Pepys looked at the megaliths in 1668 and shrugged: ‘God knows what their use was.’

Daniel Defoe​ , in his Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-26), was unimpressed by the prehistoric remains. Arriving at the circle of nineteen standing stones at Boscawen-Un in Cornwall, he noted with baffled irritation that ‘all that can be learn’d of them is, That here they are.’

The mind is like the surface of a lake and phenomena are like stones that drop into it. The water then breaks and warps around it.

He added, “The linguists are going to be well excited about what they’re finding. But the historian is still, like, ‘Yeah, it’s good. You’ve got names. You’ve got lots and lots of names.’ ”

Jacob took the stone (ʼben) and “set it up as a pillar (massebah) and poured oil on the top of it” (Genesis 28:18). This standing stone was dedicated to Yahweh, therefore the use of a stone as a massebah was not forbidden.

There are several occasions where the massebah is not associated with pagan worship. When the massebah is associated with the worship of Yahweh, the massebah is accepted as a valid expression of commitment to Yahweh.

in violation of the demands of the covenant, the people of Israel erected sacred stones dedicated to other gods (Hosea 10:1). In their religious reforms, both Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4) and Josiah (2 Kings 23:14) destroyed the sacred pillars which the people of Israel had dedicated to the worship of Baal.

During the establishment of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel, the people were commanded to destroy the sacred stones of the Canaanites, “You must demolish them and break their sacred stones (masseboth) to pieces” (Exodus 23:24).

Absalom set up a massebah for himself as a memorial for he said, “‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’; he called the massebah by his own name” (2 Samuel 18:18).

When Rachel died, Jacob set up a massebah at her grave; “it is the massebah of Rachel’s tomb, which is there to this day” (Genesis 35:19–20).

Israel was forbidden to set up sacred stones, pillars: “you shall not set up a pillar (massebah), which the LORD your God hates” (Deuteronomy 16:22).

In the Hebrew Bible, the massebah is generally associated with Canaanite religion.

The only place in the Hebrew Bible where nasab is translated as a pillar is the case of Lot’s wife: “Lot’s wife looked back, and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26). The Hebrew word nasab indicates that Lot’s wife was standing in place like a pillar.

The pillars or sacred stones were stones set apart for religious use. The word massebah comes from the Hebrew word nasab, a word which means “to stand.”

(Joshua 4:20).

A special use of the word “stone” = ʼben was to designate a name of the God of Israel: Yahweh is “The Stone of Israel” (Genesis 49:24).

When the people of Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua commanded the people to set up twelve stones which were taken from the Jordan River as a memorial celebrating that defining moment in the life of Israel, the entrance of the people into the land God had promised to their ancestors (Joshua 4:20). The purpose of those memorial stones was to remind future generations of how the people “crossed the Jordan River on dry ground” (Joshua 4:22).

When Jacob had a vision of God, he used a stone as a pillow, but after he woke up from his sleep, “he took the stone (ʼben) that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar (massebah) and poured oil on the top of it” (Genesis 28:18). That stone became a memorial of Jacob’s encounter with God.

“If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it” (Exodus 20:25).

When the ark of the covenant was returned to Israel, the people of Beth-shemesh set up a large stone upon which they offered burnt offerings and presented sacrifices to Yahweh (1 Samuel 6:14–15).

Saul used a large stone to build an altar to Yahweh (1 Samuel 14:35).

People used stones to carry out the death penalty against people who had violated laws forbidding adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, profanation of the Sabbath, child sacrifice, witchcraft, and soothsaying.

Jacob rolled the stone off the opening of a well to water Rachel’s sheep (Genesis 29:10).

There are two words in Hebrew that are associated with standing stones: the word ʼben and the word massebah.

The cult objects included five standing stones, two basalt altars, two pottery libation vessels and two portable shrines.

"Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones" (2 Kings 23:14, New International Version)

Already tens of thousands of years ago, one can find evidence ofobjects – very often precious stones, shells or other items ofadornment – being moved around over enormous distances. Oftenthese were just the sort of objects that anthropologists would laterfind being used as ‘primitive currencies’ all over the world.

But the stelae were also symbols of power and status, and were used for ancestor worship and rituals.

Ancient peoples frequently engaged in offloading their mental contents and augmenting their brainpower with external resources, as evidenced by objects they left behind. Sumerians employed clay tokens to keep track of livestock and other goods when trading; Incas tied knots in long cords, called quipus, to memorialize events; administrators and merchants across a broad swath of the ancient world used abacuses and counting boards.

In 2019, an unusually dry summer caused the waters of the Valdecañas Reservoir to recede, revealing a monument that has come to be referred to as the “Spanish Stonehenge.” NASA satellites captured images of the exposed stones known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal, which experts suspect may have been built sometime in the second or third millennium BCE.

frost heave

Before the understanding of frost heave, there was a widely held belief that rocks and stones could grow and multiply. Stones were believe to grow from small pebbles. These stones then rose to the surface of the ground. Another belief was that stones were the offspring of “mother-stones” or “breeding-stones.” Today, it is known that this motion of stones moving upwards toward the surface of the ground is due to frost heave. Frost heave occurs when water in soil or rock freezes and thaws in a cyclic process. This causes an upward movement of the surface of the ground due to the freezing of water underneath. Geologist Stephen Taber from the University of South Carolina proved through extensive research that “it was not expansion, but rather the formation of ice lenses by segregation of water from the soil as the ground freezes that is the principal cause of frost heave.” He also showed that liquids other than water can also cause frost heave. The direction of heave is governed by the growth of ice lenses. Ice lenses form perpendicular to the direction of heat flow, so it is not always the case that frost heave occurs in the path of least resistance (Manz, 2011). 

have come to think of themselves as communities of naked, shivering, quaking little selves – too vulnerable to take a joke, too damaged to make one

any kind of representation or association that resembles or even merely represents the theme of the original painful experience

a cultural event, a painting, a play, a speech, a casual use of slang, a characterization, a caricature and so on whether or not the “damaging” speech/characterization occurs within a complex aesthetic work

focused on language, slang and naming.

poorly phrased question, another person’s bad word choice

humor is something that feminists in particular, but radical politics in general, are accused of lacking. Recent controversies within queer communities around language, slang, satirical or ironic representation and perceptions of harm or offensive have created much controversy with very little humor recently, leading to demands for bans, censorship and name changes