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stranger
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In a great adventure book, "Arabian Sands" by Wilfred Thesiger, [Penguin Travel Library]I came upon a word my dictionary does not have. Here is the sentence, p190. "There were many [trilithon]monuments in the valley and tumuli on the nearby hills." Can anyone help me with the word trilithon?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Trilithon means three huge pillars of stone with a heavy slab across the top. There are some at Stonehenge. The URL has a picture of one: http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicstonehenge.html
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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...which raises the question, since there weren't any hinges at Stonehenge, what kind of "henge" is meant here?
WW
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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'henge' probably referred to something hanging or supported in the air.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Welcome to the board, seeshel! Sounds like you're a shore-dweller like me (unless, of course, you just liked the name). I think you'll find this a stimulating home for your linguistic inquisitiveness!  Trilithon means three huge pillars of stone with a heavy slab across the top.I'm sure that's true, Dr. Bill. But I'm wondering, if one stone pillar or statue is called a monolith, then why isn't an arrangement of three called a triolith instead of a trilithon?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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trilith - [Orig. (and still often) in Gr. form trilithon (of three stones); so mod.F. trilithe.]
A prehistoric structure or monument consisting of three large stones, two upright and one resting upon them as a lintel.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Joe F., could you please provide us with the full OED definition of "henge"? I always thought that it meant wall or pallisade. Is there a relationship with "hedge" in fact?
Ta!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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'Henge' is a modern back-formation from 'Stonehenge', Old English Stánhengist 'hanging stones'.
Separated from Stonehenge, however, it doesn't refer to the presence of trilitha, but to the general construction, an aligned ceremonial circle within a bank and ditch. Woodhenge, in Wiltshire not far from Stonehenge, and of similar age (c 2300 BCE) obviously doesn't have any surviving wood, much less lintels.
And the newly discovered wooden circle off the east coast was promptly named Seahenge.
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old hand
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old hand
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I was told in my art history class that henge just means circle.
And that story about the Stonehenge restoration isn't real is it? It seems a little dubious because it's on a site about aliens and angels.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Single huge standing stone pillars are called monoliths or megaliths. There are a great many of them in UK and France. Search "Archaeology Megaliths" brings up dozens of sites. But I did not find one worth citing here.
P.S. Somebody mentioned the word "dolmen" which I had been unable to remember. Searching for "archaeolgy dolmen" brings up a lot of sites. Somewhere I saw pictures of France with long rows of them. No clue as to motivation of the people who erected them.
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