Description

Summary: A petrological thin section taken from a chip or stone from underneath the turf within the stone circle at Stonehenge. The slide is engraved with S57. The sample was taken by William Cunnington III before 1885.

Research results

A petrological thin section taken from a chip or stone from underneath the turf within the stone circle at Stonehenge. The slide is engraved with S57. The sample was taken by William Cunnington III before 1885. Last seen in the 1960s, this and Cunnington's other Stonehenge samples were stored with unaccessioned geological samples and subsequently rediscovered in 2021 when these collections were moved in advance of building work!

This and Cunnington's other Stonehenge samples were examined under a microscope by Rob Ixer of UCL in order to provide preliminary identifications. Ixer notes that this stone is a sample of Dacite group D, a group of bluestones known from a handfull of fragments across the Stonehenge environs. It is not known which orthostat these chips come from, but its presence on the site in a sample taken prior to 1890 demonstrates that it is unlikely to have been introduced to the area in modern road surfacing.