Bender |author2=Mark Edmonds |date=December 1992 |title=Stonehenge: whose past? What past? |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/026151779290001N?via%3Dihub |language=en |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |volume=13 |pages=356-357 |doi=10.1016/0261-5177(92)90001-N |issn=0261-5177 |access-date=3 July 2024 |quote=In the early years of the Free Festival the authorities remained tolerant. After 1978 they roped off the stones inner sanctum towards the Heel […] There was very little vandalism |number=4 |periodical=Tourism Management}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> Later, repeated vandalism in the 1980s and 1990s led the authorities to deploy up to hundreds of police, erect barriers around Stonehenge, and impose exclusion zones up to six kilometres from the archaeological monument.<ref name="TCR">{{cite journal |author1=Humphrys, Geoffrey |date=June 1994 |title=Stonehenge--June's flashpoint |language=en |volume=264 |page=309 |issn=0010-7565 |quote=Repeated vandalism has led to a barrier being erected around the stones, and during the past four years a four-mile exclusion zone has been enforced from June 11 to June 24 |number=1541 |periodical=[[The Contemporary Review]]}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref><ref name="Numen">{{cite journal |author1=Carole M. Cusack |date=2012 |title=Charmed Circle: Stonehenge, Contemporary Paganism, and Alternative Archaeology |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23244956 |language=en |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |volume=59 |pages=148-149 |issn=0029-5973 |access-date=2 July 2024 |quote=in 1984 […] Vandalism occurred |number=2 y 3 |periodical=[[Numen (journal)]]}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> The vandalism of 1984 included defacing the monument with purple spray paint.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=LAURA MILLER |date=21 April 2014 |title=Romancing The Stones |language=en |volume=90 |page=48 |issn=0028-792X |quote=archeologists tolerated Druid rituals at Stonehenge […] By 1984 […] vandalism: “People were climbing all over the stones and spray-painting them purple.” |number=9 |periodical=[[The New Yorker]]}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref> The government went so far as to close Stonehenge to protect it from vandalism, but in the face of public outcry (who erroneously feel the site is Druidic, despite Stonehenge having been built thousands of years before the Druids appeared), the government opted to re-open it.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Patricia Monaghan |date=1 November 2008 |title=Stonehenge by Rosemary Hill |publisher=[[American Library Association]] |volume=105 |page=13 |issn=0006-7385 |quote=it was built several millennia before the Celts with their druid priests arrived on British shores? For several hundred years, people have believed that Stonehenge is connected to the druids, so ardently that public outcry eventually drove the government, which had closed the monument to keep it from vandalism and other deterioration, reopened it |number=5 |periodical=[[Booklist]]}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>