Rocks in my Head

Greetings all you Mosquitoes of Inquisitiveness alighting on the juicy Buttock of Knowledge to feast upon the succulent Blood of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with a Revelation of another Mystery of the Universe!

Today's Revelation is about a subject ripped right from recent headlines, but it's a Mystery that goes back almost as far as the Pyramids, and is at least as interesting. By now you've figured out that I am speaking of none other than

Stonehenge!

The Secret of Stonehenge is one of the grandest Mysteries in all of human endeavor. Imagine this: Enormous slabs of solid rock weighing tens of tons, dragged many miles and assembled into a monument of cylindrical design, with the precision of modern engineering implements, and all of this labor performed by a Mysterious stone- and bronze-age people! Standing like sentries on Salisbury Plain in southern England, the towering monoliths of Stonehenge have enchanted visitors dating back to the ancient Romans, who are known to have hacked off pieces of the stones to take home as souvenirs. Seriously! Asshole Romans.

For literally thousands of years (yeah, it's pretty darned old), humans have studied the ruins of Stonehenge. Some interesting points about this enigmatic structure that have been discovered so far include:

1) "Stonehenge" is from the Old English words "stan", meaning "rocks", and "henge", meaning, well, uh, modern science has really yet to determine just what the heck a "henge" is. Research is ongoing.

2) Stonehenge was constructed between 3000 and 1600 BC, but nobody is certain who the builders were. Except me. I have discovered that Stonehenge was built by: ancient Brits. (That's a bonus Secret of the Universe, no extra charge!) I know, my knowledge is astonishing! I just can't imagine why nobody has figured this out before.

3) A monument as monumental as Stonehenge cannot help but be inspirational to artists, as evidenced by the megastar heavy metal band "Spinal Tap".

More recent investigations have theorized that Stonehenge was used as a royal burial ground. But you have to keep in mind that this "discovery" was made by archaeologists, and these folks say that just about everything they dig up was a burial ground, or a battlefield, or something related to violence and death. You can't really blame them, though, because violence sells - just go to any modern movie theater if you want this point proved - and archaeologists need to keep getting funding to go dig up more and more stuff. Hey, you always do what's right for the wallet, eh?

The thing is, I happen to know several modern Brits and they most definitely are not all about violence and death (well, maybe some of the football fans). On the contrary, these folk are quite the fun-loving bunch - they're always singing, dancing, drinking (oh yeah, lots of drinking), telling jokes I don't understand, and laughing hysterically at them. They seem so jolly that I can't believe their ancestors would have built a huge, enduring monument to death.

So what was Stonehenge really? I cranked up my patented reverse K.E.G. process and took my camera back in time to see what Stonehenge looked like a few millenia ago. I took this enlightening picture on my trip:


There you have it: "Stonehenge" on opening day. Click picture to enlarge.

Monument to Death, huh? Hardly! It was the world's first Amusement Park!

I was lucky enough to get the picture before the crowds arrived, because once people started showing up it was one huge party! The "Celt-O-Whirl", as the Stonehenge swing ride was called, was a major attraction of the ancient world. It wasn't exactly an extreme G-force astronaut training centrifuge, more like a carousel really, but c'mon, it was 4,000 years ago so give them a break.


The Celt-O-Whirl wasn't quite like this air force extreme-G training session. Click the pic for video, it's pretty cool.

So where do researchers get off saying that this thrill ride was a burial ground? Well, they note that there is evidence of burned human remains at Stonehenge, and they are absolutely right. However, they're wrong about the site being a burial ground. What they have found is the evidence of a terrible side effect of amusement parks: sometimes people fall off the rides! Nowadays when that happens, the accident makes headlines and the victim's family sues the bajeebers out of the amusement park. But 4,000 years ago, if you fell off the ride and your family want around to see it, then tough noogies! They just "got rid of the evidence" right where they found it:

"Why no, Mrs. Pickleford, we haven't seen your little Ian around the Celt-O-Whirl today. He must have gone fishing or something instead. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go dig a big hole and, uh, rapidly rub these two sticks together..."

So they didn't worry about lawsuits back then - they hadn't invented lawyers yet, nor ambulances for them to chase. We're much more enlightened nowadays.

Anyway, now you know the great Secret of Stonehenge. By the way, don't go visiting the site and try to play on the swings - they really, really don't appreciate it.