Few human-built structures own a background so non-stop as this reward from the Neolithic. The Parthenon, Hadrian’s Wall, the Arch of Constantine, petroglyphs, American Indian effigy mounds, and the moai of Easter Island likewise intervene into modernity as a result of their stony materiality. they communicate messages that their originators inscribed upon or embodied inside of them. Such artistic endeavors are often multipurpose, combining shielding, hortatory, non secular, and commemorative intentions. They converse in their moments of construction and inform stories of constant refashioning, harnessing imprecise origins to thick, broad instances to come back. selected for the slowness of its degradation, memorial stone is deployed to transmit messages, the continual conveyor of reminiscence, a storied materiality that lasts. therefore the medieval historian Geoffrey of Monmouth imagined that Stonehenge used to be erected upon Salisbury undeniable to honor the British useless and their conflict opposed to the invading Saxons. His heritage of the Kings of england (ca. 1138) publicizes that King Arthur’s uncle, father, and successor to the throne are buried inside of its ring, rendering Stonehenge a conflict memorial that would stand forever to claim British greatness. but Geoffrey recognizes that the structure’s background is much deeper than its use through historical Britons. Merlin narrates the tale of the way the hoop of stones was once in-built eire by means of a band of African giants, who transported its titanic rocks from their fatherland. The future of the circle, Geoffrey writes, is to be translated from his personal ecclesiastical Latin (chorea gigantum, the Giants’ Ring) into English, into the language spoken by way of the invading Saxons opposed to whom the Britons have gained their conflict yet to whom they're going to lose an extended conflict. Geoffrey’s final point out of the lithic ring states this assimilation into fifty seven Geophilia new tale quietly. Constantine III, the monarch who follows Arthur upon the British throne, is buried inside of “lapidum structuram . . . Anglorum lingua Stanheng,” “the stone circle identified in English as Stanheng. ”108 Archeologists let us know that Stonehenge’s earliest use was once certainly as a burial web site. regardless of its popularity as a component tricky to change, stone serves commemorative services good simply because with sufficient exertions the lithic turns into liquid. Antoni Gaudí knew this capability in detail, growing undulating constructions like Sagrada Familia and Parc Güell, architectures so fluid that their rock turns out pliant, malleable, watery. Canterbury’s cathedral and the prehistoric monuments of Brittany exhibit a similar responsiveness of stone to human fingers. The emotional galvanize such constructions impart varies. The airy swell of church partitions leads eyes to heaven, whereas the gateway of a dolmen invitations the observer to consider subterranean worlds opened by way of loss of life. We set up challenging rock to demarcate, to carry land down and claim territory ours (stone partitions, boundary stones). We additionally dream of stone so mild it ascends cloudward: the weightless towers of temples, skyscrapers, the leap of menhirs, the looming of status stones, Michael Heizer’s install “Levitated Mass.