Sarsen

Sarsen

Sarsen stones are stone blocks found in quantity on Salisbury Plain, the Marlborough Downs, in Kent, and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Hampshire. They are the remains of a cap of tertiary sandstone which once covered much of southern England. It is a dense, hard rock created from sand bound by a silica cement, making it a kind of silicified sandstone.

Natural sarsen boulders created by glacial and periglacial effects can be sometimes found scattered on the ground surface, moved by solifluction; the stone is also present in surviving outcrops of the rock.

Human uses

The builders of Stonehenge, Avebury, and many other megalithic monuments in southern England chose to build with sarsen stones.

From the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, sarsen megaliths in Europe were a target for destruction by both religious zealots and commercial enterprise. The stones were sometimes toppled, cleared from fields under cultivation, or broken up for reuse. Fire or explosives were sometimes employed to break the stone into pieces of a suitable size for use in construction. Sarsen is not an ideal building material however; William Stukeley wrote that Sarsen is "always moist and dewy in winter which proves damp and unwholesome, and rots the furniture". In the case of Avebury, the investors who backed a scheme to recycle the stone were bankrupted when the houses they built proved to be unsaleable and also prone to burning down. However despite these problems sarsen remained highly prized for its durability, being a favored material for steps and kerbstonesdn.

References

ee also

*Blowing Stone
*Fyfield Down
*Ashdown House, Oxfordshire

External links

* [http://www.littleton.org.uk/sarsen.htm Sarsen at Littleton and Harestock, Hampshire]
* [http://www.cityofwinchester.co.uk/history/html/sarsens.html Sarsens catalogued at the City of Winchester, Hampshire]
* [http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=3671 Picture of Sarsens on Fyfield Down, Wiltshire]


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  • Sarsen — Sar sen, n. [Etymol. uncertain; perhaps for saracen stone, i.e., a heathen or pagan stone or monument.] One of the large sandstone blocks scattered over the English chalk downs; called also {sarsen stone}, and {Druid stone}. [Eng.] [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • sarsen — large sandstone boulder, 1640s, prop. sarsen stone, i.e. Saracen stone, from SARACEN (Cf. Saracen) in the old sense of pagan, heathen …   Etymology dictionary

  • sarsen — ► NOUN ▪ a silicified sandstone boulder of a kind used at Stonehenge and in other prehistoric monuments in southern England. ORIGIN probably a variant of SARACEN(Cf. ↑Saracen) …   English terms dictionary

  • sarsen stone — Sarsen Sar sen, n. [Etymol. uncertain; perhaps for saracen stone, i.e., a heathen or pagan stone or monument.] One of the large sandstone blocks scattered over the English chalk downs; called also {sarsen stone}, and {Druid stone}. [Eng.] [1913… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Sarsen Amanzholov — Sarsen Amanzholovich Amanzholov (Kazakh: Сәрсен Аманжолұлы Аманжолов; Russian: Сарсен Аманжолович Аманжолов) is a famous Turkologist, and one of the pioneers of Kazakh linguistics. He cultivated the foundations of Kazakh grammar for all levels of …   Wikipedia

  • sarsen — /sahr seuhn/, n. any of numerous large sandstone blocks or fragments found in south central England, probably remnants of eroded Tertiary beds. Also called Druid stone, graywether. [1635 45; syncopated var. of SARACEN, short for Saracen boulder… …   Universalium

  • sarsen — noun (usually as “sarcen stone”) one of various blocks of sandstone found in various locations in southern England …   Wiktionary

  • sarsen — see SARACEN …   The Hutchinson dictionary of word origins

  • sarsen — [ sα:s(ə)n] noun a silicified sandstone boulder of a kind used at Stonehenge and in other prehistoric monuments in southern England. Origin C17: prob. a var. of Saracen …   English new terms dictionary

  • sarsen — sar·sen …   English syllables

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