It isn't just about some paint on some rocks, or tourism.
The incident came just before
thousands were expected to gather at the prehistoric site to celebrate the summer solstice — the longest day of the year.
English Heritage, which manages the UNESCO World Heritage Site, said it was “extremely upsetting” and said curators were investigating the damage.
Solstice is important to some people. Solutions are important to some people. Education. Public relations. Marketing.
There are so many excruciatingly important matters at play here,
@bilby , I am totally stunned by your reply, uncertain as to your intent, and unwilling to investigate.
You sure did say a whole entire thing that had nothing to do with any of this.
It was a publicity stunt.
Giving publicity to the perpetrators seems unwarranted.
Nobody got hurt. Nothing got irreperably damaged; The damage done is easy to reversed with a few cans of paint stripper - the underlying stones are made of rock.
Nothing was corrupted from a previously pristine state - the stones have already been moved, cleaned, and generally fucked with repeatedly for centuries (probably millennia).
No valuable archaeological or historical data was damaged or lost - The stones and their immediate surroundings long since gave up any information they would ever give. All of the archaeological unknowns about Stonehenge today were either destroyed centuries aho, or are contained in the wider landscape. The various road works on the A303, including the construction of the modern road, have done (and will doubtless in future do) far more damage than a bit of paint on the standing stones themselves.
There's no such thing as "sacred"; That's just an excuse used for over-reaction by religious people. I don't accept that excuse when someone is enraged by the burning of a Koran or a Bible, so what makes new-age solstice worshippers worthy of special dispensation to be outraged by trivia?
In the very long list of stuff people are doing in the world today about which I might be outraged, painting some rocks as a publicity stunt doesn't come very high up at all.
British archaeology is genuinely threatened by vandalism by "nighthawk" illegal digging, by developers who flout the law, and by legal developing that lacks the necessary regulation to protect sites (some of which are not known to be valuable until it's too late to protect them). It's not noticably threatened by some idiots at Stonehenge with paint and a desire for publicity.
In fact, I am beginning to think that my original "meh" may have been more outrage on my part than was strictly warranted.
Why do you think we should be outraged at this stunt, in particular? My life is too short to be outraged at every selfish and ignorant act of vandalism, and as such acts go, this is at the lower end of the 'harmful' scale.
Hopefully the perpetrators will be caught and made to clean up their mess, or sent the bill for the cleanup if it's already been done.
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