Why William Harvey Went to Stonehenge: Anatomy, Antiquarianism, and National Identity

During his royal progress in the summer of 1620, King James I stopped in Wiltshire. In his party were the architect Inigo Jones and a royal physician, William Harvey. The king sent Jones and Harvey to Stonehenge, which was nearby, to make drawings and measurements of the mysterious monument. In addition, Harvey was to perform excavations. This visit, described by Jones in his posthumous book The Most Notable Antiquity of Great Britain, vulgarly called Stone-Heng on Salisbury Plain, Restored (1655), raises many questions, particularly about Harvey’s role in this expedition. The answers to these questions involve Harvey’s underexamined role as a courtier, the place of antiquarianism in the establishment of royal legitimacy and national identity, and debates in early modern Europe surrounding fossil bones and ancient monuments. There is a good chance that Harvey was looking for the fossil bones of giant ancestors.