There’s been some digging going on around Stonehenge of late, which has resulted in a flurry of media attention. I’m trying to avoid pointing to a pile of uninformed speculation, so I’m mostly ignoring it, but I did want to highlight this short piece from The Independent.
Why? Well because every time some archaeologist finds a grave in an ancient site they say, “aha! it must be a tomb/burial mound.” And I’m thinking about those future archaeologists excavating Westminister Abbey and saying, “aha! it must be a very elaborate tomb.”
I saw a slightly longer version of the article in the Merc today.
The version I saw made a big deal about it being a burial site, but did indicate that its function (like Westminster Abbey) was a place of worship where important people were buried.
Why am I not surprised that a Californian newspaper can have more sensible coverage of this than a UK one?
I think they just gave it more column inches. You’ll notice the first few paragraphs are almost identical to the article in The Independent.