The Ancient Art of Enchanting the Landscape

Megalithic Constructions: Jerry-Built Disasters?

2012-01-20T22:37:00.000Z

Back to Baalbek

Located on the northern Beqaa-Plain between the mountain ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon at 3,840 ft above seal level, Baalbek is famous for its magnificent temple ruins, the grandest and amongst the best preserved in the modern world. Re-named Heliopolis, (from the Greek 'Helios' = sun and 'Polis' = city), by Alexander the Great who swept through the Near East following his siege of the Phoenician city of Tyre in 332 BC.

Immediately visible for some distance on the approach to Baalbek are the six gigantic Corinthian columns of the Jupiter Temple, the largest in the ancient world. The temple complex at Baalbek is of Roman date with construction commencing in the final quarter of the 1st Century BC, nearing completion in the final years of Nero's reign, 37-68 AD. The Byzantine Emperor Constantine shut down the pagan temples at Baalbek following the declaration of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD.

The Roman temple complex stands on the foundations laid by some unknown civilisation. The podium of the Jupiter temple, known as the Grand Terrace, was constructed with the most gigantic stones ever crafted by man. The largest stones at Baalbek are some 20 times greater in weight than the largest stones used at Stonehenge. Incorporated into the west wall of the Grand Terrace and mounted on a course of blocks each weighing around 350 - 400 tons, are three enormous stones weighing an estimated 800 – 1,000 tons each. These three massive stones are known as the 'Trilithon' and the largest megaliths known to have been moved by man found anywhere in the world.

The Grand Terrace appears to have been constructed in prehistory; no culture claims it, its origins forgotten to the civilised world. Legend records the first temple at Baalbek as the construction of Cain before the Deluge and rebuilt by a race of giants under the command of Nimrod after the flood; the work of the Cyclopes. The origins of this remarkable temple complex are discussed in the Hand of the Cyclopes: The Mystery of the Trilithon

It has been suggested that the Trilithon structure could be part of a massive defensive wall, or the foundations of a massive platform used by ancient stargazers. Whatever it was, it would appear this colossal structure was not finished by the ancient engineers. The enigma of the ruins of Baalbek is one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world.

Stone of the Pregnant Woman

Another yet even larger stone lies in a limestone quarry about a half a mile or so from the Baalbek temple complex. Claimed to weigh an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 tons, it measures sixty-nine feet by sixteen feet by thirteen feet ten inches, larger than the other stones of the Trilithon, making it the single largest piece of stonework ever crafted in the world. Named the Hajar el Gouble, the Stone of the South, or the Hajar el Hibla, the Stone of the Pregnant Woman from a local legend which claims the stone was named after a pregnant woman who tricked the people of Baalbek into believing that she knew how to move the giant stone if only they would feed her until she gives birth. The stone lies at an angle still attached to the bedrock in the quarry. Presumably this massive worked stone was about to be cut free and transported to join the other stones of the Trilithon. In the mid-1990's a second massive stone was discovered in the same quarry, estimated to weigh 1,242 tons, surpassing the dimensions of the Stone of the Pregnant Woman.

First thoughts are that the construction project at Baalbek was suddenly abandoned for some reason. It has been suggested that the project was simply abandoned because moving these massive stones was beyond their capability. But they had already used some technique unknown to modern engineers to quarry and move the stones to construct the similar sized Trilithon. This is the strongest argument against a Roman construction for the temple podium; if the Romans had constructed the Trilithon why did they leave these two stones in the quarry? Simply because the Romans could not, and have never, moved stones this size.

Yet,the question remains; why was it left unfinished?

The Egyptian Connection

Oddly, in the construction of the Roman Jupiter Temple at Baalbek red granite was used for the fifty-four enormous columns and the forecourt porticos. This granite has been sourced as coming from the ancient Egyptian quarry at Aswan, 500 miles south of Cairo. A remarkable, but not impossible, feat for the Roman engineers to have accomplished. However transported the granite from the Aswan quarry to Baalbek they could not have failed to have noticed the massive 1,170 ton obelisk still attached to the bedrock. It would appear the ancient Egyptians intended to lift and transport the obelsik to its intended siting, but discovered a fatal flaw with a crack running though it making movement quite impossible without its destruction.

The unfinished obelisk at Aswan would have been 137ft high and would have been the largest known ancient obelisk, nearly one third larger than any ancient Egyptian obelisk ever erected. Had the Egyptians simply become simply too ambitious and abandoned the project? Besides the unfinished obelisk, a second unfinished partly worked obelisk base was discovered in 2005 at the quarries of Aswan. The similarity to Baalbek is uncanny but the similarities don't stop there.

About five miles to the north-east of Cairo by the village of Matareieh is a solitary obelisk, all that remains to mark the site of the ancient town of Heliopolis on the east side of the Nile. The sixty-six feet high obelisk is made from Aswan red granite, a companion stood nearby until the 17th century and two other obelisks known as “Cleopatra 's Needles” were originally brought from Heliopolis to Alexandria. Heliopolis was one of the oldest and most famous cities of ancient Egypt, at its peak it had some sixteen obelisks, an oracle of Apollo and the famous Temple of the Sun. During the 20th Dynasty the temple was one of the largest and wealthiest in all Egypt. Writing in the 5th century BC the ancient Greek historian Herodotus tells of its inhabitants as being the wisest and most ingenious of all the Egyptians.

The site has long since been destroyed, its stone used in the building of Cairo suburbs. According to Macrobius, in the Saturnalia, the Heliopolis of Baalbek was founded by a body of priests from Heliopolis in Egypt. Possibly these priests possessed the knowledge of moving stones of such vast size. These priests are probably responsible for transporting the red granite from Aswan to Baalbek which the Romans simply reworked into the 54 columns and forecourt porticos of the Jupiter Temple.

It is only in Egypt we find stones similar in size to the truly colossal Trilithon that have been moved by man. In front of the ruins of the memorial temple of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, known as the Ramesseum, fragments survive of the colossus of Ramesses, some sixty feet in height and estimated to have weighed around 1,000 tons. Similarly, the two giant Colossi of Memnon, have been estimated to weigh as much as 1,000 tons each. These massive statues are made from blocks which were quarried at el-Gabal el Ahmar (near modern-day Cairo) and transported 420 miles over land to Thebes. Moving the unfinished obelisk at Aswan may not have been beyond the ancient Egyptian engineers. Certainly they would not have cut the stone if they did not think they could lift it.

Was the obelisk abandoned because it cracked – or did it crack at a later date? We will never know but the use of the Aswan quarry to furnish both Heliopolis sites, with the abandoned Stone of the Pregnant Woman complete with partner stone at Baalbek and the abandoned obelsik and partner at Aswan, is striking. Did the priests from Heliopolis in Egypt attempt to construct a mirror site of Baalbek?

Unfinished Monuments?

All across the world we find evidence that people from ancients times suddenly stopped what they were building, and left their work unfinished. Surely the ancients would not go to all the trouble of obtaining raw materials, transport them to the site, work them and then just discard them?

Yet this worldwide phenomena is exactly what we find at site after site. Conveniently, for students of the orthodox, the common reason is usually that they ran out of materials or, on a larger scale, some catastrophe occurred. At Easter Island, Rapa Nui, in the Pacific, 300 standing statues, the highest at 65ft tall, were quarried within the crater of the inactive volcano of Rano Raraku and later transported to their final positions guarding the island. Yet, the tallest, known as 'El Gigante', which would have been over seventy feet high and weighing 300 tons, lies unfinished in the quarry with some 400 or so other unfinished statues. Some had just been started, while others were complete and ready for transportation to their platform. Near to the unfinished statues were chisels and axes, indicating that the sculptors had just stopped work and presumably, fully intended to return and finish their works. This sudden and abrupt end to statue production indicates that some devastating event brought an end to the island's traditional culture.

However, the enigma of Easter Island is not typical of many unfinished ancient monuments and it is important to differentiate between genuine catastrophic abandonment and deliberately leaving a monument unfinished as what must be considered as a symbolic statement. The mid-Pacific island does seem to have been hit by some sort of tragedy which is quite different from other sites of Neolithic or Early Bronze Age cultures that left monuments purposefully unfinished.

Star Shafts

The Great Pyramid of Giza is well known for its King's and Queen's chambers. But this pyramid, attributed to Cheops, actually has three large chambers; the lowest of the three is 90 feet below ground level and cut directly into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built. After the descending passage levels off it leads to the subterranean chamber, which is totally unfinished, rough-cut into the rock like a quarry face, lacking the precision of the so-called King's and Queen's chambers. This chamber is usually dismissed by Egyptologists as being nothing more than a simple change in plans by the pyramid engineers and that it was intended to be the original burial chamber. But considering the extreme precision and planning given to every other phase of the construction of the Great Pyramid it is difficult to agree with this. The unfinished chamber is clearly of some significance.

One of the most mysterious features of the Great Pyramid are the shafts, measuring only about 8in by 8in (20cm x 20cm), running from the two main chambers to the outside of the pyramid. It has been suggested that these shafts were used to ventilate the monument during its construction, yet, no shafts have been discovered in other pyramids. At the top of the shafts small finely finished limestone doors were discovered suggesting that there was more to the shafts than simple ventilation. In the King's Chamber the southern shaft is aligned with Al Nitak, the brightest of the three stars of Orion's belt during the epoch of the pyramid's construction, c.2500 BC. The northern shaft aligned with Thuban, in the constellation of Draco. It has been conjectured that the shafts allowed the King's soul to travel to the "stars that never die", i.e. the circumpolar stars in the northern sky.

The shafts of the King's Chamber raise enough questions of their own but one of the greatest mysteries of the Great Pyramid is the Queen's Chamber. Significantly it was placed at the centre of the pyramid, yet it was disguised by numerous hidden doorways and stone-slabs and the passage leading to the chamber was concealed by a huge stone block over the floor of the Grand Gallery. Even more enigmatic is the shafts of the Queen's Chamber. Unlike the King's Chamber where they are perfectly visible in the Queen's Chamber the shafts are 'hidden' and remained sealed over, and lead only to the 50th course, the base level of the King's chamber. The angle of the southern shaft of the Queen's Chamber determines it was aligned at the brightest star in the sky, Sirius.

Why were the shafts in the Queen's chamber not completed – was the idea simply abandoned midway through construction? Were the shafts simply an afterthought, or an insignificant architectural change?

Although of relatively small dimension (8in x 8in), the construction of these stellar aligned shafts must have been an extremely complicated process with diagonal structures crossing vast horizontal courses. Both northern shafts had to be diverted several times at different angles to get around the vast obstruction of the Great Gallery. The construction of these shafts would have required masses of additional work, time and energy and must have presented an enormous challenge. Yet, as they stand they are a masterpiece of engineering and it is inconceivable that the shafts of the Queen's Chamber were simply abandoned.

As we have seen above, in the King's Chamber the southern shaft is aligned with Al Nitak, the brightest of the three stars of Orion's belt, the stellar representation of Osiris, the great Egyptian god of the afterlife. The southern shaft of the Queen's chamber was aligned on Sirius, the representation of Isis, the sister and great love of Osiris in Egyptian mythology; the King and Queen re-united in the afterlife. Support for this concept is provided by the fact that the Northern shaft of the Queen's chamber is aimed at Kocab, a star associated by the ancients with the immortality of the soul.

Monuments by Continuity

The site at Baalbek in Lebannon was left unfinished and mirrored in Egypt. Significant features of the Great Pyramid were left incomplete after considerable effort to construct them and as much effort to then conceal them again.
What where these ancient engineers up to?

Associations to the past, and particularly the ancestors, appears to be significant in monuments constructed during the Neolithic period and a phase of construction may have been left unfinished to draw attention to a certain time, event or family group. It is feasible that these monuments were deliberately left unfinished for successive later generations to add a phase of construction so that a monument would possess the history of a family group. The latest wisdom is that Silbury, near Avebury, was built over a hundred year period by successive generations. We find a similar concept in long barrows that were added to by successive generations of a community, or even people from afar, who would visit the monument and add a layer of construction, perhaps another chamber.

We see evidence of this continual rebuilding at Stonehenge which was dismantled, rebuilt and added to several times, incredibly, over a period in excess of a thousand years. Of course some people argue that this, the greatest Neolithic monument of them all, was never finished; a “jerry-built disaster,” planned but not completed because they ran out of material or the culture was not capable of achieving its aspirations. Mindsets like these betray a total ignorance of megalithic engineering and a prejudice against Neolithic capability.

However, there is a good argument that Stonehenge was purposefully left incomplete as we see it, and it was never intended as a closed circle. We look at this in more detail in the next part.

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Big Cats in the Cotswolds

2012-01-16T17:21:00.002Z

The very first blog on the Ancient Art of Enchanting the Landscape back in September 2008 was Big Cats Sightings in Staffordshire following a spate of reported sightings featured in the local newspaper the Stafford Post. The big cat sightings started in the summer of 2008 and suddenly stopped at the end of the year. There were no reports of the mysterious beast being captured or a body found, it was assumed the predator had moved on. In July 2010 a huge black cat was reported in Burntwood, near Cannock. Was this the so called 'Chase Panther' said to haunt this area with sightings still being reported in spring 2011?

Big cat sightings in the Staffordshire Moorlands have persisted since 2006, including a report from Rudyard Lake, near Leek in 2008. The Roaches, in the Staffordshire Moorlands, has been host to sightings of foreign animals in recent years after escaping from the private zoo of Courtney Brocklehurst. Sightings of wallabies at the Roaches have been reported as recently as August 2011, providing evidence that foreign creatures can survive in the remote areas of Britain. [1]

There have been thousands of reported sightings of big cats across the moors and woodlands of the UK since 2000. The animals, usually described as black or dark brown, have been seen in almost every county in Britain, from Cornwall to the tip of Scotland. Sightings of big cats in the UK countryside are usually blamed on the Dangerous and Wild Animals Act 1976 which prohibited the keeping of wild animals as pets. Rather than obtain a licence or turn their pets over to zoos or wildlife parks it is thought many private owners released their animals into the wild. In what can only be described as a well thought out masterpiece of British legislation releasing dangerous animals into the wild wasn't actually made illegal until the 1981 Countryside Act. It is thought that a big cat like a puma could survive in the British countryside for up to 10-12 years. As they are usually isolated occurrences it is considered unlikely they would breed and survive in family groups beyond that.

Yet, despite many claimed sightings of the big cats in Staffordshire, no-one has ever caught one of the beasts, or taken totally definitive photographic evidence - most film footage is usually very blurred. There are no reports of ‘lost’ big cats from collections, or having had one escape. Evidence in most cases is based on eye-witness accounts, but, like many UFO sightings, it is claimed that nearly 90% of big cat sightings can usually be explained satisfactorily. Alarmingly, 10% can be considered genuine sightings!

Staffordshire's Cannock Chase is home to sightings of many strange creatures; as recently as January 2010 an enormous 'wolf-like' animal was seen to stand and stare at a local woman out walking her dog before it turned and disappeared in to the woods. In a survey of the supernatural, of 21 werewolf sightings reported over the last thirty years, all but one have been on Cannock Chase. Staffordshire certainly seems popular with big cats and paranormal creatures. However, big cats in the wild should not be dismissed as a paranormal apparition like phantom Black Dogs for example. The evidence indicates these big cats are physical creatures. And it is not just Staffordshire that attracts big cat sightings.

Big Cat kill in the Cotswolds

Evidence of a big cat kill has recently been reported in Gloucestershire. [2] A local walker sent photographs of a roe deer carcass found near the village of Dursley to experts last week after noticing particular features on the deer suggesed it could have been a big cat kill, bearing the classic hallmark injuries to the neck, the plucking of fur and the removal of internal organs.

Then a second roe deer carcass was found less than two miles from the first in the National Trust’s historic Woodchester Country Park, near Stroud. [3] The Trust are taking the kills seriously and have called in experts from the University of Warwick to take DNA samples from the two carcasses.

David Armstrong, the National Trust's head ranger for the Gloucestershire countryside, said the deer carcass was found near an area of beech woodland sloping down to pastures. Mr Armstrong said, "there are some very occasional sightings of big cats in the Cotswolds but they have wide territories, so are rarely present in one particular spot for long," He added, "we'd be interested to hear of any more sightings at Woodchester."

Locals have reported big cat sightings and suspicious kills in the area for 25 years but they seem to have been disregarded as no more than rumours. Frank Tunbridge, who has been tracking big cats in the Cotswolds for decades, said he received a call from a woman who recently saw a black panther-like creature near the Ram Inn, South Woodchester. Mr Tunbridge said she believed it could have been a black cat, and it was about the size of an Alsatian dog.

Of the recent deer kills Mr Tunbridge said, "the deer bore many of the hallmarks of a big cat attack – its nose was bitten off, neck punctured, and its intestines were not touched. Cats take organs like the heart, kidneys and liver because they can't digest what's in the stomach and intestines".

The episode is reminiscent of the kill at Norton Bridge, near Eccleshall, in August 2008, during the Staffordshire flap of big cat sightings. Norton Bridge resident Katie Hill found the remains of one of her pet sheep decapitated and half eaten. Whatever was responsible for the attack had scaled a 6 foot fence before pouncing on the fully grown animal. Local wildlife rescuer Alf Hardy confirmed that the kill was that of a big cat. Neil Arnold of Kent Big Cat Research verified the kill as that of a big cat.

In January 2009 Forestry workers conducting deer surveys in the nearby Forest of Dean captured big cats on night vision gear, claiming they got within 50 yards of the creatures as the first was seen crossing a road near Lydney and the second lurking among trees at Staple Edge.

Samples from the recent Gloucestershire deer kills have been taken by Dr Robin Allaby, associate professor of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, who said he was “prepared to believe” that the creature that killed the deer was a big cat. The results are due by the end of the month.

Notes:

1. The Roaches website

2. Will DNA solve Gloucestershire big cat Mystery - The Independent, 12 Jan 2012.

3. Second dead deer found - The Guardian, 16 Jan 2012

* * *

Welcome to 2012

2012-01-05T18:19:00.001Z

2012, the year of the London Olympics, Euro Nations football in Poland ….....and the doomsday phenomenon of major galactic alignment, the opening of Stargates, and a world ending catastrophe.

An apocalyptic view of 2012, the Armageddon year with predictions of the end of the world and human civilisation, is held by many Western cultures, a belief bordering on paranoia amongst some religious sects. It is an obsession that kicked off in the 1960s with authors of the new age of 'alternative history' such as Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, Robert Charroux and Erich von Daniken writing of lost episodes of mankind's past, claiming a suppressed 'real' history of the human race. The notion of previous civilisations ending abruptly due to some catastrophic event continues to grow with there now being more than 200 books currently listed on Amazon dealing with doomsday 2012, the year of the end of the Maya 'Long Count'.

Did the Ancient Maya Predict the End of the World in 2012?

Chichén Itzá Maya observatory
(Wikimedia Commons)

The Maya kept time on a scale few other cultures have considered, although the 'Long Count' was most likely invented by the first major civilization in Mexico, the Olmec (fl. c.1500 BC to c.400 BC). During their heyday the Maya adopted the Long Count, an already ancient lengthy circular calendar that commenced way back with the creation.

The Maya were obsessed with time, indeed, there are so many Calendar dates and time-intervals in their inscriptions, that some scholars believed that the ancient Maya worshipped Time itself.

According to archaeologists the Maya calendar does not signify the end of the world in 2012, as some have said, but 21 December 2012 was nonetheless momentous to the Maya. 2012 is the year when the largest grand cycle in the Maya calendar (872,000 days or 5,125.37 years), comes to an end and a new cycle begins.

The current era of the Long Count calendar began at what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period, August 11, 3114 BC. The Maya called that date, which preceded their civilization by thousands of years, as Day Zero, or 13.0.0.0.0. This era ends on 21 December 2012 and a new one begins; the cycle goes on.

This brings to a close the 13th b'ak'tun, an almost 400-year period in the Maya Long Count calendar, and rather than moving to the next b'ak'tun, the calendar will reset to Day Zero again at the end of the 13th cycle and the cyclical calendar will roll over, beginning another enormous era.

World Ages
There is a strong tradition of "world ages" in literature of the Maya, but the record has been much distorted by popular writers of pseudo-science leaving several possibilities open to interpretation. According to the mytho-historical sacred book 'Popol Vuh' the gods first created three failed worlds followed by a successful fourth world in which humanity was placed. We are currently living in the fourth world. The Long Count's "zero date" was set at a point in the past marking the end of the third world and the beginning of the current fourth world, i.e. its 13th b'ak'tun was on 11 August 3114 BC. The fourth world will have reached the end of its 13th b'ak'tun, or Maya date 13.0.0.0.0, on 21 December 2012.

The Maya did not predict the end of the world in 2012. It is simply the end of an era of the Long Count representing the end of the old cycle and the beginning of the new one. Scholars have widely dismissed the notion that when the Long Count "ends" it will result in cataclysmic events occurring in 2012. Professional Mayanist scholars state that predictions of impending doom are not found in any of the extant classic Mayan accounts and misrepresents their history and culture. On such scholar Mark Van Stone says the notion of a "Great Cycle" coming to an cataclysmic ending is completely a modern invention. There is no significant astronomical event tied to the Long Count's start date. It is Western cultures that are obsessed with a doomsday event in 2012, not the Maya.

Ancient Prophecy
In all there are about fifteen stone inscriptions in ancient Mayan referring to the “Creation” date 13.0.0.0.0 in 3114 BC. One book, the 12th century Dresden Codex, famous for its Lunar and Venus tables of outstanding accuracy, actually refers to this date more times than all of the stone inscriptions combined but fails to record an event of any note on that date. In other words, it is just a date.

There are few written accounts of the end of b'ak'tun 13 and just one stone tablet on Monument 6 at Tortuguero in southern Mexico's Tabasco state refers to that date. However, the glyphs on the tablet are partially damaged making the precise meaning of the tablet a mystery. Nevertheless, scholars have made several interpretations of a translation.

Tortuguero Monument 6, closing passage. The last 6 glyphs on this long text are the only surviving ancient Maya mention of the date December 21, 2012. ( From the cover of Mark Van Stone's book, "2012: Science and Prophecy of the Ancient Maya". Photos by Elisabeth Wagner and Donald Hales, photo collage by Paul Johnson. http://markvanstone.com/glyphs-evidence-for-2012-apocalypse/ )

One such interpretation made in 1996 by Stephen Houston from Brown University and David Stuart of the University of Texas suggests that the glyphs indicate that a god will descend at the end of b'ak'tun 13. What precisely happens next is uncertain, although the scholars suggest this might have been a prophecy of some sort. The 'prophecy' analysis was quickly seized upon by many 'alternative history' websites, 'New Age' discussion forums and 'pseudo-science' books as evidence that the Maya calendar had predicted the end of the world. It hadn't.
But it didn't stop books like Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods, which basically recycled the Charroux and von Daniken concept of a lost civilisation ending in some catastrophic event, becoming a best seller in the same year.

Houston and Stuart revisited the glyphs recently and concluded that the inscription may actually contain no prophetic statements at all about 2012, with the mention of the end of b'ak'tun 13 as more likely to be a forward-looking statement that refers back to the main subject of the inscription; the dedication of Monument 6. They insist that even if the inscription is a prophecy of a god coming down at the end of b'ak'tun 13 and starting of a new cycle it isn't a statement about the end of the world.

Should we have much faith in the so-called Maya 2012 prophecy of popular culture?

The ancient Maya once occupied a vast geographic area in Central America, their empire peaked between 250AD and 900AD in what is now Mexico and Central America. Maya civilization produced awe-inspiring temples and pyramids, highly accurate calendars, mathematics and hieroglyphic writing with a complex social and political order.

In the ninth century AD temple building suddenly stopped and became swallowed up by the jungle; Maya wisdom and knowledge was lost to mankind for centuries. The Collapse of the Classic Maya culture is one of the biggest mysteries in history. And yet they failed to predict it themselves.

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Megalithomania Conference 2012

2011-12-30T13:00:00.000Z

The Assembly Rooms, Glastonbury, UK
12 - 13 May 2012, plus 4-days of Tours

THE MEGALITHOMANIA 2012 line up has been announced with presentations from key speakers including Michael Cremo, Robin Heath, Klaus Dona, Brien Foerster, Bob Trubshaw, John Neal, Meghan Rice, Nicholas R. Mann, Andrew Gough, Kate Masters, Hugh Newman and more. After a weekend of presentations the conference continues into the following week with tours led by key speakers to Dartmoor, Avebury, Glastonbury and a private access visit to Stonehenge with Robin Heath.

Some Highlights:

MICHAEL CREMO
Co-author of the book Forbidden Archeology delivers a presentation on the Extreme Antiquity of the Human Race

ROBIN HEATH will talk on the Megalithic Sites of Wales and Bluestone Magic.
Robin will also be leading a private access visit to Stonehenge followed with an excursion to the Cursus, Durrington Walls and Woodhenge on the Friday (11 May) preceding the conference.
Having taken part in one of Robin's visits to Stonehenge and Avebury as part of the Megalithomania 2006 conference this visit is highly recommended so book early to avoid disappointment as places are limited.

Megalithomania 2006 @ Stonehenge
Robin Heath with big stick for those not paying attention!
(Author's picture)

JOHN NEAL presents the John Michell Memorial Lecture on Ancient Metrology, hosted by Christine Rhone

MEGHAN RICE will talk on the Sheela-Na-Gigs of Ancient Britain

NICHOLAS R. MANN's presentation will explore the Avebury Cosmos.

BOB TRUBSHAW will present The Song-Lines of Avebury and Beyond featured in his latest book Singing up the Country.

Itinerary:

SATURDAY 12 MAY
9.00 – Doors Open
9.45 – Introduction
10.00 - KATE MASTERS - Ancient Stones of the Orkneys & Shetlands
11.am - Coffee Break
11.30 - ANDREW GOUGH - The Sacred Bee in Prehistory
12.30 - Lunch
2.00 - BRIEN FOERSTER - The Enigma of the Elongated Skulls
3.00 - Break
3.15 - BOB TRUBSHAW - The Songlines of Avebury
4.15 - Tea Break
4.45 - JOHN NEAL - Ancient Metrology at Megalithic Sites - John Michell Memorial Lecture, hosted by Christine Rhone
5.45 – Dinner Break - Doors re-open at 7.15pm
7.30 - MICHAEL CREMO - The Forbidden Archaeologist
9.00 - CLOSE

SUNDAY 13 MAY
9.00 – Introductions
9.15 - HUGH NEWMAN - Megaliths & Earth Energies of South America
10.15 - Coffee Break
10.45 - MEGHAN RICE - Sheela-Na-Gigs of Ancient Albion
11.30 - Break
12.00 - NICHOLAS MANN - Avebury Cosmos
1.00 – Lunch
2.30 - KLAUS DONA - Mysterious Artifacts from Secret Collections
3.45- Tea Break
4.00 - ROBIN HEATH - Sacred Stones of Wales
5.15- break
5.45 - SPEAKERS FORUM - Hosted by JOHN MARTINEAU
with Special Guest ROBERT TEMPLE
6.45 – CLOSING ADDRESS
7.00 - CLOSE

TOUR DETAILS
Coach travel included in price. Meet at Abbey Car Park.

Friday 11th May: £55
Stonehenge with Robin Heath - 3pm - 9pm
Private Access to Stonehenge, with excursion to the Cursus, several Tumuli, Durrington Walls and Woodhenge. (inc private access to Stonehenge)

Monday 14th May:£50
Avebury & the Valley of the White Horse - 9am - 5pm
An exclusive tour around megalithic Avebury, the largest stone circle in the world, West Kennett Long Barrow, Silbury Hill and more with Peter Knight.

Tuesday 15th May: £50
Ancient Glastonbury Walking Tour - 9am - 1pm
Visiting the Tor, Glastonbury Abbey, Michael & Mary energy lines
Tuesday Afternoon: (inc in above price)
Cadbury Castle & Burrow Mump - 2.30pm - 6pm
A guided visit to two of the most impressive earthworks in Somerset

Wednesday 16th May: £50
Dartmoor Stone Circles and Avenues - 8am - 6pm
A five-hour walk around the incredible landscape of megalithic Dartmoor, Devon, visiting stone circles, megalithic avenues and tracking earth energies.

Bookings
Early-Bird tickets available for the first 50 tickets @ £85 (normal price £90) for two full days of lectures. Discount available on the full 'mega-ticket' option (full weekend ticket plus all 4 tours), @ £275 - see Megalithomania website for details.

* * *

Bluestone Source Pinpointed

2011-12-19T21:43:00.000Z

AMGUEDDFA CYMRU - NATIONAL MUSEUM WALES PRESS RELEASE

New geological discovery paves the way for further insight into the transport of Stonehenge rocks

A new paper in Archaeology in Wales, produced by Dr Rob Ixer of Leicester University and Dr Richard Bevins of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales confirms, for the first time, the exact origin of some the rhyolite debitage found at Stonehenge. This work could now lead to important conclusions about how stones were transported from Pembrokeshire to Stonehenge.

Over a period of nine months, Bevins and Ixer have been carefully collecting and identifying samples from rock outcrops in Pembrokeshire to try and locate the provenance of rocks that can be found at what is today, one of the world’s most iconic archaeological sites.

Craig Rhos-y-felin near Pont Saeson.

Their recent discovery confirms that the Stonehenge rhyolite debitage originates from a specific 70m long area namely Craig Rhos-y-felin near Pont Saeson. Using petrographical techniques, Ixer and Bevins found that 99% of these rhyolites could be matched to rocks found in this particular set of outcrops. Rhyolitic rocks at Rhos-y-felin are distinctly different from all others in South Wales, which gives almost all of Stonehenge rhyolites a provenance of just hundreds of square metres.

Yet, the story progresses. Along the Rhos-y-felin crags, the rhyolites are distinctly different on a scale of metres or tens of metres. This has enabled Bevins and Ixer to match some Stonehenge debitage samples to an even more precise locality at the extreme northeastern end of the area.

What this means is that the area is now small enough for archaeologists to excavate to try and uncover evidence for associated human activity so providing another strand of the story of how the stones from Pembrokeshire reached Stonehenge.

Dr Richard Bevins of Amgueddfa Cymru said:
"Many have asked the question over the years, how the stones got from Pembrokeshire to Stonehenge. Was it human transport? Was it due to ice transport? Thanks to geological research, we now have a specific source for the rhyolite stones from which to work and an opportunity for archaeologists to answer the question that has been widely debated. It is important now that the research continues.”

In addition the level of work carried out at Rhos-y-felin confirms that the four remaining above surface rhyolite and dacite orthostats at Stonehenge do not come from Rhos-y-felin and work is in hand to determine if their source can be identified.

Dr Rob Ixer of Leicester University added:
“Being able to provenance any archaeologically significant rock so precisely is remarkable, to do it for Stonehenge was quite unexpected and exciting. However, given continued perseverance, we are determined that we shall uncover the origins of most, if not all of the Stonehenge bluestones so allowing archaeologists to continue their speculations well into a third century.”

Source: National Museum Wales Press Release
19 December 2011
Image: National Museum Wales

More on Pont Saeson:

New Discovery Questions Bluestone Route - 5 March 2011
Bluestones, Bluestones Everywhere - 13 March 2011

* * *

Processional Route may link Cursus to Stonehenge

2011-11-27T16:51:00.001Z

Latest research claims that Stonehenge may already have been an important sacred site at least 500 years before the first Stone circle was erected.

The team that brought us New Henge, promoted with the sensational headline of the discovery of a neolithic henge, a sister monument to Stonehenge, the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection, now claim to have uncovered the “secret history” of Stonehenge as part of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project.

Birmingham archaeologists with colleagues from the University of Vienna’s Ludwig Boltzmann Institute used ground-penetrating radar and other geophysical investigative techniques to map the interior of the major prehistoric enclosure to the north of Stonehenge known as the 'Cursus'.

The project discovered two anomalies, one towards the enclosure’s eastern end, the other nearer its western end, which they are interpreting as two great pits with a celestial alignment that could have contained tall stones, wooden posts or fires. They claim that when viewed from the ‘Heel Stone’ at Stonehenge, the pits were aligned with the rising and setting of the sun on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.

The team considered the possibility that the pits within the Cursus could have defined a processional route used by agriculturists to celebrate the passage of the sun across the sky at the summer solstice. They also discovered a previously unknown gap in the middle of the northern side of the Cursus, which may have provided the main entrance and exit point for processions that took place within the enclosure.

The project team decided they could test the hypothesis as on midsummer’s day there are in fact three key alignments; not just sunrise and sunset, but also midday when the sun reaches its highest point in its annual cycle. For their theory to work they would need to find a key alignment at noon that would be due south from the Cursus and holding a relationship with Stonehenge. Computer calculations revealed that the midway point at noon aligned directly with the centre of Stonehenge, which is precisely due south.

The team suggest that the design of the Cursus has to have been conceived specifically to attain that mid-point alignment with the centre of Stonehenge, because the ‘due south’ noon alignment of the ‘procession’ route’s mid-point could not occur if the Cursus itself had different dimensions. If this is correct, they argue, then the Stonehenge Heel Stone location had to have been of ritual significance before the Cursus pits were dug.

However, the survey does not seem to have identified a feature at the mid point of the Cursus, presumably the 'noon' marker, the point of departure for a ritual procession to Stonehenge, or indeed indications of the route linking the two monuments in a north-south direction. There is also no consideration of why the west end of the Cursus is obscured from view of the sarsen monument

The Earliest Monument?
Excavations in 2007 by the Stonehenge Riverside Project dated the construction of the Cursus to between 3630 - 3375 BC, with the first phase of Stonehenge 3100 – 3000 BC. The interpretation of the findings of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape Project claims to turn that chronology on its head, implying that the Stonehenge site was already sacred long before construction work began on the Cursus. Unless the midday alignment is a pure coincidence, which they argue is unlikely, it would imply that the Stonehenge site’s sacred status is at least 500 years older than previously thought.

Yet an early date for activity on the Stonehenge site is nothing new. During their excavations at Stonehenge in 2008 Wainwright and Darvill discovered charcoal dating to 7,000 BC and in the Stonehenge visitor's centre carpark there are three large white discs marking the sites of where large posts once stood in the Mesolithic era, around 8,000 BC, some 5,000 years before construction of the accepted first phase of Stonehenge began. The four, or maybe five, large postholes, possibly forming a gentle arc or crescent shape, were found during work on an extension to the car park in the 1960s and are often considered by archaeologists to have been simple totem poles. The fifth hole may have been the site of a large tree, suggesting early monumentality of a natural feature. Three of these large pine posts seem to have been aligned on a rough east-west axis.

In the 1970s C A Newham regarded these Mesolithic postholes as the most positive astronomical discovery yet made at Stonehenge, arguing that the sighting lines from the Station Stones and Heelstone to the Mesolithic postholes aligned on sun and moon settings with an extreme accuracy made possible by their considerable distance. Newham did not consider these alignments to be reversible; in other words the postholes were viewed from Stonehenge, yet unrelated to the later sarsen monument. The Station Stones were part of the earliest features of Stonehenge and their alignments to the carpark postholes suggests that they are also of the same era, i.e. the Mesolithic. Significantly, the Heelstone and Station Stones are rough, unworked megaliths, whereas the stones of Stonehenge are mostly finely worked, indicating they are certainly from a different period of construction.

It must also be considered that the earliest astronomical alignments at Stonehenge were lunar not solar. Newham identified lunar alignments as the long sides of the rectangle created by the four Station Stones corresponding to the moon rise and moonset at the major standstill. The axis of the monument being altered at a later date to align with the solstice. Further, it is the mid winter solstice that is the significant alignment of the later sarsen monument, not mid summer. In the first place there is no known back marker to view the summer solstice sunrise. Secondly, the later solar phase of the monument was designed to be approached from the Avenue with the sarsen and lintel arrangement acting as an obscuration device, framing the winter solstice sunset, the death of the old sun, in the great Trilithon.

Speculations
The full survey of the Stonehenge area will take a further two years to complete. Professor Vince Gaffney, the director the project, anticipates that dozens, if not hundreds, of previously unknown sites will be discovered as a result of the project which is expected to transform our understanding of the famous monument’s origins, history and meaning.

However, we must bear in mind that this is all pure speculation on the part of the project team and at the end of the day, without excavation we cannot be certain what the ground scans indicate. It certainly would not be the first time that the interpretation of ground-penetrating radar and geophysical surveys have lead us on a wild goose chase; there is strong speculation after all that New Henge, may have turned out to be a series of 20th century fence posts.

Sources:
Birmingham Archaeologists Uncover Secrets Of Stonehenge - Birmingham Post Nov 26 2011
Secret History Of Stonehenge Revealed - The Independent Saturday 26 November 2011
CA Newham, The Astronomical Significance of Stonehenge, Moon Publications; 1st edition, 1972.

* * *

Approval for Stonehenge road closure

2011-11-06T12:00:00.000Z

Plans to close a main road running past Stonehenge have been backed by the government following a public inquiry. English Heritage wanted to stop traffic from travelling close to the Stones and "restore the dignity" of the World Heritage Site by closing the A344, the stretch of tarmac that bisects the Avenue next to the Heelstone.

Opposition to the road improvement scheme argued that it would give English Heritage a monopoly on access to the site, but following a public inquiry an independent inspector has recommended part of the road can be closed off. Roads minister Mike Penning has approved the plans with £3.5m to be used to improve nearby roads.

English Heritage has said it will be necessary to close 879 metres of the A344 from its junction with the A303 and the section of the A344 between Stonehenge Bottom and Byway 12 (also known as the NetherAvon Coach Road). The route will be grassed over and will become a permissive route for pedestrians and cyclists. The Longbarow Roundabout on the A303 will also be improved with "increased capacity". Part of the B3086 from its junction with the A344 will also be closed with a Stopping Up Order that will remove a small length of redundant road following the remodelling of the Airman’s Corner junction as a roundabout replacing the current junction to cope with the increased traffic caused by the road closures.

Under the scheme, the existing car park and visitor facilities at the Stones will be removed and the area "returned to grass". Closing the road and removing motorised traffic from the environment immediately around Stonehenge will be a huge improvement.

Opposition to the scheme has been centred on the issue of closure of Byway 12 west of Stonehenge, that runs between the A303 and A344 roads, to vehicular traffic. Cars and camper vans park in this lane, often staying overnight, and is currently open to all traffic. The approved Stonehenge road restrictions will provide permanent limitations on Byway 12 and 11 which will disallow overnight parking. English Heritage claims the proposals to restrict use by motorised vehicles on Byways 11 and 12 will improve the experience of many walkers and cyclists using these routes.

In June 2010 Wiltshire Council granted planning permission for a new £25m visitors centre at Airman's Corner, 1.5 miles (2km) west of Stonehenge. The plans were given a boost by a £10m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in November 2010.

Proposals for the new £25m visitor centre at Stonehenge were in doubt after funding cuts by the government in June 2010. English Heritage said it was "extremely disappointed" that £10m promised would not be forthcoming, due to cuts as part of £2bn of savings made by the coalition government. The plan is to move the visitor centre 1.5m (2.4km) away from the stones and to close part of the nearby A344. The remaining £15m was due to come from English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund and other private sources.

The closure of the A344 will be the final step in that plan. Assuming all the relevant orders are granted by February 2012, the plan is for the works at Airman's Corner to proceed in June 2012 and at Longbarrow Crossroads in October 2012, both to be completed before closing the A344 in June 2013, with the opening of the visitor centre in October 2013. Finally, 2014 will see the re-landscaping of A344 (Stonehenge Bottom to Byway 12) and current visitor car park completion.

The former road line will link the Stones and the new visitor centre at Airman’s Corner. The works will permit further archaeological investigations in the area and closure of the current visitor centre and carpark will permit further investigation into the Mesolithic postholes. Exciting days to come no doubt.

Stonehenge is one of the few stone circles in Britain with restricted access. Can we be so optimistic, or perhaps naive, to think that this is the first step in seeing the fences come down?

From the new visitor centre people will be ferried to the stones by a shuttle service using a fully accessible visitor transit service that will be available to all visitors. It will run from the new visitor centre to a drop-off point near the Stones taking about twelve minutes. The original plan was for cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders to still have access. Which forces the question: will pedestrian access to the Stones then be free?

Much of the land near to Stonehenge is managed by the National Trust currently with free open pedestrian access, with a number of public rights of way within and around the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. Cyclists and pedestrians will continue to have access along the A344 between Airman's Corner and Byway 12 and along the Byway itself. Note this will be a permissive route, not a public right of way, meaning the authorities retain the right to close the route and withdraw access at specified times if required.

However, overall this should be seen as a major step in improving the local area immediately around the monument and will no doubt enhance the visitor experience. We'll be able to photograph the Heelstone without a van in the background. But don't think for a minute you will be able to walk up the stones for free as there will be nowhere to park your vehicle apart from the English Heritage carpark.

Sources:

Stonehenge A344 road closure approved - BBC News Wiltshire 01 November 2011

Inquiry into Stonehenge A344 closure plans - BBC News Wiltshire, 22 June 2011

Photo: The Heelstone from the Slaughterstone by Jeebs

* * *

Man arrested in connection with damage to Priddy Circle

2011-11-05T14:36:00.000Z

A man has been arrested in connection with an investigation into damage to a historic monument in Somerset.

The Priddy Circles, a series of Neolithic earthworks and a a Scheduled Monument at the village of Priddy, near Wells, in the Mendip Hills, suffered extensive damage after part of the site was bulldozed during the summer.

English Heritage and Somerset County Council launched a joint investigation into the incident, which is punishable under the 1979 Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act.

The rare circular earthworks are thought to be ritual monuments created during the Stonehenge era, between 2500 and 2180 BC, are considered to be one of the most important prehistoric monuments in Somerset.

More than a third of the southernmost of the circles has been completely destroyed.

MP for Wells Tessa Munt visited the Somerset site Priddy shortly after the damage in in July and saw for herself the extensive damage caused to the Southern Circle.

Tessa said, “It is hard to believe this could have happened to a protected and Scheduled Archaeological Monument in such a spectacular part of the Mendips. Priddy is revered for its ancient locations, Sites of Special Scientific Interest and lies within the protection of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. These recent developments show just how fragile and vulnerable these historic sites can be. Clearly, we must tighten legislation to ensure that ancient places like these which have survived unchanged for 5,000 years and more are preserved and protected for future generations. This cannot be allowed to happen again.”

One of the circles was damaged at some point between May 1 and June 23, 2011 which is a criminal offence under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

The damage has been investigated jointly by Avon and Somerset Police and English Heritage. On Monday October 31, 2011, police officers arrested a man on suspicion of criminal damage and causing damage to a scheduled monument. He was taken into custody for interview and he was bailed pending further enquiries.

Sources:

Somerset man arrested over damage to Priddy Circles - BBC News Somerset 31 October 2011

Priddy Circles arrest in damage investigation – Wells People 01 Nov 2011

Photo by Pete Glastonbury.

* * *

Bluestonehenge an Oval

2011-10-15T12:00:00.000+01:00

Is there a connection between Bluestonehenge, Woodhenge and the Stonehenge Horseshoe?

A new digital reconstruction of the monument, discovered by the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) at the Southern terminus of the Avenue, affectionately dubbed “Bluestonehenge”, suggests that the stone circle may have been oval, and not round, suggesting the site mirrors the layout of the bluestone oval, or horseshoe, at the centre of the Stonehenge monument.

For many years archaeologists have pondered where the bluestones were held during the many construction phases at Stonehenge. They must have been removed for many years after the bluestone arrangement in the Q&R holes was dismantled and the sarsen construction finalised. They may have been simply stashed or used in another monument. The site of this bluestone monument remained elusive until 2009 when SRP uncovered nine stone holes, initially identified as part of a circular ring originally thought to hold 25 - 26 standing stones at the west bank of the river Avon at West Amesbury. The excavations revealed that the 10 metre (33 feet) diameter stone monument was surrounded by a henge - comprising a circular ditch 23.4m wide with an external bank of 25m diameter. Although no stones were found, the nine pits have been interpreted as once holding bluestones based on the identical characteristics with the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge which, according to the SRP revised sequence, held the first stone settings at Stonehenge, considered likely to have been erected around the time that the ditch and bank were dug in 3015–2935BC.

The new Bluestonehenge model was created as part of the forthcoming smartphone app ‘Journey to Stonehenge’, using a low level aerial image by Adam Stanford. SRP had placed upturned buckets into the bluestone socket holes at Bluestonehenge. Stanford noticed that a bucket on the far right had been missed out of the model. To accommodate this off-lined bucket Henry Rothwell, Creative Lead at Heritage Data Solutions, tried expanding the circumference of the circle to make it fit, but that made it far too large. But when they tried an oval it lined up perfectly, ending up with a configuration which is very similar to the bluestone oval in the centre of Stonehenge, suggesting a correlation between the monuments that lie at each end of the Avenue.

Further digital modelling has revealed that not only does the Bluestonehenge oval fit inside just as it was, but that it is of similar in size, and practically identical in orientation as the bluestone horseshoe at Stonehenge. "Bluehenge" (as some are now calling it) is either aligned directly with the horseshoe at Stonehenge, or, possibly, is the horseshoe at Stonehenge.

SRP propose that at around the same time of the construction of the bluestone horseshoe at Stonehenge, Bluestonehenge was dismantled, the 25 - 26 bluestones being removed from the circle, or oval, whilst a henge, originally thought to be a Bronze Age barrow, was constructed there at the terminus of the Avenue by the river Avon. These bluestones, along with the 56 that formerly stood in the Aubrey Holes, were used in the constructions of the bluestone circle and the bluestone horsehoe at Stonehenge, the remains of which we see today.

The oval ring immediately brings to mind Woodhenge, two miles north east from Stonehenge, with its six concentric rings of postholes, possessing an arrangement similar to that of the bluestones at Stonehenge. Taking this a stage further, a plan of Woodhenge with its many concentric ovals was pasted over these two models by Henry Rothwell. Not only does the orientation appear to align but the Stonehenge horseshoe and Bluestonehenge models fit in the gap between the inner most oval and the second oval at Woodhenge. The models were all of the same shape, orientation, and very close in size.

The inference of an oval, as against a circular arrangement, is that it suggests an orientation. Inevitably comparisons are made with both Stonehenge and Woodhenge which are claimed to be oriented on the midsummer/midwinter sunrise.

Sources:
Bluestonehenge, Woodhenge and the Horseshoe – a connection? - Henry Rothwell, Digital Digging blog, 16 Sep 2011.
Bluestone Henge Twin? - Henry Rothwell, Digital Digging blog 13 Sep 2011.
Bluehenge - Mike Pitts, Digging Deeper, 14 Sep 2011.
Journey to Stonehenge - Smartphone app.
The Bluestone Henge excavation - press release at Digital Digging
A really new stage in Stonehenge history? - Mike Pitts, Digging Deeper, 10 June 2010.

* * *

Honouring the Ancient Dead Symposium 2011

2011-10-08T13:49:00.000+01:00

After the Exhumation: Ancient Human Remains Reburied
Saturday 15 October 2011
Leeds City Museum

A one day symposium that will examine the position of human remains in museums and archaeological units, posing questions on the future of human remains in storerooms with regards to reburial.

The day will comprise a variety of short papers presented in a panel style with the intention of stimulating thoughtful debate on the issue of the storage of human remains and reburial. The presentations will focus the issue of reburial, discussing particular case studies and their various successes and obstacles, covering:

issues surrounding ‘iconic’ remains as opposed to ‘faceless’ and undocumented remains;
different cultural and religious perspectives and experiences of human remains, and associated definitions of respect;
exploration of ways to ensure that multiple voices are included and heard in decision-making about human remains.

This event is intended to be the first in a series, the second will be held in October 2012, possibly also in Leeds. It will be entitled “After The Exhumation : Ancient Human Remains On Display”.

Papers will be published on the Honouring the Ancient Dead website following the event. Ticket price is £15 for the day. Spaces are expected to be limited so check availability before travelling.

Honouring the Ancient Dead
Frustrated by Government guidelines regarding human remains that require proof of cultural, spiritual and religious significance of the remains, which state: “Claims are unlikely to be successful for any remains over 300 years old, and are unlikely to be considered for remains over 500 years old, except where a very close and continuous geographical, religious, spiritual and cultural link can be demonstrated,” Honouring the Ancient Dead (HAD) was founded by Emma Restall Orr, during the May 2004 negotiations regarding roads around Stonehenge, questioning who has assumed authority over human remains.

Display at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum

HAD works for the dignified treatment of human remains of British pagan provenance, communicating with academics and museums to raise awareness of the treatment of human remains in the British Isles. Exploring the issues of excavation, storage, museum display, disposal, repatriation and reburial; the organisation's core remit is dialogue and consultation between all relevant bodies when decisions are made about the remains of the ancient dead.

For more information contact Emma Restall Orr at HAD Office, PO Box 3533, Whichford, Shipston on Stour, Warwickshire CV36 5YB, tel 01865 600888 (press), email: office@honour.org.uk, web: www.honour.org.uk/node/431.

Human Remains: The Acknowledgment of Sanctity" - Emma Restall Orr, paper delivered at the conference ‘Respect for Ancient British Human Remains: Philosophy and Practice’ Manchester Museum, 17 November 2006.

* * *

Singing up the Country

2011-09-25T13:40:00.000+01:00

The Songlines of Avebury and Beyond
Bob Trubshaw

“...... [Australian Aborigines] only believe the country exists when they could both see it and sing it by chanting the relevant ‘Dreaming track’ or so-called ‘song line’.

“There must be a mental concept – the words of the song – before the landscape can be said to exist. James Cowan reports being driven along ‘Dreaming tracks’ accompanied by local guides, who only recognise where they are if they can ‘sing up the country’.” [1]

Six years since his last book, Sacred Places: Prehistory and Popular Imagination (HOAP, 2005), Bob Trubshaw is back in print with a new book with an overall aim to inspire us to widen the way we think about the past, particularly the Neolithic monuments of the Avebury landscape.

During that time Trubshaw has relocated into Avebury, moving into a house actually built in to the henge bank of the monument. If living there with the freedom to walk the Avebury landscape at all hours far from the madding crowd does not inspire I don't know what would.

Trubshaw will need no introduction to Earth Mysteries aficionados; in 1989 he was instrumental in forming the Mercian Mysteries Group arranging regular field trips and a quarterly A5 magazine called 'Mercian Mysteries' under the editorship of Paul Nix. At the sixth issue Trubshaw took over as editor and by Issue 13 the magazine had expanded in to a substantial 40+ page A4 format. After 25 issues the contents had changed steadily and became less Midlands biased. At the same time, the multidisciplinary approach of 'earth mysteries' was evolving, covering aspects of archaeology, folklore and mythology. Consequently Mercian Mysteries had outgrown its humble beginnings and Trubshaw produced a new magazine named “At The Edge” in 1996. At the Edge was a short-lived periodical, and after ten issues merged with “3rd Stone” magazine in 1998 under the editorship of Neil Mortimer. Trubshaw now had time to concentrate on writing and his publishing company Heart Of Albion Press.

The evocative title of this new book is inspired by Bruce Chatwin's book “The Songlines” following two trips into the Australian outback in the 1980's. In the preface Trubshaw quotes from Chatwin's book:

“'Sometimes', said Arkady, 'I'll be driving my “old men” through the desert, and we'll come to a ridge of sandhillls, and suddenly they'll all start singing.' “What are you mob singing?” I'll ask, and they'll say, “Singing up the country, boss. Makes the country come up quicker.”

Trubshaw suggests it is doubtful that the Aboriginal elders actually used the term “songlines” as in Chatwin's fictional account, they would more likely have used terms such as “Dreaming Tracks”, or “Footprints of the Ancestors”; ethnologists have adopted the term “song-routes”.

Trubshaw says he uses the term “songlines” in the subtitle because this has popularised awareness of such mythopoetic relationships with the landscape, but, he adds, this gives the assumption that only traditional cultures (such as the Aborigines) possess such myths which have long since been lost to Western civilisation. In this book he sets out to demonstrate that such myths of place have been lost more because too few people recognised what there was, rather than because they were never recorded. However, he argues we have always had a dreamtime in every traditional tale that commences “Once upon a time....”

This book continues ideas set out in his previous work, Sacred Places: Prehistory and Popular Imagination. Later in the book he introduces the concept of the past not simply as something to be studied or known but as something that we have a 'conversation' with, which strongly colours not just what we talk about but the way in which we discuss it too. Thus, creating distinct and different chapters, each aiming to offer an introduction to a particular topic, that perhaps the reader should consider as a conversation with several experts in a specific field.

In the Preface, he invites us to skip chapters, or read them out of sequence, and to even read the final chapter first “to see where it's all going”, stressing that if we read from start to finish in the normal order, we may well wonder at times where the book is leading.

Subsequently, in the final chapter, Trubshaw endeavours to weave all these ideas together into a 'Dreamtime' narrative, or 'songline', to explore a journey that is both in the physical landscape and in the 'mindscape'; whether this follows the 'footprints of the ancestors' or simply creates a new set of tracks the author is happy to leave unresolved.

Sunrise at south entrance to Avebury henge.
Cover photograph by Bob Trubshaw.

From the back cover: “Singing Up the Country reveals that Bob Trubshaw has been researching a surprising variety of different topics since his last book six years ago. From Anglo-Saxon place-names to early Greek philosophy – and much in between – he creates an interwoven approach to the prehistoric landscape, creating a 'mindscape' that someone in Neolithic Britain might just recognise. This is a mindscape where sound, swans and rivers help us to understand the megalithic monuments.

Continuing from where scholarship usually stops and using instead the approaches of storytelling, the final chapter weaves this wide variety of ideas together as a 'songline' for the Avebury landscape. This re-mythologising of the land follows two 'dreamtime' ancestors along the Kennet valley to the precursors of Avebury henge and Silbury Hill.”

Parts of Singing Up the Country draw heavily on the research of Andrew Collins (The Cygnus Mystery), Michael Dames (The Silbury Treasure, The Avebury Cycle) Alan Garner (By Sevenfirs and Goldenstone) and the late Margaret Gelling (Placenames in the Landscape) and will be an inspiration to all those interested in prehistory, mythology or the Neolithic monuments of the World Heritage Site at Avebury.

Contents:
Prologue
Preface
1. Prehistoric wayfaring
2. Journeys with significance
3. Myths of place
4. The king alone stood on the mound
5. Do you ken the queen of the Kennet of her kith and kin?
6. By green hill to the broad ford
7. Anglo-Saxon sacred places
8. The hills are alive...
9. Swans and their celestial songs
10. The rivers of life and the cauldrons of creation
11. Towards a Kennet dreaming.
12. A Kennet dreaming
References
Index

ISBN 978-1-905646-21-0 September 2011
203 pages, 64 b&w photos, 29 line drawings, paperback.
Heart of Albion Press

Notes:
1. Bob Trubshaw, Thinking about Places, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Archaeology, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 35–50.

* * *

Tomb of Stonehenge Architect found in Preseli

2011-09-03T16:52:00.001+01:00

Archaeologists believe they may have uncovered a key figure involved in construction of the ancient monument on Salisbury Plain buried at Preseli mountains site.

Archaeologists Tim Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright are researching the grave of an important figure they believe that may have played a crucial role in the construction of Stonehenge.

The burial chamber is sited above a ceremonial stone circle in the Preseli hills in west Wales, where it is believed bluestone was quarried before being taken to Stonehenge. However, further research is required to establish if the person buried there played a role in the moving of the Preseli bluestones the 190 miles from west Wales to Salisbury Plain.

Preseli

Wainwright said: "We went back to the Preselis and started doing excavations up there. The first site we explored was a big burial cairn in the shadow of Carn Menyn, where the Stonehenge bluestones come from."

At Preseli they found a circle underneath the cairn built of bluestone, the same material as the small stones at Stonehenge, with work now being carried out to ascertain a date. Wainwright added that he would not be surprised if the circle had been created at about the same time that the bluestones were taken to Stonehenge, strengthening the link between west Wales and Stonehenge in the theory.

Wainwright continued, "Then this stone circle was covered with the huge burial cairn with a chamber in the middle. The space turned from a public ceremonial space defined by the stone circle into the burial spot of a very important person."

The remains of a ceremonial monument were found with a bank that appears to have a pair of standing stones embedded in it. The tomb, which is a passage cairn, typical of a Neolithic burial monument, was placed over this henge. Archaeologists have argued that he bluestones at the earliest phase of Stonehenge were also set in pairs giving a direct architectural link from the monument on Salisbury Plain to this newly discovered henge-like monument in Preseli, south Wales.

Healing Centre
Darvill and Wainwright have spent the last 10 years trying to establish how and why the bluestones, mostly of spotted dolerite, were transported from Preseli to Stonehenge. In 2008 they carried out the first excavation at Stonehenge in more than 40 years, the last was directed by Richard Atkinson in 1964. Following the 2008 excavation Darvill and Wainwright claimed they had established that the bluestones first arrived at Stonehenge about 4,500 years ago.

Professor Wainwright holds a piece of bluestone

Their hypothesis is that the Stonehenge bluestones, spotted dolorite when newly quarried is dark blue speckled with brilliant white stars of quartz, were the real draw to Neolithic pilgrims because they were believed to possess healing powers, claiming that Stonehenge was the 'Lourdes of prehistoric Europe' which may have drawn people from across the continent during the Mesolithic Age, a dating based on the find of a handful of scraps of charred wood and a little pile of stone chips.

The charcoal fragments added new evidence to the Stonehenge story. Darvill and Wainwright revealed that the earliest dates from 7,000 BC, suggesting the site was already important 4,000 years before the oldest stone circle, and may have continued to draw visitors for centuries.

Darvill and Wainwright are convinced the stone chips are evidence of belief in the healing power of the magical bluestone that made famous as a healing centre across prehistoric Europe, evidenced by the grave of the Amesbury Archer, one of the richest finds in decades found three miles from the monument.

The Amesbury Archer, also known as the King of Stonehenge, died around 2,300 BC when he was between 35-45, yet isotope fingerprinting of his teeth has shown that he was born probably in the Alpine area of central Europe. Near to the Archer was the grave of a younger man who was a relative, who had been brought up not far from Stonehenge, but he is thought to have travelled to central Europe as a child.

Years before the Archer died he had suffered a traumatic injury in which he lost his left knee leading to a severe infection that penetrated his very bones. He must have lived in constant pain from this wound, and would have walked by putting his weight on his good leg which consequently grew stronger and the damaged leg slowly withered. However, it is thought that the infection from a tooth abscess which ruptured his jaw, may have actually led to his death. Other remains found in the vicinity of Stonehenge bear the marks of illness or injury, supporting Darvill and Wainwright's theory that they came to Stonehenge in search of a cure.

Organic remains found during their 2008 excavation, including a few specks of grain and seed, have allowed a secure dating for the first time of the bluestone circle, given as between 2,400-2,200 BC, overlapping the date range of the burial of the Amesbury Archer, 2470-2280 BC

This provides a date for the bluestone circle some three centuries later than previously thought. The stones were repeatedly moved and rearranged with the enormous inner horseshoe of sarsen trilithons added before the final outer circle of sarsen uprights and lintels was added around 1,900 BC, creating the final world famous profile of the monument.

Another grave was discovered nearby at Boscombe Down containing the remains of at least 7 people dubbed the “Boscombe Bowmen” as, like the grave of the Archer, their grave also contained stone arrowheads. This simple grave cut into the chalk was found only 1km away from the graves of the Amesbury Archer and his young companion, and has yielded yet another good match with the date range of 2,400-2,200 BC given by Darvill and Wainwright for the arrival of the first bluestones at Stonehenge. The style of the burial of Boscombe Bowmen is unusual for the date with only parts of their skeletons being found in the mass grave, suggesting that the missing bones may have been buried elsewhere. Parallels for this style of burial in Britain or elsewhere in Europe have not been found.

The isotope fingerprinting of the teeth of three of the Boscombe Bowmen indicate that, like the Amesbury Archer, they were not local. However, one of the few places in Britain that matches the strontium and oxygen isotope fingerprints of the Bowmen is south Wales. Significantly, their isotopes show that they had migrated when they were children providing evidence for migration in prehistoric Europe. The results do not reveal for certain where the Boscombe Bowmen originated from, yet Wales does seem their most likely homeland, and taken in the context of Darvill and Wainwright's dating of the bluestones arrival at Stonehenge, the presence of the Bowmen has been interpreted as part of a migration to Salisbury Plain when they were children, making a journey with the adults who brought the bluestones from Preseli to Stonehenge.

The Architect of Stonehenge?
Talking of this latest discovery in Preseli, Wainwright said: "The important thing is that we have a ceremonial monument here that is earlier than the passage grave. We have obviously got a very important person who may have been responsible for the impetus for these stones to be transported."

"It can be compared directly with the first Stonehenge, so for the first time we have a direct link between Carn Menyn - where the bluestones came from - and Stonehenge, in the form of this ceremonial monument."

However, he admitted it was a "jump" to claim the person buried there was an architect of Stonehenge. "It's a hypothesis but it could well be true. There is certainly something very significant about the grave."

A “jump” is rather an understatement to say the least Geoff. Seems more like a leap of faith over the cliff of credibility. We cannot assume a burial found in Preseli has anything to do Stonehenge just because it has bluestones set in a pair. Further, a ditch and bank arrangement around a burial chamber does not necessarily signify a henge monument.

During 2003 to 2009, the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) carried out excavations in the Stonehenge landscape, culminating in the discovery of “Bluestonehenge”. Following, the SRP proposed a provisional revised Stonehenge sequence with the first stage of construction at the site dated from 3000–2935 BC with the cutting of the circular ditch and bank, enclosing 56 pits of the Aubrey Holes, holding singleton bluestones. During this time a second stone circle, Bluestonehenge, was built beside the river Avon, consisting of around 25-26 bluestones, giving the figure of around 82 bluestones, the total usually agreed as being used in the final construction of Stonehenge.
SRP suggest the second stage dated to 2640–2480 BC with the erection of the lintelled sarsen circle and the massive inner sarsen trilithon horseshoe, erected along with an arc of bluestones standing in the Q and R holes, possibly dismantled from the Aubrey Holes and Bluestonehenge, The third stage from 2470–2280 BC saw the construction of the 1.75 mile long earthwork known as the Avenue travelling to the river Avon. A Fourth stage, 2280–2030 BC, saw the bluestones, having been removed from the Q and R holes, rearranged to form a circle between the sarsen trilithons and the outer sarsen ring, and an oval bluestone setting within the sarsen trilithon horseshoe.

What are we to make of all this? A date range for the first bluestones at the Stonehenge site from 2,400-2,200 BC to 3000–2935 BC; a variance of 800 years! And now the claimed discovery of a tomb that could be the architect of Stonehenge?

Your guess is as good as mine. It would be much clearer if these clever people could all agree on the interpretation of the evidence. The only thing we can say with any certainty is that the bluestones came from south Wales.

Sources:
Tomb found at Stonehenge quarry site – BBC News
Stonehenge mystery offered clue by Welsh burial chamber - – The Guardian
Archaeologists claim Stonehenge was 'Lourdes of prehistoric Europe' – The Guardian
The Amesbury Archer - Wessex Archaeology
The Amesbury Archer: pilgrim or magician? - Wessex Archaeology
A really new stage in Stonehenge history? - Mike Pitts, Digging Deeper.

* * *

Baalbek: Celestial Wanderings

2011-08-29T22:06:00.002+01:00

The Ancient Mystery of Baalbek

The Hand of the Cyclopes Part III

Celestial Wanderings
When lacking firm dating evidence, as with the Grand Terrace at Baalbek, some of the most ancient constructions in the world have been associated with certain epochs by calculating their alignment to the position of celestial bodies which move around the heavens in immense regular cycles over a vast period of time.

Sir Norman Lockyer devoted much of his career to studying the sun, focussing on the astronomical connections of ancient monuments. Lockyer found that many Egyptian monuments were orientated to celestial bodies. He was of the opinion that the Egyptians were aware that the heavens were anything but constant and slowly changed position. Lockyer noticed that the temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak was orientated toward the summer solstice so that on the longest day of the year the sun's rays entered the temple at sunset, travelled along the building's axis and finally penetrated the sanctuary. Allowing for the slowly changing tilt if the earth's axis, Lockyer calculated that the temple at Karnak, or at least the original foundation, must have been constructed c.3700 BC as opposed to the widely accepted dating of c.2000 to 300 BC.

Amen-Ra Temple at Karnak

Lockyer noticed other temples were orientated to the points where certain astral bodies rise just before sunrise, the 'helical rising', on the vernal equinox. The star's position would change over time due to a natural phenomenon known as 'precession'. Consequently over time the temple would become misaligned to the selected astronomical object, causing the Egyptians to re-orientate there temples every few hundred years. Lockyer discovered that the temple at Luxor had undergone four distinct changes of orientation as it was rebuilt over the centuries. Using the regularity of precession Lockyer calculated the dates of temple construction from their earlier orientations and found the structures were considerably older than the accepted Egyptian chronology, as with Karnak.

The Earth is not a true sphere; it bulges at the equator and flattens at the Poles so that the radius is some 14 miles greater at the equator. Additionally, the Earth's axis around rotation tips relative to the plane (or ecliptic) of its orbit around the sun. The sun, moon and other planets to a lesser degree, exert a gravitational pull on the greater mass of the Earth's bulging equator, slowly moving the axis of rotation. Owing to these forces, the Earth tends to spin and wobble like a top, rather than a uniform motion like a wheel on an axle. This slow wobble of the Earth is called precession, the effects of which determine what we see in the heavens. The stars slowly shift in long but regular cycles relative to the celestial north and south poles over an immense period of time. One such cycle is known as the 'Great Year', a cycle of 25,920 years owing to this phenomenon known as the 'Precession of the Equinoxes'.

The reality of this movement is very slow and not perceptible to the naked eye; knowledge of this cycle is amassed from celestial observations over an immense period of time and indicates a very ancient culture. Evidently Greek astronomers had sufficient instrumentation and data to detect the immensely slow motion of the effects of precession and consequently the phenomenon was 'rediscovered' by Hipparchus in 127BC. However, despite Lockyer's claims it is not generally accepted that the Egyptians possessed this knowledge.

The Processional Code
The celestial bodies appear to move through one degree of their cycle over a period of 72 years with each sign, or house, of the zodiac occupying 30 degrees in the sky. Consequently, the number 72 is significant in terms of astronomy. The vernal equinox is the constellation that rises in the east just before the sun appears above the horizon. This is known as the helical rising. The vernal equinox is recognized as the first degree of the sun's yearly circle; the first day of the year or the vernal point.

The effect of precession is to cause the ‘vernal point’ to be reached fractionally earlier in the orbit each year with the result that it very gradually shifts through all 12 houses of the zodiac, spending 2,160 years in each house, completing the cycle and returning to the same point in 25,920 years.

During the course of each year the earth’s movement along its orbit causes the zodiacal background against which the sun is seen to rise to change from month to month: Aquarius – Pisces – Aries – Taurus – Gemini – Cancer - Leo, and so on. Currently, on the vernal equinox, the sun is seen to rise due east between the zodiac constellations of Pisces and Aquarius as we move towards the Age of Aquarius.

The movement of this ‘processional drift’ is in a retrograde direction, that is in opposition to the annual 'path of the sun': Leo - Cancer – Gemini – Taurus – Aries – Pisces – Aquarius. Therefore, by possessing knowledge of the effects of precession, it is possible to back-calculate a particular zodiacal age, for example, the ‘Age of Leo’, that is the 2,160 years during which the sun on the vernal equinox rose against the stellar background of the constellation of Leo, lasted from 10,970 until 8,810 BC.

Thus, the equinoctial sun occupies each zodiacal constellation for about 2,160 years, the age of Pisces for example would last 2,160 years (72 x 30 = 2,160). When we multiply the 72 years by the 360 (12 x 30) degrees of a complete cycle, 'The Great Year', we arrive at the number 25,920 years for each cycle to be completed and the constellations returning to the point they started.

We often find that when ancient texts start to reel off numbers 12, 30, and 72 and 2160, multiplies and divisions there of, such as 5 x 6 (30), the figures add up to numbers in the precessional sequence. The numbers were then attached to gods and encoded in myths to ensure transmission through the ages and often to disguise the sacred system from the uninitiated.

According to Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, in their seminal book Hamlet's Mill there are over 200 myths or folk stories from over thirty ancient cultures that refer to a Great Year tied to the movement of the equinox or the motion of the heavens. Their argument predominantly concerns the recurrent and persistent transmission of a ‘precessional message’ in a wide range of ancient myths.

de Santillana and von Dechend state that the 'precessional message' encoded in these myths provides a sequence of numbers, preceded by the appearance by, what they call a morphological marker, such as the appearance of a canine, 'The Opener of the Way', intended to alert the target audience that a piece of important data was next in the story. They cite the Norse traditions of the Poetic Edda that speak of the monstrous wolf Fenrir:

500 doors and 40 there are
I ween, in Valhalla’s walls;
800 fighters through each door fare,
When to war with the Wolf they go.

To the uninitiated these numbers seem innocent enough but on calculating the quoted numbers we derive at 540 x 800 = 432,000, an important number in the precessional code which we will come to shortly. We find a similar sequence in the Osiris myth from The Egyptian Book of the Dead, which highlights the processional numbers of 360, 72, 30 and 12. Essentially these numbers are ‘excess baggage’ and not essential to the story but again they convey the processional code.

Archaeo-astronomer and Egyptologist Jane B. Sellers is one of the few serious scholars to have tested the theory advanced by de Santillana and von Dechend in Hamlet’s Mill, and argues that the Osiris myth appears to have been deliberately encoded with a selection of key numbers by which exact processional values can be calculated:

12 - the number of months in the year equal to the number of constellations in the zodiac,
30 - the number of days in the month, equates to the number of degrees allocated along the ecliptic to each zodiacal constellation,
12 x 30 = 360 - the number of months multiplied by the number of days, which equals the total number of degrees in the ecliptic,
72 - the number of conspirators in the group led by the deity Set in the plot to kill Osiris. This number is equal to the number of years required for the equinoctial sun to move one degree along the ecliptic,
72 x 30 = 2,160 - the number of years required for the sun to complete a passage of 30 degrees along the ecliptic and pass through any one of the 12 zodiacal constellations,
2,160 x 12 (or 360 x 72) = 25,920 - the number of years in one complete precessional cycle or ‘Great Year’, and for the cycle to return to the beginning, the ‘Great Return’.

72 is the most significant number in the code. To this is frequently added its half, 36, making 108. This is often divided by 2 to give 54. Typically with esoteric numerology it is permissible to employ almost any conceivable permutations by using multiplications or divisions of the essential numbers, for example 108 x 4 x 60 = 25,920 years, and so on. The highly significant number 2,160 can be multiplied by 10 (= 21,600) or by 2 to give 4,320, or 43,200, or 432,000, the number of fighters calculated from the Poetic Edda, above. All of these numbers, and their derivatives, relate precisely to the rate of precession of the equinoxes.

At Baalbek the traces of processional numbers are faint but can be found in the columns. The columns are considered part of the Roman structure at Baalbek as they sit upon the Roman masonry placed upon the ancient Grand Terrace; significantly, there were originally 54 columns which is a division of 72, the significant number of the processional code. However, this gives us no indication of a date for the original construction at Baalbek. Ancient monuments aligned to the position of a certain constellation on a certain date does not prove it was constructed at that time. Of course anyone possessing a knowledge of precession could have constructed these monuments to point to a certain epoch, for whatever reason.

An example of this is the lay out of the Giza periods which Robert Bauval, with Adrian Gilbert, proposes appear to have been laid out in a pattern similar to Orion's belt. During Orion's travels through the skies in the precessional cycle, the constellation we know in the northern hemisphere as The Hunter, appears to move up and down through the sky. To this end, Bauval determined that the layout of the Giza pyramids reflected the position of Orion, calculated through the processional cycle, at 10,450 BC, at its lowest point in the sky. However, carbon dating from the mortar of the Great Pyramid suggests construction fits with accepted 4th Dynasty chronology, c. 2560 BC. This dating also concurs with the astronomical alignment of the so called 'star shafts' emerging from the King and Queen Chambers.

Bauval, along with Graham Hancock argue that these constructions were designed to point to a specific epoch by the use of precession; perhaps the date of a catastrophe as a warning to mankind. They go on to propose that the Great Sphinx pointed to the equinoctial rising of the constellation Leo on the horizon; the Age of Leo being from 10,970 to 8,810 BC. Hancock and Bauval argue for a an original lion-headed sphinx, corresponding with Leo, before being re-carved at a later date. They calculated that the alignment of the Great Sphinx gazing toward the equinoctial rising of Leo on the horizon would have been around the same date of 10,450 BC.

The Great Sphinx

The geologist Professor Robert Schoch's attention was drawn to the weathering on the Great Sphinx by John Anthony West. Schoch had written an article, 'Re-dating the Sphinx', in which he argued for an old sphinx. Schoch claims the precipitation-induced weathering on the sphinx is of a distinctly different nature from the wind-induced weathering evident on various Old Kingdom tombs and structures found in the vicinity carved from the same limestone sequence.

Schoch argues that the Great Sphinx of Giza was weathered heavily at an early period in its existence by precipitation, suggesting that it must have been carved prior to the last great period of major precipitation in this part of the Nile Valley, known as the "Nabtian Pluvial", a period of relatively heavy rainfall, from 12,000 - 10,000 to about 5,000 years ago.

Schoch concludes that the Sphinx complex, the sculpture and its associated stone temples, is considerably older than its traditional attribution of c.2,500 BC and would not have been a totally isolated phenomenon in the Neolithic world: other massive stone structures were being built around the Mediterranean as early as 10,000 years ago. The standard chronology is clearly flawed.

The Oldest City in the World?
Tiahuanaco (Tiwanku) has been described as the “Baalbek of the New World”. Known to the ancients as Taypikala, an aymara word meaning "Stone of the Centre", the ceremonial centre of Tiahuanaco high in the Bolivian mountains, is surrounded on three sides by the Andes and Lake Titicaca on the fourth. Remembered as the “City of the Sun", every 21st June, winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, the local people celebrate Machaj Mara, the Aymara New Year, just outside the temple.

Tiahuanaco Temple complex

First impressions are that the ground-plan of the temple complex at Tiahuanaco is similar to that at Baalbek and Karnak. Situated on the immense plain of the Altiplano, two and a half miles (12,500 feet) above sea-level, now several miles from the shores of Lake Titicaca. But something is wrong here; huge megalithic blocks weighing several hundred tons are scattered like nine pins and marine creatures, sea horses for example, inhabit the lake. Evidently, Tiahuanaco was once a port on the shore of Lake Titicaca and once at sea level. The structure known as the Puma Punka, or 'Door of the Puma', appears to be the remains of a massive port once located on the shore of the lake but is now some 12 miles inland from the water's edge.

Geologists argue that this massive land upheaval occurred millions of years ago in Earth's distant history. Orthodox archaeology dates Tiahuanaco to c.200 AD, reaching its peak around 500 AD and then went into steady decline until c.1000 AD. Yet there are no record of a major cataclysm occurring here during that time to have instigated the downturn in Tiahuanaco's fortunes.

Puma Punku, the port of Tiahuanaco, is an area filled with enormous stone blocks weighing typically between 100 and 150 tons, but one block still in place weighs an estimated 450 tons. Some of these massive stone blocks have incisions as if cut by a diamond-tipped saw blade and placed with such precision that a razor blade could not be placed between them. One of the construction blocks used for the pier weighs an estimated 450 tons, yet the quarry for these giant blocks was on the western shore of Titicaca, over 12 miles distant. As with Baalbek and other massive stone constructions archaeologists simply fail to answer how these massive stones were quarried, and transported to the building site, or how the construction engineers managed to manoeuvre them so skilfully to form a massive complex of megalithic buildings.

Many of the stone blocks at the complex weigh typically in excess of 200 tons, and in some cases are held together by large metallic, I-shaped couplers, rather than individual inter-locking shaped blocks found at Sacsahuaman or at Cuzco, typical Cyclopean masonry. Researchers believe that molten metal was actually poured into I-shaped slots carved into the rock in situ; the construction engineers must have possessed a mobile furnace of some sort. A similar technique was used in Egyptian constructions and at Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

In his final and most important book, the four volume Tihuanacu, the Cradle of American Man, Arthur Posnansky, an engineer who dedicated fifty years to its study, argued that Tiahuanaco was constructed approximately 17,000 years ago. He observed enormous blocks of stone used in massive structures all over the site that no known pre-Columbian culture had the technology to fashion or transport. Posnansky found the astronomical arrangement of these structures relative to one another indicated that the original construction engineers possessed a highly sophisticated knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. Posnansky's dating techniques are based on astronomical phenomenon and controversial to say the least and not surprisingly rejected by orthodox accounts. Posnansky is often said to have used precession, as described above, for deriving his dating evidence, but this is not correct as he based his findings on the phenomenon known as the 'obliqueness of the ecliptic'.

In the solar system, the Earth's orbital plane is known as the ecliptic plane; the axial tilt of the Earth's is called the obliquity of the ecliptic. Unlike the long term regularity of the slow clock of precession, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the Earth's tilt, is constantly changing over a 41,000 year cycle. This angle oscillates slowly between a minimum of 22 degrees and 1 minute to a maximum of 24 degrees and 5 minutes; it is currently tilted at an angle of around 23 degrees and 17 minutes.

Tiahuanaco has four surviving primary structures; the Akapana pyramid, the Kalasasaya platform, the Subterranean Temple, and the Puma Punku. Utilizing his measurements of the lines of sight along the stone pillars of the Kalasasaya, noting the orientation and the deviations from the cardinal points, Posnansky was able to show that the alignment of the structure was based upon the astronomical principle of the obliquity of the ecliptic.

It is now generally accepted that the Kalasasaya functioned as a sophisticated celestial observatory, its purpose to fix the equinoxes and the solstices and to predict, with mathematical precision, the various seasons of the year. Certain structures within the Kalasasaya seem to have been deliberately aligned to particular star groups and designed to facilitate accurate measurement of of the sun in summer, winter, autumn and spring. The famous ‘Gateway of the Sun’, which stood in the north-west corner of the enclosure, is thought to be a complex and accurate calendar carved in stone. Animals depicted on it have been extinct for millennia. The Gateway of the Sun is carved from a single block of andesite and today displays a crack running through the lintel to the doorway. Yet photographs in Posnansky's Tihuanacu, the Cradle of American Man show that prior to the 20th century it was literally torn in two as if by some convulsion of the Earth.

Gateway of the Sun, 1877

Posnansky observed that the solar alignments of certain key structures at Tiahuanaco now looked ‘out of true’. These astronomical and solar alignments, or more correctly 'mis-alignments', made it possible to calculate the approximate period when the Kalasasaya had originally been laid out. He was able to date the Kalasasaya because the obliquity cycle gradually alters the azimuth position of sunrise and sunset over the centuries. Posnansky calculated that the obliquity of the ecliptic at the time of the building of the Kalasasaya had been 23° 8’ 48”. Plotting this angle on the graph drawn up by the International Conference of Ephemerids it was found to correspond to a date of 15,000 BC.

Between 1927 and 1930 Posnansky's conclusions were scrutinised by a team of four leading German astronomers who verified the accuracy of his calculations; the Kalasasaya alignments did indeed indicate a date of 17,000 years ago. The academic furore led them to revise their estimate downwards to 9,300 BC. This struck historians and archaeologists as being some 9,000 years too early but this date has persisted with studies during the mid-1990's confirming Tiahuanaco was indeed built almost 12,000 years ago.

Yet decades of intensive excavations and archaeological research has drawn a total absence of prehistoric tools and midden deposits for any occupation of the Tiahuanaco complex anywhere near these ancient dates. However, it must be noted that much of the site is in a very poor state of preservation, having been subjected to looting and amateur excavations over the centuries. The destruction of the site continued during the Spanish conquest and beyond.

From it's construction 12,000 years ago Tiahuanaco's ending certainly seems linked to some catastrophe in the distant past. This date corresponds with the same epoch that the ground plan of the Giza pyramids was laid out, 10,450 BC, and the Great Sphinx was carved from the bedrock, staring at his celestial counterpart, the constellation of Leo, rising on the horizon, 10,970 to 8,810 BC. Conventional wisdom argues that there is no known civilisation from this period capable of such achievement. Any evidence that does not fit the accepted dogma is rejected. Yet new discoveries continually move the clock back.

The original foundations of the Jupiter temple at Baalbek, that do not fit any known culture, is aligned eastward, facing the equinox sunrise but any celestial markers were lost long ago during the construction of the Roman temple on top, making it now impossible to date these immense stones of the Trilithon. Yet it seems likely that these colossal stones of the Grand Terrace at Baalbek were also erected during the same period as Tiahuanaco, but the mystery of who built the massive foundations and how are just as mysterious.

Bibliography
Norman Lockyer, The Dawn of Astronomy
Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead,
Jane B Sellers, The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt,
Robert Bauval, with Adrian Gilbert, The Orion Mystery
Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods
Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock, Keeper of Genesis
Robert Schoch, 'Re-dating the Sphinx', KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt
Robert Schoch, Voyages of the Pyramid Builders

* * *

Druids Loose Appeal for Return of Stonehenge Ancestors

2011-08-23T18:54:00.003+01:00

Fighting a Ministry of Justice decision permitting scientists at Sheffield University to retain the human remains exhumed in 2008, King Arthur Pendragon of the Stonehenge Druids took his appeal to the High Court requesting the remains be reburied immediately.

His bid was rejected at a hearing in London today by Mr Justice Wyn Williams who refused to award King Arthur permission to launch a judicial review action, ruling that there was insufficient evidence to show that the Ministry of Justice might have acted unreasonably.

The remains were removed from the Aubrey Hole burial site at Stonehenge in 2008 with ministers granting permission for the bones of more than 40 bodies, thought to be at least 5,000 years old, to be examined at Sheffield University until 2015.

Arthur stated that he did not believe the bones would ever be returned to the site, and that his views were not being taken into account. His allegations were denied by the Ministry of Justice.

Talking before the hearing, Arthur said: "If we don't force them to put them back, they're going to end up in Salisbury museum. I know that for a fact, and I'm not prepared to stand around and wait for them to come up with other excuses."

Arthur vowed to continue his fight to have the remains reburied. He called for a "day of action" at Stonehenge on Monday, which he said would be three years to the day since the remains were removed.

Sources:
BBC News Wiltshire 23 August 2011
The Guardian Online 23 August 2011

* * *

The Ancient Mystery of Baalbek

2011-08-21T16:13:00.002+01:00

The Hand of the Cyclopes Part II

The Trilithon
The quest for the largest megaliths moved by man has brought us to the ancient land of Lebannon and the temple remains at Baalbek, City of the Sun. Archaeology reveals that settlement in the area of Baalbek dates back over 7,000 years, with the ruins we see today are largely dominated by the Roman temples but an ancient mystery lies beneath.

The Temple of Jupiter

The Temple of Jupiter, the largest of the Roman complex at Baalbek, completely dwarfs the Temple of Bacchus and the other structures at Baalbek; the most notable sight as one approaches, even from some distance, are the gigantic Corinthian columns, the largest in the ancient world. Today just six of the original 54 columns are still standing, at 72 feet high they dwarf the 24 foot-high columns of Rome’s Acropolis.

The six remaining columns were built on a podium 22 feet above the ground, possibly an un-roofed construction open to the elements. These massive six columns provide a glimpse of the vast scale of the original structure, measuring 157.5 feet in width and 288.7 feet in length. It has been suggested that the great columns, constructed of Aswan granite, appear to have been reworked from an earlier possibly Hellenistic style.

The Temple Podium supporting these massive columns was built of some of the most gigantic stones ever crafted and moved by man. At the side of the podium, incorporated into the west wall, known as the Grand Terrace, is the 'Trilithon', consisting of three enormous stones, raised 20 feet above the ground, each approximately 63 feet long, 13 feet wide, 13 feet high, weighing an estimated 800 – 1000 tons each, mounted on lower courses of blocks weighing around 350 - 400 tons each.

Today we marvel at the achievement of the Neolithic construction of Stonehenge, many visitors to the site on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, simply gape in awe at these stones, the heaviest estimated at 50 tons. Yet, the largest stones at Baalbek are some 20 times greater in weight than the largest stones used at Stonehenge. To date, the 'trilithon' stones are the largest megaliths known to have been moved by man found anywhere in the world.

Classic picture of Baalek showing the immense size of the Trilithon
as compared to the two figures above it

These giant stones were precisely placed side-by-side with such accuracy that even today a thin blade cannot be inserted between them. Yet the original structure of the Grand Terrace remains a mystery: modern construction engineers agree that there are no known lifting technologies even in current times that could raise and position the Baalbek stones given the amount of working space available as there is simply no conceivable place where huge pulley apparatus could have been positioned to move the massive Trilithon stones. The massive stones of Baalbek are simply beyond the engineering abilities of any known ancient or contemporary builders.

Certainly, there are no legends or folk tales from Roman times that link the Romans with the mammoth stones. There are absolutely no records in any Roman or other literary sources concerning the construction methods, dates or names of the designers, architects, or engineers who built of the Grand Terrace. No Emperor claims them.

The megalithic stones of the Trilithon bear no structural or ornamental resemblance to any of the Roman-era constructions above them, such as the previously described Temples of Jupiter, Bacchus or Venus. The limestone rocks of the Trilithon show extensive evidence of wind and sand erosion that is absent from the Roman temples, indicating that the megalithic Trilthon construction dates from a far earlier age.

Indeed, the great stones of Baalbek display evidence of erosion even older than the pre-Roman stone walls found throughout the ancient world, such as the Acropolis foundation in Athens, the foundations of Myceneae, and Tiryns, Delphi. These walls were seemingly in place prior to the rise of the great Greek civilisations, not knowing who built them their historians attributed the constructions to the mythical Cyclopes subsequently providing the term 'cyclopean masonry'; a seemingly jumbled arrangement of interlocking large stone blocks in perfect placement without mortar.

Cyclopean masonry is often associated with colonies of the Phoenicians. Significantly, the coastal strip of Lebannon was the Phoenician homeland, perhaps the earliest seafaring nation, who built up an immense maritime trade network over a thousand years that at its peak, from 1550BC to 300BC, spread across the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians were known to the Greeks and Romans as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye extracted from the Murex snail, used, among other things, for colouring royal clothing.

The original name 'phoinix' was a Greek invention and appears for the first time in the period of Homer and Hesiod, during the 9th - 7th centuries. The name, and it's derivatives, was used exclusively by the Greeks to describe these eastern people, but its root is neither Phoenician or Semitic and the etymological problem of the origin of the Greek word persists. Indeed, the Phoenicians are known from the 14th century BC as people who called themselves Canaanites. However, one of the meanings of the word 'phoinix' is 'red', no doubt an allusion to the purple textile industry; it has been suggested that Phoenicia could mean 'the country of purple cloth'.

Ancient Copper Trade
The Phoenicians are known to have ventured beyond the Pillars of Hercules, (the Straits of Gibraltar), and circumnavigated the African continent. Tin has been produced and traded in Cornwall since ancient times but from this period little is known. There are legends of the Phoenicians trading with the Cornish for tin. There are strong claims they ventured as far as Britain for Cornish tin, allied with copper an essential element in the Mediterranean Bronze Age. The 17th century writer Samuel Bochart suggested in his Geographic Sacra (1646) that the name of Britannia was first applied by the Phoenicians, in whose language 'Bartanac' signified 'the land of tin'.

Ox hide ingot

Writing in the 5th century BC, the ancient historian Herodutus was the first to mention the islands where the Greeks obtained their tin, but he failed to reveal the exact location. The location of the tin islands was confirmed in the 1st century by the Greek writer Diodorus Sicculus who provided an important description of the mining and trade of Cornish tin. Diodorus' account is thought to derive from the lost work of Pytheas of Massalia, a Greek who circumnavigated the British Isles in the 4th century. Diodorus' account refers to Belerion (Cornwall) as the promontory of Britain where they got the tin, from where it was moved to an island called Ictis, signifying 'tin port', where merchants could purchase it. The location of Ictis has been the cause of much debate between historians, many preferring the Isle of Wight which was known as Vectis by the Romans. Others have claimed St Michael's Mount off Penzance in Cornwall a more likely location as 'ictis' means 'joined to the mainland at low tide'.

The coast around the south west peninsula of Britain is littered with shipwrecks, many bearing evidence of the tin trade. In 1992, 42 tin ingots, were found in a wreck of a Roman context at Bigbury Bay, South Devon and the Royal Cornwall Museum houses a copper and tin ingot found off Looe Island (Lammana), Cornwall, authenticated as 2000 years old.

In 2009, a wreck was found in just eight metres of water on part of the seabed called Wash Gully, only 300 metres from the shore, in a bay near Salcombe, south Devon, by a team of amateur marine archaeologists from the South West Maritime Archaeological Group. Archaeologists have described the vessel, which is thought to date back to around 1200 - 900BC, the Phoenician period, as being a "bulk carrier" of its age. The recovered cargo included 259 copper ingots and 27 tin ingots, weighing a total of more than 84kg, in almost the exact proportion of tin ingots to copper ingots found to make bronze, with a composition of 10% tin and 90% copper. Further analysis on the provenance of the materials is required but initial thoughts amongst archaeologists is that the copper could have come from afar afield as the Iberian peninsular, Alpine Europe, especially modern day Switzerland, and possibly other locations in France, such as the Massif Central, and possibly Austria. It seems likely that the ship was collecting Cornish tin to deliver a complete bronze making package to its ultimate destination that it never reached due to the notorious currents off the Cornwall-Devon coast.

How far the Phoenicians ventured for raw materials is not known. Debate continues as to whether they crossed the Atlantic and ventured into the New World: evidence of a Phoenician presence in the Americas is vigorously denied by conventional historians as fakes and forgeries because it fails to fit with the accepted chronology of the peopling of the New World. Surely we should exercise caution here and not be too hasty in dismissing the possibility of early Atlantic crossings in prehistory. Recent studies have shown North American copper may have been used to supply the Mediterranean Bronze Age.

With the exception of a small amount of pre-Columbian bronze made in Peru, the New World never entered the Bronze Age. Copper was used for tools and ornaments sourced from the area of the Great Lakes in North America. Sites near Lake Superior are dotted with small pits, typically 15 to 20 feet in diameter but only 6 to 7 feet deep. About 5,000 of these copper mines have been identified, believed to have started between 7th to 5th millennium BC, with the major period of extraction between 3,000 and 1,200 BC. Therefore, North American copper mining was active during the peak of the Phoenician maritime trade network, from 1550BC to 300BC.

It has been claimed that up to 1 billion pounds of copper was extracted in the New World. This figure is seen as extremely high, the most conservative estimates suggesting somewhere in the region of 20 million pounds. Given the volume of ore removed and the likely concentration of metal it contained more recent estimates suggest a maximum of some 80 million pounds of copper.

Yet conventional wisdom asserts that the copper extracted from the Lake Superior mines was used to make artefacts from the so-called Old Copper culture, from which a total of some 20,000 objects are known to exist in museums and private collections, estimated to weigh around 10,000 pounds, a mere fraction of the total amount mined even if we accept the most conservative estimate of 20 million pounds. Where did all the copper go?

Ancient people across the world spent huge time and resources manufacturing tools and ornaments to be used in funerary rituals. Such was their belief in the afterlife, yet less than 10 per cent of Old Copper artefacts has been recovered from burials.

It has been suggested that the majority was shipped to the Old World to feed the Mediterranean Bronze Age. There may be some merit in this notion as copper was melted in the Mediterranean area into ingots shaped like a cured ox hide. Oddly, similar shaped copper ingots have been found in North American burial mounds.

Shipwrecks found in the Mediterranean have revealed evidence of trade in these ox hide ingots. In the early 1950s, divers found the remains of a shipwreck in Cape Gelidonya, off the coast of Turkey. Radiocarbon dating of brushwood from the ship provided a date c.1200 BC.

In 1982, a diver discovered a shipwreck off the shore of Uluburun, Turkey. Tree-ring dating of firewood from the ship yielded a date c.1300 BC. The ship contained 317 copper ingots in the normal oxhide shape, 36 with only two corner protrusions, 121 shaped like buns, and five shaped like pillows. After being cleaned of their corrosion the oxhide ingots were found to range in weight from 20.1 to 29.5 kg. The ship's cargo included tin oxhide ingots, and ivory, metal jewellery, and Canaanite pottery containing resin. The ship's load of ten tons of copper ingots, one ton of tin ingots, again in the correct proportions for the composition of bronze as with the wreck found near Salcombe, south Devon, and the resin stored in the Canaanite jars appear to be a complete package as all these materials were used for bronze casting through the lost-wax technique. It would seem these maritime metal merchants delivered all the sources required to order.

Analysis of the ingots from the two shipwrecks has revealed ore sources with a Middle East or Central Asian provenance; the destination of North American copper remains elusive.

Baalbek of the New World
Cyclopean walls are also found in the New World, such as at Cusco in Peru, attributed to the Incas, and megalithic constructions at Tiahuanaco has given the Bolivian ruins the name of the “Baalbek of the New World” for good reason. We find many similarities between the Old and New Worlds in ancient times.

The Twelve Angle Stone, Cusco

However, the first constructions at Baalbek are not typically 'cyclopean' masonry in the style of the walls constructed at Phoenician sites around the Mediterranean and the New World. The massive stones of the Grand Terrace at Baalbek are usually referred to as 'cyclopean' simply due to their immense size and a legend attached to the site that records that the first temple at Baalbek was the construction of Cain before the Deluge and rebuilt by a race of giants under the command of Nimrod after the flood; the work of the Cyclopes.

The Phoenicians were famous for building coastal ports for extending their maritime trade network, why they should build an immense platform at an altitude of 1,170 metres (3,840 ft) in the mountains of Lebannon is baffling and does not fit with the concept of seaborne traders who's interests were in the opposite direction. The foundations at Baalbek would appear to be pre-Phoenician in design and purpose. It has been suggested that the Grand Terrace supported an un-roofed platform for ancient stargazers long before the Romans built their temple upon the site.

We have seen that a copper trade network established by the Phoenicians could certainly have reached the New World and is a distinct possibility. However, the megalithic constructions at Tiahuanaco have been dated to a much earlier age, long before the Phoenicians; a civilisation seems to have appeared in the New World 17,000 years ago with no apparent predecessors or evolution. Then disappeared again without trace.

Hand of the Cyclopes Part III: Celestial Wanderings

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Bull Ring Henge Celebration Day

2011-07-29T12:01:00.000+01:00

Saturday, July 30th: 11:00am - 7:00pm Location: Dove Holes Community Hall and the Bull Ring Henge, Dove Holes, Derbyshire.

This event has been organised to celebrate the Bull Ring prehistoric henge and 10 years of the Megalithic Portal web resource; a free day of talks, displays and activities in Dove Holes Community Hall and the henge itself as part of the Festival of British Archaeology.

Many people are familiar with Arbor Low, often dubbed the Stonehenge of the North, but this event is to celebrate it's less well know sister site, the other great henge monument in the Peak District, The Bull Ring, a 90m diameter circular earthwork, thought to have also contained a stone circle within the henge.

The Bull Ring henge, Doveholes

Two archaeological excavations in 1949 and 1984 uncovered over forty flint and chert tools and two items of pottery dated to the Beaker period, suggesting construction of the henge between 2500 - 2000BC. These artefacts are now housed in the Buxton Museum. A large mound a few metres from the henge, thought to be a neolithic burial mound with a possible bronze age a barrow on top of it, similar to the bronze age barrow built into the henge bank at Arbor Low. The results of recent geophysical surveys are expected to be published soon.

The Bull Ring has been neglected for centuries and over the centuries the henge has seen much damage; the northern causewayed entrance is now significantly narrower owing to stone quarrying within the ditch. Hopefully by raising the profile of the Bull Ring this event will help safeguard its future.

There are a great number of fascinating stone circles and other megalithic monuments in the area so the celebration event be looking at the wider context of the henge as well.

Talks will include Martha Lawrence from Buxton Museum on the Bullring henge and some of it's closest relations. Martha will have a selection of artefacts found at the henge.

Kirsty Whittall will outline her research on the Bull Ring henge and the recent survey work.

Kevin Kilburn, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, will deliver a presentation on The Bridestones Legacy and solstice alignments at Peak District monuments

Finally, Andy Burnham will give a presentation on 10 years of the Megalithic Portal.

There will be a number of displays of prehistoric finds from the henge and a collection of 60+ neolithic stone axes, blades and scrapers from around the world. A photo gallery and 'slide' display will showcase the best photography of ancient sites and there will be a Megalithic Book stall.

During the day tours of the Bull Ring Henge will take place on the hour.

Martha Lawrence from Buxton Museum will be available to answer questions and members of the Megalithic Portal Society will be on hand to advise on how find information on ancient sites near you.

Pre-booking not required, just turn up on the day. See you there.

Location:
The Dove Holes Community Hall, Hallsteads, Dove Holes, Buxton, Derbyshire, SK17 8BJ, is located on the A6, five miles north of Buxton. Turn in at the sign for Dove Holes Community Association, the hall is at the end of the road behind the cricket pitch where there is some parking available.
The Community Hall is a short walk from Dove Holes railway station.

Promoted as part of the CBA Festival of British Archaeology.

See The Megalithic Portal page for further information.

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Priddy Circle Obliterated

2011-07-18T21:33:00.001+01:00

The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 makes it a criminal offence to destroy or damage a scheduled monument but here we go again.....

Reports are circulating that the landowner has bulldozed one of the Priddy Circles obliterating part of the southern most enclosure.

The Priddy Circles, a 5,000-year-old prehistoric site and Scheduled Ancient Monuments on the Mendip Hills near the village of Priddy, is a linear arrangement of four circular earthwork enclosures, each nearly 200m across, spread over 1km in length.

Three of the circles are closely spaced in a nearly straight line, while the fourth is some 350m to the north and somewhat out of line with the other three. There appears to be no missing earthwork between the northernmost enclosure and the others. This seemingly deliberate offset is somewhat reminiscent of the Thornborough Henges in North Yorkshire, which complex includes only three aligned henges possessing a curious 'dogleg' said to mirror the three stars of Orion's Belt. [1]

The Priddy circles are numbered from the south in sequence 1 to 4. Associated with the northern most circle is a group of mounds interpreted as barrows, possibly four inside and one outside the circle to the west. The circles are the most important surviving Late Neolithic sites in Somerset.

Thought to be unique in Britain, the circles at Priddy are similar to a henge but with external rather than internal ditches similar to the the first phase of Stonehenge. Although no firm dating evidence has been found, they also appear to be contemporary with the more famous henge monument on Salisbury Plain. Less than 1km south of the Priddy Circles, are located two round barrow cemeteries at Ashen Hill and Priddy Nine-Barrows indicating that the area to the northeast of Priddy must have held considerable importance in prehistoric times.

English Heritage have been investigating the claims that one of the four Priddy Circles has been obliterated. The damaged circle was the most clearly defined of the four with land near the circles appears to have been recently re-seeded and tree saplings planted nearby. Conclusive photographic evidence on The Megalithic Portal website shows that part of the southernmost circle has been partly bulldozed flat.

English Heritage has refused to speculate on the extent of the alleged damage at this stage, but a spokesman said: "We are aware of damage to the Priddy Circles in Somerset - a series of four large Neolithic henge monuments.

"We are currently investigating the matter which includes an assessment of the harm caused to the monument through an archaeological assessment.

"It is also a criminal offence to carry out works to a scheduled monument without scheduled monument consent from the Secretary of State."

A spokesman for Somerset County Council said: "Priddy Circles are one of the most important prehistoric monuments in Somerset and they were constructed approximately 5,000 years ago.

"New research has now shown, however, that the monuments at Priddy pre-date the construction and use of henges and, as such, have few parallels in the UK. Among these parallels is the first phase of Stonehenge."

The council said it was working together with English Heritage on the investigation into the matter......

Is there any hope that our ancient monuments can be protected in private ownership? The situation at Priddy provides a strong argument to take them into ownership by a governing body. This now presents an opportunity for English Heritage to show it's teeth and demonstrate that it is serious about protecting our ancient monuments from unscrupulous landowners.

*** UPDATE 05 November 2011 ***
Man arrested in connection with damage to Priddy Circle

Note:
1. Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, Before the Pyramids, Watkins, 2009.

Sources:

1. Priddy Circles damage investigated by English Heritage - BBC News Somerset, 27 June 2011

2. Priddy South has indeed been bulldozed - Megalithic Portal

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Baalbek, City of the Sun

2011-07-08T22:36:00.004+01:00

The Hand of the Cyclopes

'There still remain, however, parts of the city wall, including the gate, upon which stand lions. These, too, are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who made for Proetus the wall at Tiryns.' (Pausanias - Description of Greece, 2nd Century AD)

Lebanon

Our quest for the largest megaliths moved by man takes us to the ancient land of Lebannon, situated opposite the Pillars of Hercules on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Located on the northern Beqaa-Plain between the mountain ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, conjectured as being named from the semitic root 'lbn' = "white" possibly referring to the snow topped Mount Lebanon. There is evidence of human habitation here stretching back at least 7,000 years with the earliest known settlements found in Byblos, considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, dating from before 5000 BC predating recorded history. The coastal strip of Lebanon was the home of the Phoenicians, a seafaring race of ancient mariners that flourished for nearly 2,500 years (c.3000–530 BC) colonising many sea ports along the Mediterranean coast. Occupying a strategically important geographical location where east meets west, Lebannon has been ruled by many empires throughout history including Persian, Armenian, Assyrian, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, Arab, Seljuk, Mamluk, Crusader, and Ottoman.

Baalbek is famous for its magnificent temple ruins, the site of the biggest and most famous sanctuary of Roman times, considered amongst the best preserved in the modern world. In 1984 UNESCO declared Baalbek a World Heritage Site. Situated approximately 60 miles north east of the capital city Beirut, at an elevation of 3,800ft in the Beqaa valley, nestling between the rivers Litani and Asi, lies the town of Baalbek, named for the "Lord (Baal) of the Beqaa valley", with its temple complex ruins perhaps the most enigmatic sacred site of ancient times.

Following two centuries of Persian rule, Alexander the Great attacked the Phoenician city of Tyre and conquered the Near East in 334 BC, the existing settlement of Baalbek was consequently re-named Heliopolis, from the Greek 'Helios' = sun and 'Polis' = city, not to be confused with the Egyptian city of the same name. The city retained its religious function during Greco-Roman times, when the sanctuary of the Heliopolitan Jupiter-Baal was a pilgrimage site for pilgrims travelling over a thousand miles from remote areas to to make offerings to their gods and receive prophesies from the oracles.

The Romans built magnificent temples for a triad of their gods in this ancient city of Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. The greatest of the three temples was sacred to Jupiter, identified with the sun, and claimed to have been constructed by the Romans during the first century AD, at the time it was the largest temple in the Roman Empire. A lesser temple, but the best-preserved Roman temple in the world, was dedicated to the Roman god Bacchus. Within the temple complex was also a small, round temple, known as The Temple of Venus, which was converted to a church during Byzantine times. Another small temple within the complex is named the Temple of the Muses.

Plan of Baalbek Temple complex

Construction of the Roman temples at Baalbek (Heliopolis) commenced in the final quarter of the 1st Century BC, and was nearing completion in the final years of Nero's reign, 37-68 AD. The Great Court Complex of the temple of Jupiter was built in the 2nd Century AD when construction of the Temple of Bacchus was started. Upon the declaration of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine shut down the pagan temples at Baalbek. Towards the end of the 4th Century AD Emperor Theodosius pulled down the altars of Jupiter's Great Court and built a basilica using existing stones from the temple. The remains of the three apses of this basilica, originally orientated to the west, can still be seen in the upper part of the stairway of the Temple of Jupiter. In 636 AD the Arabs transformed the temple complex into a fortress, or 'qal'a' a term still applied to the Acropolis today.

Jupiter – Baal
It was common practice under the Roman Empire for the local gods to be equated with Roman deities. At the Baalbek temples the Romans worshipped a cult of three deities known as the Heliopolitan triad, (Jupiter, Venus and Mercury), that had been supplanted onto the indigenous deities of Hadad (Baal), Atargatis and the young male fertility god, Adon. Hadad equated with Jupiter Heliopolitanus, Astarte, the great goddess Venus Heliopolitana and Adon, the god of spring and fertility, was equated with Mercury (Hermes).

At Baalbek, the Roman god Jupiter, lord of sky and thunder, was equated with the indigenous god Hadad, a god of rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the lord of Heaven. It is generally accepted that Baalbek derived its name as the Phoenician 'City of Baal' indicating that it was very likely that it was the site of a major cult for the storm god Baal, a well known Phoenician and Canaanite deity. However, we also find “Ba'al” as a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning 'master' or 'lord' that was used for various gods, and we find in ancient texts that the name 'Ba‛al' can refer to any god or even to human officials. In some texts it is used as a substitute for Hadad, the lord of Heaven. Only priests were permitted to utter the divine name Hadad, commonly referred to simply as Ba‘al (Lord). Therefore, confusingly, very few Biblical text references to 'Ba‛al' actually refer to Hadad, but can be any number of local deities worshipped as cult images, each called ba‛al. Hadad was a northwest Semitic storm god, cognate in name and origin with the Akkadian god Adad. Hadad was also equated with the Anatolian storm-god Teshub, the Egyptian god Set, the Greek god Zeus, and the Roman god Jupiter, which tends to support the connection at Baalbek. In the Canaanite pantheon, Hadad was the son of El, who had once been their primary god.

Reconstruction of the Roman Temple complex at Baalbek

The triad of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury was extraordinarily popular in the Roman world: altars dedicated to the Heliopolitan triad are found, not only in the eastern provinces, but throughout the Empire, from the Balkans to Gaul. At Baalbek the best preserved temple is identified with Bacchus because of his popularity in Roman times in the region and the the carvings of grapes and opium poppies on the main door jamb and some carved Bacchic scenes. During the Byzantine period the temple of Venus was converted into a church dedicated to Saint Barbara who remains the patron saint of Baalbek to this day. Near the Temple of Venus are the remains of "The Temple of the Muses", dating from the beginning of the 1st Century AD.

The Temple of Bacchus
The Temple of Bacchus is considered the best-preserved Roman temple of its size in the world. This has been attributed to the later Arab fortifications which prevented earthquakes from destroying it. Thirty-three steps lead to a monumental doorway, inside there are 46 columns linked by two rows of niches, which once housed statues. Historians believe that this temple witnessed some mysterious rituals and were not accessible to the un-initiated. The temple doubtless witnessed the culmination of the Roman year with the celebrations on 16th and 17th March, the feast days of Bacchus.

Bacchus was the Roman adaptation of Dionysus the Greek 'God of Wine' the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, he induced the frenzy known as bakkheia. His own rites, the Dionysian Mysteries, were the most secretive of all with a relationship to the 'cult of the souls' in his ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead. He is one of the twelve Olympians and a major figure of Greek mythology. He was also known as the Liberator (Eleutherios), freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy, or wine. Dionysus is a god of mystery religious rites, such as those practised in honour of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis near Athens.

In the Thracian mysteries, Dionysus wears the 'bassaris' or fox-skin, symbolizing new life. His female followers were the maenads, the most significant members of the Thiasus, the retinue of Dionysus. Their name literally translates as 'raving ones'. Often the maenads were portrayed as being inspired by Dionysus into a state of ecstatic frenzy, through a combination of dance and intoxication, loosing all self-control, shouting excitedly, and engaging in uncontrolled sexual behaviour, and then ritualistically hunting down and tearing their victim, usually animals but occasionally even men and children, to pieces and devouring the raw flesh. During these rites, the maenads would dress in fawn skins. A group of maenads killed Orpheus in such a manner. The frolicking of maenads and Dionysus is often a theme depicted in the paintings of Greek kraters, a vessel used to mix water and wine. These scenes show the maenads in their frenzy running in the forests, often tearing to pieces any animal they happen to come across. In Roman mythology the female worshippers of Dionysus, the maenads, were known as Bassarids (or Bacchae or Bacchantes) and celebrations in his honour were called the Bacchanalia, after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear the fox-skin, the bassaris.

The Temple of Bacchus

The Bacchic cult had been established in Greece for centuries and was established in Etruria and southern Italy and for also a period in Rome. In 186 BC the Roman Senate, alarmed at reports of deterioration in the ceremonies considered the cult a threat to the state and attempted to regulate the practice throughout the country. The Roman Senate attempted to ban the cult with the so-called Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, found inscribed on a bronze tablet in Calabria, now at Vienna, in which it decreed that the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout all Italy except in certain special cases which must be approved specifically by the Senate.

Titus Livius (59 BC – AD 17), known as Livy, in his monumental History of Rome (Book 39.8-19) described the ban on Dionysan worship:

'The Senate decreed that the priests of these rites, male and female, were to be sought out..........This Dionysiac mystery-cult, according to the consul is a growing evil; its adherents grow more numerous every day it weakens loyalty to the state; it is a conspiracy; it is the sole cause of all the evils of recent years; and unless we are vigilant, it will take over the state (for that is their aim)......The next task entrusted to the consuls was the destruction of all shrines of Bacchic worship, first at Rome and then throughout Italy...for the future it was provided by decree of the Senate that there should be no Bacchanalia in Rome or Italy.'

The Temple of Jupiter
Unlike Bacchus’s temple, not much remains of the Temple of Jupiter but the most notable sight, even from some distance, is the six gigantic Corinthian columns still-standing, the largest in the ancient world. Originally, there were 54 of these columns, each about 72 feet high, dwarfing the 24 foot-high columns of Rome’s Acropolis. The Jupiter temple complex has four sections: the monumental staircase entrance, or Propylaea, leading into the Hexagonal Court, then into the Great Court and finally a further staircase to the Temple itself, where the six remaining columns were built on a podium 22 feet above the Court and possibly un-roofed and open to the elements. These massive six columns and the entablature provide a glimpse of the vast scale of the original structure, measuring 157.5 feet in width and 288.7 feet in length, the complex of the Temple of Jupiter completely dwarfs the Temple of Bacchus and the other structures. It has been suggested that the great columns, constructed of Aswan granite, appear to have been reworked from an earlier possibly Hellenistic style.

The Six surviving columns of the Jupiter Temple

The Temple Podium was built of some of the most gigantic stones ever crafted by man. At the side of the podium, incorporated into the west wall, is the 'Trilithon', consisting of three enormous stones weighing an estimated 800 – 1000 tons each, mounted on another course of blocks weighing around 350 - 400 tons each.

Legend records the first temple at Baalbek as the construction of Cain before the Deluge and rebuilt by a race of giants under the command of Nimrod after the flood; the work of the Cyclopes.

Hand of the Cyclopes Part II: The Ancient Mystery of Baalbek

* * *

Finding Atlantis

2011-06-26T13:08:00.002+01:00

National Geographic (Sky Channel 526)
Sunday 26 June, 8pm

"I avoid using the word Atlantis in my books because most people when they hear the word Atlantis immediately think that they're dealing with the lunatic fringe.” (Graham Hancock, Horizon, BBCTV, 14th December 2000)

The tale of the lost city of Atlantis said to have disappeared into the sea has fascinated writers for millennia – yet mention of the fabled legend immediately earns authors the label of being a crank and open prey to the academic establishment. So here we go.

Graham Hancock, the most successful of recent writers on the fabled city of Atlantis, wrote of an advanced civilisation in Fingerprints of the Gods (1995) that, following a world wide catastrophe, that ended the last ice age, around 11,500 years ago, had left their wrecked homeland and went out to civilise the world. Hancock goes on to cite the civilisers of the South Americas and huge megalithic structures around the world, such as the pyramids both sides of the Atlantic, using precession of the equinoxes at various ancient sites to underline this date. Basing the conclusion of Fingerprints of the Gods on the work of Rand Flem'Ath, When the Sky Fell (1995), who had further developed the Earth Crust Displacement theory of Charles Hapgood; Atlantis was in Antarctica under two miles of ice.

Hancock's book became immensely popular, but the kick back was the onslaught of debunking he suffered and was challenged by academia to provide proof of his theory; where was this lost civilisation?

Hancock's response was Underworld: The Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age (2002) 700+ pages and a Channel Four TV series detailing a worldwide exploration for the underwater ruins of a lost civilization, following clues in ancient scriptures and mythology and scientific evidence of the flood that swept the Earth at the end of the last Ice Age. However, Underworld failed to convince the academics and Hancock gave up on his quest for the lost civilisation and resorted to writing fiction where he could be master of any creation he chose and free from academic criticism.

Of course the story from Homer's Iliad, telling of the forbidden love between Helen, wife of the King of Sparta, and Paris, son of Priam of Troy, resulted in a war that destroyed a civilization, was just legend until Heinrich Schliemann, with Frank Calvert, uncovered the original site of Troy, at Hisarlik, in Turkey. If Schliemann and Calvert had proved that ancient texts such as the Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid could reflect actual historical events, then we cannot dismiss the possibility that Plato's account of Atlantis could also have an historical basis.

Has the fabled lost city of Atlantis been located?
Now a television documentary, screened tonight, may have unearthed evidence of the lost civilisation. Using satellite photography, ground-penetrating radar and underwater technology, experts are surveying marshlands in Spain to look for proof of the ancient city. If this team of scientists can match geological formations to Plato's descriptions and date artifacts back to the time of Atlantis, we may be closer to solving one of the world's greatest mysteries.

Since writing the legend of Atlantis in 360BC, Plato's tale has captivated the world and many have dedicated their lives to locating the lost island. Plato believed Atlantis, existing around 9600 BC, lay in front of the ‘Pillars of Hercules’, an area now known as the Straits of Gibraltar. He described it as a large and powerful island, home to Gods and Kings, but following a failed invasion of Athens Plato tells how “in a single day and night of misfortune, the island… disappeared into the depths of the sea....... and vanished.”

While some ancient writers thought the stories were merely fiction, others believed it to be real. And the debate still rages today, with scientists, writers and scholars putting forward different theories about its location and what actually happened.

Armed with Plato’s descriptions, three teams set out to either support or disprove possible locations of Atlantis, with one team uncovering a strong lead; they discover a city off the coast of Southern Spain, which was lost to a tsunami 9,000 years ago. Using state-of-the-art technology, experts search the marshlands of Spain to try to uncover the location of the fabled lost city of Atlantis.

Hancock vindicated?

National Geographic - Finding Atlantis 1/4

1 of 4 videos - All rights reserved National Geographic ©

* * *

The Tombs of the Genii

2011-06-18T19:45:00.001+01:00

The Biggest Stone Moved by Man?
Recently I posted an article discussing how the ancients moved massive stones over great distances, Moving Megaliths. In this post I mentioned the Roman temple complex at Baalbek, named after the gods worshipped by the ancient Phoenicians but then known as Heliopolis (City of the Sun), high above the Beqaa plain in Lebannon, which appears to have been constructed upon the base of an ancient temple site. Legend records the ancient temple as the construction of Cain before the Deluge and then rebuilt by a race of giants under the command of Nimrod after the flood. Incorporated into the foundations of this ancient temple are three massive stones estimated to weigh 800 tons each known as the Trilithons. The Trilithons were raised 20 feet to sit in the third course of the temple foundations, beneath these 24 blocks of 300 tons make up a lower course. The Trilithons have been so accurately placed it is not possible to push a knife blade between them. These massive blocks are generally considered the largest stones moved by man in a construction, unmatched in antiquity or modern times.

Less than a mile from the ancient temple complex at Baalbek, is an even larger quarried block known as the Stone of the Pregnant Woman, (or Stone of the South), still attached to the bedrock. Measuring 71 feet long, 14 feet high, and 13 feet wide it is estimated to weigh at least 1000 tons. A second ancient monolith was discovered in the same quarry in the 1990s, its weight estimated at 1,242 tons. Although these two massive stones did not leave the quarry the original intention clearly appears to have been to use them in the ancient temple at Baalbek and therefore can justifiably be considered the largest stones worked by man.

However, the title of the world's largest megaliths ever discovered may belong not to Baalbek but a set of "tombstones" located on the Kora River in Kazakhstan. The Kora river gorge is probably one of the most scenic in the region of Semirechye (Land of Seven Rivers). The river rises high in the mountain ranges of the Jungar Alatau. The rivers Kora, Chizhe and Tekeli come together to form the river Karatal, which flows into Lake Balkhash, one of the largest lakes in Asia.

The Jungar Alatau is a range of mountains between the Altai and the principal massifs of the Tien Shan, marking the deserted mountain borderlands of Kazakhstan and China. The lowland between the Jungar Alatau and the Tarbagatai mountains forms a natural gap known as 'The Jungar Gate,' the favoured route of Genghis Khan and his forces on their journey west, the most important crossroads of the ancient routes on the Eurasian continent.

Known as the Tombs of the Genii, five massive standing stones were discovered by the Kora River in 1860 by Thomas Witlam Atkinson. The largest recorded of this megalithic group measuring 76 feet high by 24 feet wide by 19 feet deep. Modern estimates to the weight of this massive megalith provide figures between 3,000 and 4,000 tons. Atkinson reported a sixth even larger stone lying recumbent, half buried in the ground. The massive stones are recorded in Atkinson's 1861 book Travels In The Regions Of The Upper And Lower Amoor.

Sketch from Atkinson's book

The following is an excerpt from Chapter VI: The Kora and Traditions:

"Having travelled onward several miles, I arrived at a part of the valley where the Kora makes a bend toward the cliffs on the north, leaving a space of about 200 yards in width, between the base of the rocks and the river. As I approached this spot, I was almost induced to believe that the works of the Giants were before me, for five enormous stones were standing isolated and on end, the first sight of which gave me the idea that their disposition was not accidental, and that a master mind had superintended the erection, the group being in perfect keeping with the scene around. One of these blocks would have made a tower large enough for a church, its height being 76 feet above the ground, and it measured 24 feet on one side and 19 feet on the other. It stood 73 paces from the base of the cliffs, and was about 8 feet out of the perpendicular, inclining towards the river. The remaining four blocks varied from 45 to 50 feet in height, one being 15 feet square and the rest somewhat less. Two of these stood upright, the others were leaning in different directions, one of them so far that it had nearly lost its equilibrium. A sixth mass of still larger dimensions was lying half buried in the ground; on this, some young picta trees had taken root and were growing luxuriantly.” [1]

An account of these massive stones was later reported in an article in 1876 for the ‘Journal of Transactions’ by John Eliot Howard, [2] using Atkinson as its source who appears to be the only person to report the monoliths from a first hand account.

Fact or fable?
Books on strange and unexplained phenomena cover topics from the Loch Ness Monster to Ancient Nuclear Warfare, yet accounts of the Tombs of the Genii are surprisingly absent from their pages. Indeed, I could only find one brief reference to these massive stones. [3] Atkinson is our sole source. The terrain of Kazakhstan varies from flatlands, steppes, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, glaciers and snow-capped mountains to deserts; it is absolutely vast, the world's largest landlocked country, covering an area of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq miles) – an area larger than Western Europe.

If these stones actually exist, is it possible that these huge megaliths can go undetected in this age of modern technology?

Notes:
1. Thomas Witlam Atkinson, Travels In The Regions Of The Upper And Lower Amoor, Hurst And Blackett, 1861, pp.117-119.
2. John Eliot Howard, The Early Dawn of Civilization, Victoria Institute, Journal of the Transactions, 9:239, 1876.
3. David Hatcher Childress, Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients, Adventures Unlimited Press, 2000, p.116.

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Merlin's Mound of Neolithic Origin

2011-06-02T21:01:00.004+01:00

Merlin's Mound, located some 25 miles north of Stonehenge and 5 miles east of Silbury, one of the biggest mysteries in the Wessex landscape and reputed burial site of Merlin the legendary wizard has been dated to the Neolithic period.

Following excavations, new evidence suggests the mound at Marlborough, Wiltshire, was constructed around 4,400 years ago, making it contemporary with the nearby Silbury Hill, [1] suggesting that both neolithic structures are likely to have been constructed over many generations.

Merlin’s Mount, Marlborough, engraving 1810

The Mound, also known as Merlin's Mount, located in the grounds of Marlborough College, has long been recognised as a landscape feature of considerable historical significance. It was the motte on which the keep of Marlborough Castle was built some fifty years after the Norman Conquest.

Samples of charcoal were retrieved during recent coring of the Mound, allowing radiocarbon dating for the first time. The samples, which came from different levels in the Mound, were taken from two bore holes through the height of the 19m (62') monument, showing that it was built in the years around 2400 BC. This is the first solid evidence to confirm that the castle motte is largely a re-used prehistoric structure. At two-thirds the height of Silbury, Marlborough Mound now becomes the second largest prehistoric mound in Britain.

It had previously been suggested the Mound dated back to about 600 AD, the Arthurian Age, legend claiming it as the elusive site of Merlin’s grave. Merlin, as Arthur's wizard, is largely the creation of Geoffrey of Monmouth. There is a tradition, tantalisingly close to the date of Geoffrey’s Vita Merlini, (Life of Merlin) c.1150AD, in which it was recorded in 1215AD that the town was named after 'Merlin's Tumulus', when Alexander Neckham wrote in a poem: "Merlin's tumulus gave your name, Merleburgia". [2] The town's motto 'Ubi nunc sapientis ossa Merlini' meaning ‘Where now are the bones of wise Merlin’ adds further speculation to the location of the wizard’s grave. It is possible of course that Merlin’s Mount was known by that name prior to the circulation of Geoffrey’s tales of Merlin, but the name ‘Merlin’ is not found recorded prior to Geoffrey, indeed in 1086AD it was recorded as ‘Merleberge’ (Maerla's Hill), a Saxon name.

The recent archaeological investigations, including the radiocarbon dating were led by Jim Leary for English Heritage, who said, “This is an astonishing discovery. The Marlborough Mound has been one of the biggest mysteries in the Wessex landscape. For centuries people have wondered whether it is Silbury’s little sister; and now we have an answer. This is a very exciting time for British prehistory”

Notes:
1. Michael Dames, The Silbury Treasue, Thames & Hudson, 1976, pp. 134-136. Dames suggests there is a clear relationship between Silbury, Merlin’s Mount and the Avebury complex. Both hills are situated on the River Kennet, one near its source, the other near its margin.
2. Geoffrey Ashe, The Traveller’s Guide to Arthurian Britain, Gothic Image Publications, 2nd Edition, 1997, p.170.

Sources:
1.The Guardian online - 31 May 2011
2. BBC News online - 31 May 2011

See Also:
The Story of Silbury Hill by Jim Leary and David Field
Silbury: Resolving the Enigma by Michael Dames

* * *

Avebury Cosmos

2011-05-21T14:10:00.004+01:00

The Neolithic World of Avebury henge, Silbury Hill, West Kennet long barrow, the Sanctuary & the Longstones Cove
Nicholas Mann

Published by O-Books, 2011
ISBN 978 1 84694 000 0

Following extensive research into the Avebury complex, Nicholas Mann offers a compelling view into the world of the Neolithic monument-builders in his latest work, Avebury Cosmos, producing a set of powerful insights into ancient cosmology with relevance today.

Avebury Cosmos takes a fresh look at the World Heritage Site that includes not just the Avebury henge, but also West Kennet long barrow and Silbury Hill. Nicholas Mann combines archaeology, astronomy and anthropology to offer an original and convincing account of the building of these extraordinary Neolithic monuments, revealing the reverence of the Neolithic people to Sun, Moon and stars, balancing archaeology with astronomy, offering the most complete perspective on Avebury yet published.

The ancient Britons were inspired by a profound knowledge of the heavens when they erected the monumental stones of Avebury. Mann throws light on the motive behind the creation of its awe-inspiring mounds and megaliths by demonstrating that they were aligned to the cycles of the Sun, Moon and stars.

This book will help visitors and readers to see Avebury in a wholly new light - the light of the heavenly bodies that guided its Neolithic builders. Avebury Cosmos claims to reawaken our ancient reverence for the stars and deepen our respect for the extraordinary abilities and forgotten knowledge of our prehistoric ancestors.

Contents:
Introduction
Acknowledgements

1. Neolithic Astronomy
The Monument-Builders
Avebury Astronomy
Neolithic Cosmos
A Relative Chronology

2.A Sky-Watcher's Paradise
Avebury Henge
Dating Avebury
Stones & Foresights
Inner Circles of the Moon
Time Stones
Assembling Avenury
The Impact of Avebury

3. Windmill Hill & The Mystery of the Moving Stars
The First Settlers: Windmill Hill
The Midwinter Sky
West Kennet Long Barrow & Alpha Centauri
The Northern Pole
The Axial Centre
Sirius: Star of Fertility & the Winter Solstice Sun
Midwinter over Martinsell Hill
A Prologue to Precession
Exact Calendars
The Question of Precession
The Milky Way

4. Avebury: In the Image of the Milky Way
The Great Henge
Silbury Hill & the Southern Stars
Crux: a Southern Cross in the Northern Skies
A Bear Mother Cult?
The Fall of the Milky Way, 4000 - 2000 BCE

5. The Crux-Centaurus Stars
Alpha & Beta Centauri
Stars & Stones: The View from Avebury
Ancient Symbols of Fertility & Healing
The D Feature
The Changing Galaxy

6. Silbury Hill
Mound of the Ancestors
World Mountain
King Sil & Wayland's Smithy
Mound of the Stars

7. The Longstone Cove & Other Enclosures
Adam, Eve & the Beckhamptoon Avenue
Tracking Sirius
Feasts & Games: the West Kennet Palisade Enclosures

8. The Sanctuary at the Crossroads
The Sanctuary
West Kennet Avenue
The Sanctuary & Capella
The Sanctuary & Silbury hill
'A Conspicous and Convenient Notch'
Crossroads of the Stars
The Horns of Taurus

9. Return to Avebury
Avebury Cove
Stars of Precession
A Place in the Cosmos
An astral Drama
Venerating Avebury; The Cosmic Crosses
Sex, Gender & the Avebury Stones
The Roots of the Land: The Two Dragons

10. In the Neolithic World
Self-consciousness in the New Stone Age
The World Tree
Sacred Stones: the Anima Mundi
Animism & Cosmoslogy
The Inner Sanctum
Summary

11. Monuments of Power: from Moon & Stars to Sun
The Rise of Theocracy
The Late Neolithic Elite
Merlin, Stonehenge & Avebury
Gender & Power
Great Ritual Centres
The Stonehenge Sun

Appendix 1: Precession
Appendix 2: The Crossroads of the Ecliptic & the Galaxy
Appendix 3: The Lunar Cycles & Eclipses
Bibliography
Index

From the Introduction:

“Five thousand years ago, an extraordinary sight was visible in the night sky over the British Isles. Every winter night, over the course of several hours, the Neolithic people of Britain saw the galaxy form a complete circle around the horizon. At the same time, the brilliant stars of Crux, the Southern Cross, as well as alpha and beta Centauri, were visible in the southern sky. These first-magnitude giants were embedded like radiant jewels within the complete ring of the Milky Way. This awe-inspiring sight was due to a slow, 26,000-year rotation of the axis of the Earth, known as precession of the equinoxes. Those of us who live at this latitude today can no longer see these southern stars: only our distant ancestors were privileged to see the expanse of the galaxy extending around the horizon.

In this book I describe how the unique night skies of their time inspired and influenced the people who built Avebury henge, Windmill Hill, Silbury Hill the Longstones Cove, the Sanctuary, West Kennet long barrow and other Neolithic monuments near the source of the River Kennet, in Wiltshire, Britain. I show that these awe-inspiring monuments were closely orientated to the sky, that their makers were familiar with not only the cycles of the Sun and the Moon but also those of the stars.

Extensive evidence assembled in the relatively new research field of archaeoastronomy has now confirmed beyond any doubt that when European prehistoric peoples began to build their first monuments they possessed considerable knowledge of the heavens. This knowledge had presumably been developed over tens of thousands of years, in the previous hunter-gatherer Mesolithic and Palaeolithic eras, as part of a rich, oral, mythic and spiritual tradition. Like all tribal peoples these people experienced the world as full of a purposeful and animating force, an anima mundi or world spirit. This power was present on the earth in all life forms, as well as in the sky: as thunder, lightning, fire, Sun, Moon and stars. The Neolithic Britons would have venerated these powers in their stories and traditions, as well as in their skilfully constructed structures of earth, wood, and finally stone.

Indeed, its builders conceived Avebury on such a scale that it seems their goal was to incorporate the spirit of everything into the fabric of their monument. The Neolithic people wanted Avebury to be a mirror of the cosmos, a place that honoured, told and retold all its stories, on earth and in the heavens. They pursued this objective with extraordinary hard work, dragging megaliths and carrying chalk over many centuries, until they had laid out a monumental centre that still moves us today. This place was a powerful expression of their identity, and of their relationship with the surrounding forces of nature and the cosmos.”

Nicholas R. Mann is an internationally respected speaker and author who has spent a lifetime exploring the wisdom of ancient peoples. Born on a farm in Sussex, his first job was as a herdsman. After studying at University College London he obtained a degree in anthropology and ancient history, then he settled in the high desert of the USA where he built and lived in a house made from wood cut from the forest, tended horses, tracked the wildlife and drew his water from a spring. This lifestyle helped Mann to develop an extraordinary sensitivity to the powers of nature, along with a deep respect for tribal culture. He befriended the Hopi elder White Bear, and was honoured by the Yavapai Apache for his research into their native traditions. As a result of these experiences he realised the importance of honouring his own distant cultural heritage. In 2000 Mann returned to Britain to promote greater understanding of its ancient sites and cosmology.

Mann is the author of many books on Earth Mysteries, sacred geometry and prehistoric wisdom including 'The Isle of Avalon'' & 'The Star Temple of Avalon'. His books have sold more than 100,000 copies, with editions appearing in many languages. He has written books on the Sacred Geometry of Washington, D.C., Power points in Sedona, energy secrets of Glastonbury Tor and a classic book on the Red & White springs of Glastonbury. He is a regular speaker and often appears at the Megalithomania conference.

Arthur's Hunting Path
Nicholas Mann has determined that the alignment of Arthur's Hunting Path, a Neolithic trackway from the summit of Glastonbury Tor to Queen Anne’s Well, South Cadbury, in Somerset, is orientated toward critical points in the moon's cycle. He found that when joining the sites of Glastonbury Tor, Cadbury Castle, Hamdon Hill and Barrow Mump it formed a parallelogram, or diamond, with equidistant sides of 11 miles each.

Nicholas Mann & Philipa Glasson's website: The British Mystery School of Avalon

* * *

Massacre at Fin Cop

2011-05-07T09:31:00.022+01:00

Archaeologists question the common perception of Iron Age Britain enjoying a golden age of peace before Roman and later invasions following a gruesome discovery in a Derbyshire hill fort's defensive ditch.

Archaeologists Claim Evidence of a Massacre at Fin Cop
Following initial excavations in 2009 at the site of the Iron Age hillfort of Fin Cop near Monsal Head, Derbyshire, in which Longstone Local History Group specifically targeted how and when the ramparts were erected, archaeologists were surprised to find a prehistoric skeleton in the rock-cut ditch outside the ramparts. [1]

The 10 acre site at Fin Cop, dated to between 440 and 390 BC (Middle Iron Age), is heavily fortified by double bank and ditches to the south and east, while to the north and west the deep limestone gorge of Monsal Dale falls away to the river Wye below. The valley here, complete with Monsal Dale viaduct, is one of the Derbyshire Peak District beauty spots.

Monsal Dale

The main rampart had been deliberately reduced and much of the stone pushed into the rock cut ditch. During this destruction a human corpse had been, seemingly, unceremoniously thrown in as part of the ditch fill with the rampart debris. The adult body appeared to have been thrown haphazardly into the ditch possibly which the archaeologists conjectured was possibly as a result of hostilities. Tests carried out on the skeleton have revealed it was that of a pregnant woman, dating from 400 to 200 BC, which surprised experts as they had believed remains at Fin Cop to be from a military context such as a battle scene between local tribes.

Test pits at the site revealed hundreds of chipped stone artefacts such as scrapers for working animal hides dated to the Mesolithic era (10500-3900 BC).

Additional lottery funding has permitted further excavations to take place at Fin Cop which have revealed that the hillfort was destroyed before it had been completed. The defences appear to have been built hastily perhaps in anticipation of some forthcoming catastrophe; a second, outer wall and ditch had been started but not finished. The fort's stone wall had been broken apart and the rubble used to fill the 400m perimeter ditch. In this ditch they found a further eight skeletons. [2]

In addition to the skeleton of the pregnant woman found beneath the collapsed stone wall in 2009, the remains of a teenage boy were discovered huddled at the bottom of the ditch, along with seven more skeletons, all women or children. Burials are relatively rare from the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age; deposits from the period typically characterised by the presence of single bone deposits at both hillforts and settlements. For example a human skull dating to the Early Iron Age was found in Aylesbury hillfort ditch where it is thought to have been placed as a ritual commemoration of the boundary. However, the Middle Iron Age saw a dramatic increase in the number of formal inhumation burials on settlements, albeit in storage pits, with a corresponding decrease in the number of single bone deposits.

The boundaries of settlements are increasingly being recognised as much of social and symbolic significance in addition to serving a practical function and the appearance of deposits of human bone in such contexts should not necessarily be seen as surprising. However, the find of the nine skeletons is reportedly the first time that carelessly-placed Iron Age burials have been found in the UK, which archaeologists are interpreting as the selective massacre of women, babies, a toddler and a single teenage male.

The archaeological team believe they were probably massacred after the fort was attacked and captured. All were found in a 10m long section of ditch, the only part to be excavated to date. The ditch was 5m wide with 2m deep vertical edges and would have guarded a 4m high perimeter wall. Animal bones, also found in the ditch, suggest the fort's inhabitants kept cattle, sheep and pigs. There were also remains from horses which has been interpreted as indicating some of the hillfort's inhabitants were of high status.

Dr Clive Waddington, who directed the two-year dig for Archaeological Research Services, said the findings provide a rare insight into warfare in pre-Roman Britain; "There has been an almost accepted assumption amongst many archaeologists that hill forts functioned as displays of power, prestige and status and that warfare in the British Iron Age is largely invisible."

He added, "The gruesome discoveries at Fin Cop have reopened the debate on the purpose of hill forts. For the people living here, the hurriedly constructed fort was evidently intended as a defensive work in response to a very real threat." [3]

However, talk of an Iron Age massacre appears to be premature at this stage as none of the nine skeletons show signs of violence, suggesting the cause of death may have been from disease, such as plague. Furthermore, at this stage we cannot rule out the possibility of a votive deposit; there is increasing evidence that human pit burials, often found close to the settlement limits, do not represent the normal Iron Age burial rite, but have some other significance, possibly representing sacrificial offerings. This is supported by the absence of adult male remains in the ditch at Fin Cop.

It must be stressed that only 10 metres of the 400 metre long ditch have so far been investigated, yet archaeologists suspect the remains of hundreds more victims may lie in the neighbouring stretch of ditch. With further excavations yet to be completed we should exercise caution until a fuller picture can be constructed.

Local Folklore
Monsal Dale is one of the most picturesque sites in the Peak District and an area steeped in folklore and superstition. Although there is no public access to the hilfort at Fin Cop you can walk through this atmospheric valley of the river Wye from Monsal Dale. Across the A6 road, opposite Fin Cop, is the steep-sided limestone gorge known as Demon's Dell, complete with overhanging ferns and mosses it is somewhat reminiscent of Lud's Church near Leek in Staffordshire. Excavations at Demon's Dell have unearthed cremation urns dating from c.2500BC.

On the northern side of Fin Cop is a fissure in the limestone, a landslip cave known as Hob's House, or Hob Thirst Hole, Hob Hurst's House or Hob Hurts Cave and often confused with Thirst House Cave on the Eastern flank of Deepdale at King Sterndale, towards Buxton, and the Hob Hursts House burial chamber, just over half mile north east of Park gate stone circle on on Harland Edge, near Bakewell, where is said if visiting after dusk you can apparently hear the voices of the original inhabitants.

Local legend states that Hob was a giant who came out at night to thresh the corn of local farmers, who in turn would reward him with a bowl of cream. There are many references to the sprite in Derbyshire helping local farmers but if they didn't reward him he would make mischief.

Hob's House is said to have been the home of the giant Hulac Warren who was turned to stone for attempting to violate a shepherdess. During the attack she threw herself to her death and where her body landed a spring of pure water formed. At the bend in the river Wye, near Demon's Dell, stands the Warren Stone, which local lore claims is the petrified remains of the giant.

Hob, the giant Hulac Warren, is depicted in a local rhyme as the Fiddler of Fin:

The piper of Shacklow,
The fiddler of Fin,
The old woman of Demons Dale,
Calls them all in. [4]

Sources:
1. A prehistoric 'war grave' found near beauty spot? - Buxton Advertiser August 2009.
2. Evidence of a massacre at Fin Cop in Derbyshire - Guide to Derby 18 April 2011.
3. Who killed the hill fort nine? The Guardian 09 April 2011
4. Mike Harding, Walking the Peak and Pennines, Michael Joseph, 1992.

For further information: Fin Cop Hillfort: Solving a Debyshire Mystery - Archaeological Research Services Ltd (ARS Ltd)

* * *

Megalithomania Conference 2011

2011-05-01T16:09:00.002+01:00

"What were the ancients up to?"

It's only two weeks until Megalithomania holds its sixth consecutive annual conference at Glastonbury on 14th and 15th May 2011 with a full line-up of international Earth Mysteries authors, visionaries and antiquarians, all pondering that same question.

This year with two full days of talks and debates covering all aspects of the megalithic arts and sciences, with speakers including Robert Temple, John Major Jenkins, John Martineau, Christopher Knight, Hugh Newman, Andy Burnham, Peter Knight and Lucy Wyatt.

Itinerary:

SATURDAY 14 May
9.00 – Doors Open
9.45 – Introduction
10.00 - PETER KNIGHT - West Kennet Project
11.30 - LUCY WYATT - Shamanic City States
2.00 - HOWARD CROWHURST - Brittany: Megalithic Origins in France
3.15 - Dr CARMEN BOULTER - Matriachal Societies in Prehistory
4.45 - CHRIS KNIGHT & ALAN BUTLER - Thornborough Henge: Before the Pyramids
7.00 - JOHN MAJOR JENKINS - Mayan & Olmec Time Science

SUNDAY 15 May
9.00 – Introductions & News
9.30 - HUGH NEWMAN - Megaliths of East Anglia
10.45 - ANDY BURNHAM - Obscure Stone Circles around the World
12.00 -SEMIR SAM OSMANAGICH - Pyramids of Europe & Bosnian Update
2.30 - JOHN MICHELL MEMORIAL LECTURE
With JOHN MARTINEAU , hosted by CHRISTINE RHONE
3.45 - ROBERT & OLIVIA TEMPLE - Egyptian Dawn: Re-Dating the Pyramids & the Meditteranean Connection
5.30 - SPEAKERS FORUM - Hosted by JOHN MARTINEAU
6.30 – CLOSING ADDRESS
7.00 - CONFERENCE CLOSES

In addition to the two day conference a number of tours and workshops have been planned:

FRIDAY 13th MAY:
MEGALITHIC SITES AROUND GLASTONBURY
Tour to the Deerleap Stones, Brecon Hill Tumuli and Megalith, and Stanton Drew triple Stone Circles with Geoff Stray and Anthony Thorley.

MONDAY 16th MAY:
THE ANCIENT STONES OF DORSET
Tour of village with Cerne Abbas Chalk Hill Giant, Church visit, Abbey grounds, Sacred well, Hellstone Dolmen (nr Dorchester), Moot Stone, walk to Grey Mare and Her Colts long barrow, Nine Stones stone circle. With Peter Knight.

JOHN MAJOR JENKINS - "The 2012 Story"
Evening Lecture. The untold story of the incredible sequence of events, discoveries and insights that has unlocked the secret of the Mayan calendar end-date of 2012, from one of the worlds leading scholars on the subject.

TUESDAY 17th MAY:
SACRED GLASTONBURY - WALKING TOUR:
Walking tour to Chalice Well, Red & White Springs, Glastonbury Tor, The Egg Stone, Michael & Mary Lines, Glastonbury Abbey.Includes entrance fees to Chalice Well & Abbey, with Anthony Thorley.

JOHN MAJOR JENKINS - "The 2012 Story"
1.30 - 5.30pm: In-depth Workshop exploring Mayan Cosmology, Olmec time-science, Galactic Alignment, Aztec Codex research, Indigineous prophecies, the Tortuguero Inscription and the incredible story of how the ancient secret of 2012 has been revealed.
6.00pm onwards - Optional Full Moon Candlelit Ambient evening at Chalice Well Gardens or Folk Night at The Assembly Rooms, Hosted by Nathan Lewis Williams.

WED 18th MAY GRAND TOUR OF AVEBURY & STONEHENGE
Peter Knight leads a tour of the Great henge at Avebury, dowsing Michael and Mary lines with a viist to West Kennet long barrow (astronomy, dowsing and short acoustic demo with drumming), Woodhenge, Stonehenge environs including barrows, the Avenue and Cursus. Includes a Private Access visit to Stonehenge at 7.45pm to view Full Moon and Sunset. Based on Peter Knight's two books The Wessex Astrum and West Kennet Long Barrow: Landscape, Shamans and the Cosmos.- with special Guest appearances from Andrew Collins & Maria Wheatley.- SOLD OUT.

Following the successful MEGALITHOMANIA EGYPT TOUR, 13th - 26th October 2010 hosted by Robert Bauval [*] and Hugh Newman the organisers of Megalithomania conference have planned two International tours for 2011:

'Megalithomania Solstice Brittany Tour' with Howard Crowhurst & special guest - 14th - 22nd June 2011.

'Bosnia Pyramids and Megalithic Sites' with Semir Sam Osmanagich - 7 days in Early September 2011

Full details at: Megalithomania

* Note: Robert Bauval and co-author Thomas Brophy are currently appearing as Author of the Month for May 2011 on the Graham Hancock Message Board discussing their latest book Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt.

* * *

Opposition to World Heritage Site Protection Plan

2011-04-29T22:02:00.001+01:00

Claims that the buffer zone used to protect the Bru na Boinne sites of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth was being expanded by stealth and that this was preventing local people from getting planning permission for housing were made by councillors at a meeting of the Slane Electoral Area Committee of Meath County Council in Duleek.

Local Councillors says there could be serious implications for whole areas after it is announced that local councils will have no input into the plan seeking protection for the Brú na Bóinne complex in Ireland. The most well-known sites within Brú na Bóinne are theNeolithic passage graves of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, all famous for their significant collections of megalithic art.

Newgrange

A proposal which would see the drawing up of a framework plan aimed at protecting the Brú na Bóinne complex in the Boyne Valley is meeting with opposition because opponents say local councillors will be excluded from the consultation process.

Landowners in the general area of Brú na Bóinne were having continuing problems with the status of their land under proposals to protect the delicate archaeological area after it was announced that a framework plan for the protection of Brú na Bóinne complex will be drawn up and agreed between the two councils and it does not require the consent of the members of the local councils.

Questions had been asked at a recent meeting of Meath County Council about discussions over the plan, said to have been conducted between the council and officials from Louth County Council. According to councillors, the Department of the Environment had tasked the two councils with drawing up the framework plan.

Independent Duleek councillor Jimmy Cudden is reported a saying, "Nobody in the Boyne Valley could have any problem with the protection of the Brú na Bóinne site, but now we have been informed that the framework plan will be drawn up and agreed between the two councils and it does not require the consent of the members of the local councils."

He added, "I would have a problem with that and would be totally opposed to it. It couldn't possibly be an agreed plan if the representatives of the local communities are not involved in the process."

Cllr Cudden called for the protection of the area to be helde under a local area plan (LAP), in which the views of council representatives and local residents were taken into account.

The buffer zone was there to protect the ancient monuments, a situation now existed whereby that zone had been extended and people living in this newly created buffer zone could not get planning permission.

Area manager Tadhg McDonnell said that Bru na Boinne was one of three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the country, the other two being the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland and the Skelligs, off the Co Kerry coast. He added that there was nothing to show that Meath County Council was in any way draconian in its approach to planning, but there were quite specific criteria for heritage areas and the county development plan included an appeals mechanism.

Source: The Meath Chronicle 30th March 2011

* * *

Human Remains to be Retained

2011-04-16T16:58:00.008+01:00

Ministry of Justice U-turn on Ancient Remains

The latest issue of British Archaeology (No 118 May/June 2011) reports that after reviewing the 1857 Burial Act, the Ministry of Justice has decided that archaeologists in England and Wales will not now routinely be required to rebury all excavated human remains, as has been the case since 2008 when the guardianship of burial law moved from the Home Office to the Ministry of Justice. Archaeologists would normally apply for licences to excavate human remains, but the whole matter became confused when the Ministry of Justice then declined to issue them.

British Archaeology magazine, the flagship publication of the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) launched a campaign last year requesting re-interpretation of the law, and in February 40 professors of archaeology wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice seeking long-term retention of remains. British Archaeology commenced its campaign in November 2010 with the sensationalised headline “THE HUMAN REMAINS CRISIS” plastered across the front cover of Issue 115 (November/December 2010) with archaeologists excavating human remains in England and Wales being required to hide their fieldwork from public view, and re-inter the remains in a legal burial ground, normally within two years.

In February the decision was made to change the process and the matter now appears to have been resolved with newly issued licences stipulating that archaeologists may retain the remains in suitable facilities after immediate study is completed. The Under Secretary of State for Justice, Jonathan Djanogly, stated that the department had “come to the conclusion that there is no room to apply the provisions more flexibly than previously seemed the case.” Djanogly added that “a more satisfactory way forward can be found which will allow the retention of human remains in appropriate circumstances,” adding that he had directed any new licence applications to be considered on this more flexible basis.

This appears to be a complete turn-around by the Ministry of Justice as in November 2010 a victory was declared for the Stonehenge Druids on the Reburial Issue stating that although a decision had been made to grant an extension to the re-burial condition for five years, in accordance with the application made on behalf of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, instructions for said licence to be amended had been issued with the provision that once the work has been completed the religious views of the Pagans and Druids will be respected and the remains of the Stonehenge ancestors removed from Aubrey Hole 7 would be re-interred.

In August 2008 the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) re-opened Aubrey Hole 7 deliberately targeting some 50,000 bone fragments, that had been placed in the hole in 1935. The remains of Aubrey Hole 7 were due to be re-interred after 2 years but SRP applied for an extension to allow for further study. This extension was approved for a further 5 years to 2015. Under this new decision by the Ministry of Justice it seems unlikely the remains will be returned at all.

Who owns our Antiquity?

The Druids claim for the return of the ancestors seemed to be gaining momentum when in October 2010 it was announced that Druidry is to become the first pagan practice to be given official recognition as a religion after the Charity Commission accepted that Druids' worship of nature spirits could be seen as religious activity. An official religious body requesting the return of the remains of their ancestors would at first glance appear to have a reasonable case, but it has been argued that the Druids have no more legitimate claim on the remains than the archaeologists with no historical basis for the Druids links with Stonehenge until the antiquarians of the 16^th and 17^th centuries conceived the notion of the monument as a Druidic temple.

Be that as it may, but it if the Druid organisations had not entered the arena with the archaeologists over the return of the ancestors who else was going to claim them? What gives the archaeologists any more rights over these remains than the Druids, or you or me. This raises the issue of who owns our antiquity?

Perhaps we should not be too surprised at the outcome in Big Society Britain of 2011. In 2006 a claim was lodged by the Council of British Druid Orders for the reburial of Charlie and seven other human remains. ‘Charlie’ is the name used for the remains of a 3 year old baby excavated from Windmill Hill, Avebury in the 1920s and currently on display at the Alexander Keiller Museum.

Charlie has been on display since the Avebury museum opened. She was carefully laid to rest on a hilltop nearly 5,000 years ago, carefully buried as if she had been put to bed, only to end up on display in a glass cabinet as the star attraction at a museum.

English Heritage and The National Trust held a public consultation on the future of 'Charlie'. Many archaeologists were disappointed and angered that English Heritage and the National Trust were giving the druids' claim serious consideration. The public consultation was launched in 2008 by English Heritage who stated:

“We respect the beliefs that have led to this request, and we have taken the request seriously. These remains are important for our understanding of the past.

“We found that the public overwhelmingly support the retention and display of prehistoric human remains in museums, and that there is no clear evidence for genetic, cultural or religious continuity of a kind that would justify preferential status to be given to the beliefs of the group which requested reburial.”

In a public opinion poll of 1,000 people, conducted in June 2009 by English Heritage, 90% of respondents said they were comfortable with prehistoric human remains being kept by museums. This is hardly a surprising result from a poll conducted from a select number of visitors to the Museum and cannot by any measure be considered “overwhelming support.”

In April 2010 the decision was made to keep the remains of the 3 year old neolithic child on public view. Of course if Charlie's remains had been re-interred it would have set a precedent for the remains of many other museum exhibits to be removed from their hideous glass coffin display cases and reburied also and that would never do.

English Heritage’s decision was based upon the principals set out in the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums, published in 2005, claiming that the benefits of having the skeleton on display in the museum far outweighed any harm. No mention here of public decency or respect for our ancestors.

Across Britain the drawers and cupboards of museums and scientific establishments are stuffed full of the human remains of our ancestors. Why do we need to keep so many? Many of these remains were purposefully placed at ancient sites, in the henge ditch, under a megalith, in the centre of the monument along the axis or either side of the entrance, not simply as burials as we think of them but placed in the earth at specific points to sanctify these sites.

I don't think we will ever fully understand the Neolithic mind but it was on a vastly superior level to our own 21^st century values shaped by our modern plastic world. The ancients shared a unique relationship with the landscape and on burial effectively becoming a part of it. By taking them away they are removing the very soul of the site.


The sun goes down over Barclodiad y Gawres on the west coast of Anglesey (pic: Author)

* * *

The Boles Barrow Bluestone

2011-04-13T23:01:00.004+01:00

"Barrow digging gained impetus during the 1840s, and in many areas where tumuli proliferated the barrow openers likewise increased. The years 1840 – 70 can justifiably be called the 'boom years', when the subject almost approached the proportions of a field sport. In 1851 Carrington wrote, 'in no age or nation have the investigations of the past from the contents of the tumuli been so arduously pursued as they have of late in this Kingdom'. Many of these diggings were reprehensibly carried out, more often than not in a mere scrambling after relics.” [1]

The Barrow, the Garden and the Museum
There is an ongoing argument that the bluestones of Stonehenge were transported to Salisbury Plain by glaciation and that Neolithic people were neither capable, nor had the desire, to transport exotic stones some 200 miles from south west Wales, stating that megalith building was done simply by use of whatever material was close at hand. I have argued previously [2] [3] that neither of these arguments stands up to scrutiny.

A stone, said to be the same as the Stonehenge Bluestones, found in a long barrow about 10 miles west of Stonehenge in 1801 is seen by supporters of the transportation by ice theory as evidence of bluestone glacial erratics littering Salisbury Plain long before the stone circle was constructed. [4] However, considerable confusion surrounds the Boles Barrow bluestone, now on display in the Salisbury Museum, and its uncertain archaeological context as we shall see in the tale of The Barrow, the Garden and the Museum.

The Barrow
Across Britain from the Neolithic period to the Early Bronze Age we find the barrow was a popular form of tomb for the ancient dead. Many of these burials were rich in grave goods indicating they contained the remains of tribal leaders or chieftains. The earliest form of barrow was the earthen long barrow, dated from the 4th millennium BC, over a thousand years before the earliest stone circles were erected. [5]

Some earthen (built without stone) long barrows were found to have a complete absence of human remains, perhaps fulfilling the role of a cenotaph. These were later followed by long barrows with chambers constructed with stone. West Kennet long barrow is a typical chambered tomb and found to hold the remains of many people, at least 46, as if a community sepulchre. Later, in the Early Bronze Age the round barrow was more popular. This often came in the form of bell or disc shaped barrows which only covered one or two individuals.

The earliest recorded barrow diggings occur in medieval times; in 1237 Henry III granted authority for his brother, the Earl of Cornwall, to dig into Cornish barrows. The digs around these time generally ransacked the barrows in the search for treasures, few if any, excavated for examination of their remains. By the beginning of the 18th century barrows were recognised as the tombs of the ancient inhabitants of Britain. William Stukeley (1687 – 1765) carried out the first objective barrow diggings on record with examination of the a twin bell barrow in the Cursus group just to the north of Stonehenge. Stukeley pursued further barrow excavations around Stonehenge and Avebury but these digs were hardly archaeological digs in the modern sense with Stukeley failing to note the difference between, primary, secondary or intrusive internments. [6]

On reaching its zenith by the 19th century, barrow digging had been elevated to a science. Sir Richard Colt Hoare and William Cunnington opened 465 barrows in Wiltshire in a fifteen year period, 1803 – 18, in the golden age of barrow digging. Hoare organised and funded a wide scheme of field operations each year, with Cunnington the excavator, sending details of his digs by letter, dictated to his daughters, to his sponsor. Their methods were crude compared to modern methods, however, we must bear in mind they had no guidelines or previous experience to follow for this new gentlemen's pursuit. Invariably they would dig a central vertical shaft into the selected barrow, which rarely failed to reveal the barrows contents. Gangs of unskilled labourers would then carry out the preliminary digging putting a trench, or cutting as Hoare called it, through the barrow to the centre and often out the other side. Some later barrow excavations like Wor Barrow in Dorset were completely stripped with all mound material removed. [7] Cunnington's chief assistants were Stephen and John Parker, father and son, of Heytesbury, whereas Hoare employed Philip Crocker as his surveyor and produced detailed maps and sketches of the barrow groups. [8]

Of the 465 barrows in Wiltshire and neighbouring counties opened by Hoare and Cunnington 86 were unproductive and failed to reveal any contents. The most unsatisfactory and disappointing labours experienced by them were the 50 or so earthen long barrows in the vicinity of Salisbury Plain with one notable exception. These earthen long barrows consumed a great expense of time and effort attacking these colossal monuments in a bid to reveal their secrets, often suffering two or three assaults from the labourer's pick and spade, often the excavation becoming dangerous. On one such occasion, in 1801, at Boles (Bowls) Barrow at Imber, near Warminster, some 12 miles west of Stonehenge, when Cunnington was digging at the east end of the barrow he was forced to cease operations following a collapse with large stones rolling down onto the workmen in the trench. The dig revealed a ridge of large stones and flints, extending wider as the workmen dug deeper, which Hoare described as being “like the ridge of a house”. [9]

The excavation of Boles Barrow, a long barrow measuring 150 feet in length, revealed primary deposits of 14 skulls, 5 or more with bones in disorder. Remains of 7 or more ‘heads and horns’ of oxen and a block of bluestone. 3 intrusive skeletons appear to be Saxon. The collapse of the barrow during the excavation has left the context of the bluestone find uncertain; we do not know if it was a block of bluestone placed in the barrow or part of the construction, it may even have been part of a secondary internment. Despite later digs at the barrow by John Thurnam 1864, and William & Henry Cunnington 1885-6, no further bluestone finds were recorded. [10]

The Garden
Following the excavation Cunnington is said to have taken the bluestone to his garden at Heytesbury, where he lived between 1775 and 1810. The name Heytesbury refers to a burh held by a Saxon woman, and is recorded in the Domesday book. An early Saxon church in Heytesbury was rebuilt during the 12th century.

Heytesbury parish is rich in archaeological features, having 111 entries on the Sites and Monuments Record in 2009. Boles Barrow is situated in the north of the parish only a couple of miles from Cunnington's abode. Aided by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Cunnington excavated 20 barrows and earthworks on the Downs around Heytesbury. Several of his archaeological finds were stored in the garden of the house until they were taken to the Salisbury and Devizes Museums following his death on 31 December 1810. He was buried in Heytesbury churchyard.

Cunnington was considered one of the pioneering English antiquarians of the late 18th and early 19th century. Cunnington, a draper and wool merchant, was told by his doctors to 'ride out or die' and so he took up archaeology, in partnership with Colt Hoare and concentrated his work on excavating the barrows of Salisbury Plain. They were the first antiquarians to carry out recorded excavations at Stonehenge in 1798 and again in 1810. They dug around a fallen Trilithon and the fallen slaughter stone confirming that it had once stood erect.

Following his excavation of Boles Barrow in 1801, William Cunnington wrote of the excavation of Boles Barrow which contained ten `large stones' which at first he described as “The stones that composed so large a part of this ridge over the bodies are the same species of stone as the very large stones at Stonehenge”, that is sarsen. At a later date he added a note that amongst these stones he discovered a `Blue hard stone ye same as the upright Stones in ye inner circle at Stonehenge', thought to be non-local dolerite or ‘bluestone'. In another footnote he added that “the stones were from about 28lbs to 200lbs in weight” [11]

He then arranged the ten stones he removed from the barrow in an ornamental circle at the bottom of the lawn around a weeping ash in his garden at Heytesbury. A grand-daughter of Cunnington's named Eliza, recalled in 1864 that the stones in this ring had come from Boles Barrow. Eliza also referred to a larger block of stone, a piece of granite from Dartmoor which she stated was not, “as has been supposed, a stone brought from Stonehenge, but was presented to Mr Cunnington by Sir Richard Colt-Hoare.” [12]

H P Wyndham, MP for Wiltshire had encouraged Cunnington to dig on his land. Cunnington lived at 108 Heytesbury, almost opposite the front gates of Heytesbury House where Wyndham's sister lived. In an account passed on to Ben Cunnington [13] in 1923, Lord Heytesbury's aunt the Honourable Mrs Hamersley, told him that the stone had been taken from the late William Cunnington's garden and that is was known to the occupiers as the “Stonehenge stone” and it was placed under a beech tree where Ben found it. He determined it had been there since before 1860. [14] From there, it was given to the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum by Siegfried Sassoon in 1934.

The Museum
In Cunnington's notes to his letters he states the weight of the Boles Barrow bluestone was less than 200lbs. According to Dr Christopher Green the bluestone in Salisbury Museum “.... is much larger (1,338lbs) than the stones recorded there by Cunnington (28-200lbs), and the ten stones taken by Cunnington to Heytesbury he described as sarsens. …...........There is no unequivocal evidence that the disputed bluestone [at Salisbury Museum] was ever in Cunnington's possession. What we know is that it reached the grounds of Heytesbury House before 1860, supposedly from the nearby garden of Cunnington's house.” [15]

Evidently, it appears that there are two stones in question here: one larger stone at 1,338lbs and a smaller stone weighing between 28 – 200lbs; possibly one of the ten stones brought from Boles Barrow bluestone and the other known as the 'Stonehenge Stone' by William Cunnington's grand-daughter Eliza and Lord Heytesbury's aunt Mrs Hamersley,

Aubrey Burl rules out the possibility of the stone being robbed from Stonehenge during Cunnington's era, stating that no stones had been robbed from the monument as evidenced by John Woods plan of 1740 and Flinders Petrie, 1877, a period of nearly 150 years. [16] However, the statement that “he is unlikely to have left a largish bluestone unplanned” does not stand up to scrutiny. Petrie's survey of 1877 introduced the stone numbering system we still use today and added the original positions of five stones which had fallen or notably shifted since Wood's survey of 1740. Petrie actually records more stones than Wood.

Wood is regarded as being the first to accurately record the state of the monument. His survey took place in 1740 although it was not published until 1747 in "Choir Gaure". He is credited as being the first surveyor to distinguish between erect or leaning stones and those buried in the ground and those lying on the surface. There can be little doubt that Wood's survey is the most accurate record of the condition of the monument until Petrie carried out his survey 137 years later. However, Dr John Smith (the small pox inoculator) writing “Choir Gaur: The Grand Orrery of the Ancient Druids” in 1771 made one or two additions to Wood's plan. Smith showed the complete outline of the leaning stone 14 resting on Bluestone 38. Wood misaligned the stones of the fallen northern trilithon stones 60 and 59b and 59c because they were partially hidden by a hut (or huts) belonging to a Stonehenge tour guide known as Gaffer Hunt. [17] The legend of "the Devil and Stonehenge" first appeared in print in Wood's "Choir Gaure", a tale the author probably received from Hunt. By the time of Smith's visit to the stones, some thirty years after Wood carried out his survey, the hut had been removed revealing the fallen Bluestone 72, which Wood had missed. Wood also missed the third fragment of the fallen lintel, stone 160a probably for the same reason, Gaffer Hunt's hut. [18] Wood could not accurately record the shape of Bluestones 46, 47 and 48 either as they were too 'incumbered with Dung and other Rubbish.' [19]

By omitting Bluestone 72 Wood had indeed “left a largish bluestone unplanned”. Furthermore, we cannot rule out the possibility that he missed other stones that could have been removed before Petrie's survey. Indeed, Antiquarians recorded the robbing and destruction of megalithic monuments from the 17th century continuously up to Petrie's time

As we have seen above William Stukeley recorded the complete destruction of the Sanctuary by 1724. Earlier antiquarians such as Aubrey recorded the burning pits at Avebury and the dramatic decline in stone numbers. At Stonehenge Inigo Jones recorded the destruction of the bluestone circle in 1655, noting that several had disappeared during the intervals of his visits of the last quarter of the 17th century, “since my first measuring the work, not one fragment of some then standing, are now to be found.” [20] William Hawley found evidence for the removal of at least four stones from the western quadrant of the Bluestone circle, probably during the 17th century, judging by the debris left by the stone robbers. This destruction continued into the 19th century when a 'vacation Rambler', from Glastonbury wrote to the editor of the Times in 1871 (before Petrie's survey) noting the demolition at the hand of man since his last visit thirty years previously. [21] In the same year Lord Antrobus was told by a distinguished archaeologist that he had obtained a substantial piece of megalith from Stonehenge for himself. [22]

Indeed, the crux of the debate of the archaeological context of the Boles Barrow bluestone is the robbing of artefacts from ancient monuments; clearly Colt Hoare and Cunnington, as many at the time, saw it as no more than removing legitimate spoils.

William Stukeley records the chipping of stones at the monument as common practice in his day, but in many cases large portions of stones which had fallen must have been carried away. [23] Indeed William Cunnington, grandson of the Barrow digger, recounts the destruction of the stones of Stonehenge. Writing in the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History magazine, vol. xi (1868), p.348 he states, “Depredations are still perpetrated on Stonehenge by excursionists and other visitors. About two years ago, a mass, which must have weighed nearly 56 pounds, was broken, apparently by means of a sledge hammer, from the hard schist, marked No.9 in Hoare's plan.” [24] On Hoare's plan stone No. 9 is part of the inner circle, i.e. the Bluestone circle.

One Stone or Two?
It's all very confusing. Of course the bluestone taken to the museum from the garden of Heytesbury House need not be the Boles Barrow bluestone; as a collector of finds from his barrow diggings, Cunnington very likely had many other artefacts at his residence. However, from the information we have available is it possible to say which stone is which, or indeed was found in the garden of Heytesbury House by Ben Cunnington in 1923?

Cunnington first recorded that he removed ten stones from Boles Barrow that he described as the same as the sarsens, the 'upright large stones'. He then added a note to one of his letters that he had found a bluestone amongst them. Cunnington was an able geologist for his day and should have been quite capable of identifying between sarsen and bluestone.Yet this does not satisfy the question why only one stone from the ten found in Boles Barrow, local or exotic, was taken from Cunnington's garden to Heytesbury House and the question of where are the remainder.

Furthermore, this still does not explain the huge difference in weights, more than 1,000lbs, between the Boles Barrow stones (28 – 200lbs) and the specimen in the Salisbury Museum (1,338lbs). Taken solely on the evidence of the weights of the stones we can conclude with a reasonable degree of confidence that the bluestone on display in Salisbury Museum cannot therefore be the stone from Boles Barrow.

And yet the bluestone from the garden of Heytesbury House known to the occupiers as the “Stonehenge stone” sounds suspiciously as exactly that – a stone removed from the stone circle on Salisbury Plain. In a letter of 1933, R S Newall, assistant to William Hawley in his excavations of Stonehenge between 1919-1926 and discoverer of the Aubrey Holes, stated he found a large piece of spotted dolerite in a cottage garden near Lake House. Newall described it as a rough cube of about 18 inches each way, which might have been broken off the top of a worked monolith of the bluestone horseshoe. The owner of Lake House, near Wilsford, south of Stonehenge, donated the bluestone to the Salisbury Museum. [25]

Are there two bluestones in Salisbury Museum; one from the garden of Heytesbury House and the other from Lake House, both sounding suspiciously like a stone robbed from Stonehenge? There is only one on display claiming to be the Boles Barrow Bluestone. Is there another hidden in the vaults? Although Newall does not specify when the Lake House bluestone was taken to the Museum it must have been before he wrote in 1933. Therefore, it cannot be the same stone as the bluestone from Heytesbury Garden donated to the Museum in 1934.

The so-called Boles Barrow Bluestone in Salisbury Museum is the only foreign rock from south west Wales found in Wiltshire not at Stonehenge that can be considered more than a fragment. Yet the archaeological context of the specimen in the Salisbury Museum is uncertain and cannot be considered secure evidence in any argument.

The Boles Barrow Bluestone remains elusive.

Notes:
1. Barry M Marsden, The Early Barrow Diggers, Tempus, 1999. He continues,“...... Few descriptions of the work were committed to paper, but one or two harrowing accounts, which must serve to represent many more, have been rescued. One from J Walker Ord's History and Antiquities of Cleveland, concerns a barrow opening on Barnaldby Moor in the 1840s: 'earth, charcoal and stones were flung up by the workmen's spades', begins the depressing account.”
2. See: Moving Megaliths
3. See: Stone Selection at Meglithic Monuments.
4. “.....The most compelling evidence for glacial transport of the bluestones is that at least one substantial block was on Salisbury Plain centuries before the construction of Stonehenge. It lay in the Neolithic Boles Barrow which had been blocked up and abandoned long before the bluestone circle was erected.” - Aubrey Burl, Glaciers and the Bluestones of Wales, British Archaeology magazine, No 45.
5. The revised dating of Stonehenge sequence by SRP suggests bluestones could have been in place in the Aubrey Holes around 2900 BC. See: Stonehenge: The New Sequence
6. Marsden, op. cit.
7. See: The Fate of the Tolmen.
8. Marsden, op. cit.
9. Ibid.
10. Anthony Johnson, Solving Stonehenge, Thames & Hudson, 2008, pp.164.
11. Mike Pitts, Hengeworld, Arrow, 2001, pp.199-202.
12. Ibid.
13. William's great grandson Benjamin (1861-1950) was to become the curator of Devizes Museum. Together with his archaeologist wife Maud (1869-1951), famous for excavating Woodhenge, carried out further excavations in the area and were responsible for the re-discovery of the Sanctuary after it had been destroyed, later purchasing the site and presenting it to the nation. See: The Destruction of the Sanctuary
13. Pitts, op.cit.
14. Ibid.
15. Letters - British Archaeology, Issue no 47, September 1999.
16. Burl, op. cit.
17. Johnson, op. cit. pp. 66 – 71.
18. Ibid. Note 38. p.272.
19. Ibid. p.193.
20. Ibid. Note 58 p.275.
21. Ibid.
22. Pitts, op. cit. Note 431, p. 370.
23. William Long, Stonehenge and its Barrows, reprint from the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History magazine, vol. xvi, 1876, p.75.
24. Ibid. p.76.
25. R S Newall, letter in the Wiltshire Gazzette dated 26 October 1933. Newall added that it was the only piece of bluestone he had seen that could have come from Stonehenge.

* * *

Stone Selection in Megalithic Monuments

2011-03-30T19:47:00.014+01:00

“There is an indelible myth about the Preselis. It is frequently asserted that there had been an epic transportation of bluestones from those hills to Stonehenge because they were a landmark to seafarers from Ireland, 'a sacred mountain' whose stones possessed virile and earthly powers. It is unlikely. ….. glaciation is a better explanation for the presence of bluestones on Salisbury Plain. Everywhere else in Britain and Ireland local people used local stones . But for mundane, not magical reasons. Slabs were chosen because they were the closest”. [1]

No Bluestones in Somerset
There is a misconception that Neolithic people were not capable of moving large stones great distances and argue that they simply used whatever material was at hand, claiming that “nearly all stones in a circle are local and seldom came from more than a mile or two away”. [2] These prejudices seem to originate from the notion that Neolithic people were primitive tribal savages; but primitive does not mean backward. Indeed, these megalithic constructions of the Neolithic bear witness to highly developed skills from an advanced civilisation as attested in the megalithic constructions around the world.

These same people, wallowing in their ignorance, argue that Neolithic people were not capable of collecting the Stonehenge bluestones from the Preseli Hills in south west Wales. In denial of the Neolithic peoples capabilities they promote the theory that the bluestones were moved to Salisbury Plain by the action of glaciers. But there is no evidence of glaciation occurring in Wiltshire. Consequently the glaciologists have come up with a revised, compromise theory; the bluestones were moved part way by glacier, part way by man, being transported from south west Wales by a hypothetical Irish Sea glacier that turned sharp left and traversed along the Bristol Channel and deposited the Preseli bluestones in Somerset around Glastonbury.

The first flaw in this argument is that Preseli bluestones are not found in any other megalithic construction outside of Wales. In fact there appear to be no bluestones in Somerset where this hypothetical Irish Sea glacier would have deposited its erratic train. Significantly Preseli bluestone are absent from nearby sites such as Stanton Drew and Avebury. Indeed, the only megalithic site we find them outside of Wales is Stonehenge. A bluestone was claimed to have been found in Boles Barrow on Salisbury Plain but there is considerable doubt about the whole episode.

Secondly, the area around Glastonbury is known as the Somerset levels, it was marshland, peat bog, until drained for agriculture. The many raised wooden trackways constructed across Somerset dating from the Neolithic period, such as the Sweet Track, [3] bear witness to the fact that is was water-logged marshland during this era. From this inhospitable terrain, or so the glacial theory goes, they found the bluestones, pulled them out of the peat bog and transported them to Salisbury Plain for use in the earliest stone construction at Stonehenge. The mind boggles at how you would locate, let alone retrieve 4 ton bluestones from a peat bog.

But using the glaciologists own argument, why would Neolithic people go to the effort of gathering bluestone glacial erratics from the Somerset marshes when ample sarsen stone was available much nearer the site of the monument?

Unless, of course, bluestone was preferable to local stone.

In the majority of stone circles local stone was used, but this cannot be used as an argument to emphasise deficiencies in Neolithic capabilities and against human transportation of the bluestones. Moving the massive sarsen stones, the largest estimated to weigh 50 tons, from Marlborough Downs to Stonehenge is quite an achievement. Likewise, moving the massive stones into the desired location at Avebury, the largest estimated at 60 tons, without modern lifting gear.

But move great stones great distances in the Neolithic they certainly did. But why was it necessary to move these large stones over great distances; why not just build the stone circle where the stones outcropped? Clearly the chosen site location was important, consequently stone had to be moved into that location, sometimes short distances, in other cases great distances, whatever was necessary.

Stonehenge is unique amongst the stone circles of the British Isles; it is not a true henge which should have a bank and ditch in that order (Avebury is a perfect example of a large scale henge monument), but at Stonehenge the outer ditch and inner bank is the reverse of a true henge and has more in common with a defensive counterscarp arrangement found at earlier causewayed enclosures. Furthermore, Stonehenge has worked stones with smoothed faces, whereas most stone circles use unworked, rough stones, typcially Avebury, Stanton Drew, the Rollrights. Also unique to Stonehenge are the 6 ton sarsen lintels raised 6 metres atop the vertical stones, creating a series of portals, located with standard carpentry techniques; tongue and groove longitudinally around the lintel circle and mortise and tenon joints vertically on the sarsens. The lintel ring is almost perfectly level on a natural gradient. Why go to all that bother? The outer bank at typical henge monuments is said to act as a false horizon but at Stonehenge the bank and ditch arrangement is reversed so could not provide that function. For this reason it has been suggested that the purpose of the lintel ring was to provide a false horizon for the ancient stargazers, but it does not need to be set so precisely level to provide this aspect. Stonehenge is full of mystery and continues to pose more questions than answers. It's design is totally foreign amongst typical stone circles of the British Isles.

It should therefore be of no surprise that the choice of lithic materials at Stonehenge is also unique to stone circles. Ample evidence exists amongst other megalithic monuments to demonstrate that the Neolithic people were quite capable of gathering what ever stone was required for specific constructions.

Passage Tombs
Construction of megalithic (from the Greek 'megas lithos' = big stone) monuments began in north western Europe at the beginning of the Neolithic era, c.4000 BC, over a thousand years before the earliest stone circles. These early megalithic monuments, generally found in the west of the British Isles, are classified as types of tomb although of those excavated not all have been found to contain human remains. [4] This suggests classification as tombs is not correct in all cases with some other, as yet not fully understood, intended purpose of use. For this reason the term “temple” is often preferred. [5]

Newgrange passageway

Typical passage tombs possess a narrow passageway lined with orthostats (upright monoliths, often deeply decorated in Irish passage tombs) leading to a main chamber. The passage varies in length from less than 2 metres to over 40 metres as at Knowth in Ireland. Small chambers often lead off the passage way producing a cruciform plan. The passages were roofed with lintels or capstones but the main chamber was usually corbelled. The whole construction was said to be covered by a cairn, although there is little trace of these at some sites. Typical passage tombs are Newgrange in Ireland and Bryn Celli Ddu in Anglesey.

Bryn Celli Ddu

Portal tombs are perhaps the most spectacular monuments with their massive capstones seemingly perched precariously on half a dozen, or often less, upright orthostats. Often the side stones do not support the capstone, giving the appearance that it is resting on a tripod at front and back. Many possess two tall supporting orthostats, the portal stones, at one end providing a distinctive angle to the capstone. In south west England these are called “Portal Dolmens” (from Breton 'taol – maen' meaning 'table stone') or in Wales “Cromlech” (from Welsh 'crom' – 'llech' meaning 'bent flagstone'). In English these are often named as “quoits”, such as Arthur's Quoit. The massive capstone at Kernanstown (Browne's Hill) Dolmen, in County Carlow, Ireland, is thought to be the largest in Europe, weighing an estimated 140 tons. The purpose of these Portal Dolmens has continued to puzzle archaeologists as much as Stonehenge, and yet they share the mystery of raising stone.

Arthur's Quoit

The dolmens and cromlechs possess little evidence of human burials; the small amounts of human remains found underneath the capstone could have been connected with burials, or perhaps was placed as offerings. Indeed in most cases the portal stones are blocked with a smaller stone that fails to support the capstone. The tomb was therefore blocked before the capstone went on. In many cases human remains and other objects appear to have been placed inside the tomb and under the capstone from gaps around the blocking stone between the portals indicating that the primary function was not a tomb; I suspect the offerings, human or otherwise, were inserted later, certainly after construction, and, as we find at many megalithic constructions from the period, were intended for sanctification. Furthermore, no trace of a cairn survives at the majority of portal tomb sites; it is doubtful they were covered at all as many seem to purposefully mimic, or frame a significant view of the local landscape in the shape and positioning of the capstone. [6]

Materialitas
Material selection in many passage tombs and dolmens incorporates both locally and distantly sourced foreign raw materials. The presence of luminescent white quartz within passage graves and long barrows is common right across the distributions of these monument types. In some passage tombs quartz is present as complete boulders used as orthostats or kerbing, while at others it is present as veins running through prominently placed stones. On other sites quartz can be present in the form of pebbles placed within or around the monument as if signifying a boundary.

In addition to the presence of quartz some passage tombs integrate many stone types. On the Channel island of Jersey, the passage tomb La Hougue Bie incorporates at least 9 different types of stone from sources across the eastern half of the Island. At Newgrange in Ireland there are 5 main stone types incorporated into the construction of the Neolithic tomb, collected from distances of up to 40 km both north and south of the Boyne Valley. [7]

The different stone types used at the entrance to Newgrange

Pebbles used in the Newgrange cairn were derived from a local source, the lower river terrace immediately north of the Boyne, about 750m south of the cairn. Orthostats from the passage, the chamber, the roof corbels and all the kerbstones (except 4 of sandstone) are all greywacke stone derived from an area 3- 5 km north and east of Newgrange where the rock naturally outcrops. No doubt much of the stone was collected from the surface but there is also evidence that some was quarried. Further quantities are thought to have been collected from the coastal cliffs at Clogher Head, 10 km north of the mouth of the river Boyne.

Gaps in the Newgrange passage roof were packed with burnt soil mixed with sea sand brought from the mouth of the Boyne, 20 km downstream. Five types of cobbles collected from non-local sources were used to embellish the facades and entrance areas of both Newgrange and Knowth, inclusive of rounded granodiorite cobbles from the Mourne Mountains, 50 km to the north; banded siltsone cobbles and gabbro cobbles originally from the Carlingford mountains which are thought to have been collected from the shoreline of Dundalk Bay, a similar distance from Newgrange. The mysterious granite basins found within the chamber recesses are thought to have also come from the Mourne Mountains.

The reconstructed quartz facade at Newgrange

Perhaps the most fascinating stone type used at Newgrange was the masses of white quartz found around the entrance area and used in the controversial reconstruction of the facade by Michael O'Kelly from 1962 to 1975. This quartz type is distinctive for the flecks of mica it contains, originating in the Wicklow Mountains, 50 km to the south. A smaller quantity was used at Knowth in a platform at the entrance. Many argue that the quartz at Newgrange should not have been used in the facade, striking as it is when the sun hits it, but alternatively, like at Knowth and other passage tombs, across the entrance to mark a sacred boundary. [8]

Indeed it is significant that many materials, cobbles and sand, used at the Boyne valley monuments were brought in from the coast some 40km distant, suggesting this may have been to reconstruct such a boundary; water is known to have formed liminal barriers throughout the mythologies of the world.

The construction of the monuments at the Boyne valley, such as Newgrange and Knowth, demonstrate a very considerable investment of time and other resources. It is estimated that about 2,000 large stones were needed for the orthostats, roof and kerbstones, in addition to the 200,000 smaller stones used in the mound construction of Newgrange alone, as we have seen above , many brought great distances. Evidently the Boyne valley temple complex must have fulfilled a very special role in society. [9]

Specific stone selection in megalithic monument construction was not unique to passage tombs. Studies of the composition of the chambered tombs of the Cotswold-Severn group has found that they were constructed from specifically selected materials. [10] Although studies on the dolmens and cromlechs have not been carried out to such depth it is immediately apparent at some sites that not just local stone has been used in the construction.

In south west Wales we find Carreg Samson, probably better known locally as Long House cromlech, resting in a field above the bay of Aber Castle gazing out across the Irish Sea. From a distance the cromlech has the appearance of a seven-legged stone beast scuttling across the landscape. The large capstone measuring 4.5 metres long by over 2.7 metres wide rests on three of the beast's seven uprights, legend states that St. Samson put the capstone in place himself with just one finger. On closer examination it is immediately obvious that the supporting orthostats are constructed of differing materials. The capstone and three of the supports have quartz inclusions, a conglomerate rock which outcrops locally, the largest piece of quartz found at the entrance to the chamber. Quartz has been specifically selected but the other orthostats are not and must have been imported from another location.

Carreg Samson

Other portal stones, such as at Brackley, Kintyre, and King Orry's Grave on the Isle of Man, include quartz as if marking the significance of the entrance. Quartz is one of the most distinctive stone types used in the chambered tombs of the Irish Sea zone. Although quartz is one of the common minerals in the world the chambered tombs are never constructed solely of this material; in the vast majority quartz seems to have been positioned specifically to mark out important parts of the monument. At many sites quartz is often used for the backstone of the chambers (Greenamore Co. Antrim, Sannox on Arran), at other sites quartz is found solely in the capstone (Tamlaght Co. Derry and Whitehouse, Pembrokeshire). At Ossians's Grave in Co. Antrim quartz is found only on the right handside of the monument and at others quartz is not used in the chamber but is found in the cairn material. Quartz is evidently used differently at different monuments but always for transitional areas such as the entrance or the rear of the chamber. Yet at other sites quartz, although locally ubiquitous is deliberately avoided (Glenvoidean on Bute and Carreg Samson as stated above). Other sites in west Wales used stone not from the local area: Parc y Cromlech, Pembrokeshire and Ty Newydd, North Wales. Quartz was often found as deposits, often as crystals or pebbles, at many sites suggesting it was considered a powerful substance in the Neolithic period.

ConclusionsThe evidence suggests that the constructors of these monuments did not simply use the most convenient local stone but purposefully selected specific stone types for its properties, in some cases travelling great distances if necessary. [11]

Contrary to the negative views of those who are of the opinion that Neolithic people just picked up any old local stone available, it seems beyond doubt that the materials selected and used in the construction of their megalithic monuments were purposefully selected and employed in a range of meaningful ways.

The materials themselves may be taken to represent tokens of other landscapes, pieces of significant places brought together in a new order or a microcosm of the original, maintaining a link with the past. We see this arrangement with the materials used at Stonehenge. Whereas the sarsen stones are quite local, the bluestones derive from south west Wales. The fact that the bluestones do not come from a single deposit but consist of a number of rock types obtainable from the same region suggests it was the original landscape of the rocks that was important. [12]

Significantly, at Stonehenge we find the inner horseshoe comprised of the finely worked spotted-dolerites from the main ridge of Carn Meini in the Preseli Hills, with the outer bluestone circle comprising of unworked rhyolites, tuffs and unspotted dolerites from the outlying landscapes north and south of the main ridge. The Preseli Hills purposefully created in microcosm in the Stonehenge landscape. [13]

Evidently the choice of materials was purposefully selective in the construction of megalithic monuments with Neolithic people travelling great distances to collect specific stone types:

"Since everything else about these monuments is carefully ordered and planned and the labour involved in constructing them was massive, it is highly unlikely that the inclusion of these structural stones was the result of mere chance or the contingencies of local availability” [14]

Notes:
1. Aubrey Burl, A Guide to Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany, Yale University Press, 2nd Edition, 2000, p.179.
2. Aubrey Burl, A Guide to Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany, Yale University Press, 1995, p. 18
3. The Sweet Track is an ancient causeway in the Somerset Levels, England, built c. 3806 BC. It was claimed to be the oldest road in the world and certainly the oldest timber trackway discovered in Northern Europe until a 6,000 year-old trackway was discovered at Belmarsh Prison in 2009. The track way extended for 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) across the marsh between what was then an island at Westhay and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick. The Sweet Track, constructed of crossed wooden poles driven into waterlogged ground to support a walkway of planks of oak, laid end-to-end, is one of a network that once crossed the Somerset Levels. Various artefacts, including a jadeitite axe head, have been found along its length. The Sweet Track was largely built over the course of an earlier structure, the Post Track, dated from around 3838 BC.
4. Less than 10% of the sixteen hundred or so recorded megalithic tombs in Ireland have been excavated – Elizabeth Shee Twohig, Irish Megalithic Tombs, Shire, 2004, p.7.
5. Chris Tilley, Body & Image: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology 2, Left Coast Press 2008.
6. Chris Tilley, Phenomenology of Landscape, Berg, 1994, pp. 76 – 109.
7. Timothy Darvill, Megaliths, Monuments, and Materiality. European Megalithic Studies Group, 2010.
8. Gabriel Clooney, Newgrange: A View from the Platform, Antiquity, 2006.
9. Elizabeth Shee Twohig, Op. cit. p.59.
10. Vicki Cummings, Neolithic Irish Sea Zone, Oxbow, 2009, p.89.
11. Ibid. pp. 94 – 97.
12. Richard Bradley, The Archaeology of Natural Places, Routledge, 2000, pp. 92 – 94.
13. Timothy Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright, The Stones of Stonehenge - Current Archaeology magazine, Issue 252, March 2011, pp. 28 – 35.
14. Chris Tilley, Body & Image: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology 2, Left Coast Press 2008, p.160.

* * *

Bluestones, Bluestones, everywhere but not a Rock to Haul

2011-03-13T17:47:00.009Z

“...although you make think this self-evident, apparently not everyone does: it is possible for a gang of ordinary people with rope and timbers to erect a rough stone without resorting to mysterious lost powers or the help of aliens. There's no mystery, but there is magic. Erecting even the smallest stone is an event. It requires planning and organisation, people and equipment. It attracts attention and bequeaths stories – it generates a buzz. It gives an anonymous rock a unique identity. In a word, it creates a megalith”. [1]

Recent claims by scientists that they have made the most significant discovery in 15 years, see New Discovery Questions Bluestone Transportation Route, is being interpreted by some as the final nail in the coffin of the theory of human transportation of the bluestones to Salisbury Plain.

Unique to megalithic monuments outside of Wales are the Stonehenge bluestones, the smaller distinctive stones that form the inner circle and inner horseshoe standing between the larger sarsens. Their presence on Salisbury Plain has continued to baffle geologists and archaeologists for centuries; how and why were these rocks transported from the Preseli Hills in Wales to Salisbury Plain, 200 miles away?

Although being hailed as such, at no point do any of the official press releases state that this discovery confirms the bluestones were moved to Stonehenge by glaciation. However, this does question the route proposed by Richard Atkinson that the bluestones were transported from Preseli to Milford Haven, where it was proposed the Neolithic people collected the Altar Stone, before disembarking for Salisbury Plain.

With regard to this anomaly Dr Ixer reported, “The first result was the recognition that the huge sandstone Altar stone does not come from Milford Haven but from somewhere between West Wales and Herefordshire and has nothing to do with the Preseli Hills. This calls into question the proposed transport route for the Stonehenge bluestones.” [2]

The study by a team of scientists from Universities of Leicester, Aberystwyth and the National Museum of Wales, claims to have identified the source of one of the Stonehenge bluestones types, a volcanic rhyolite, matching this one particular type to an area north of the Mynydd Preseli range, in the vicinity of Pont Saeson (the Bridge of the Saxon's, or English), on the B4239 road between Crosswell and Brynberian, Pembrokeshire, south west Wales.

Indeed the Pont Saeson find is much nearer the west Welsh coast and the sea at Newport Bay; why would you transport 4 ton stones across country when it is so much easier by water? Clearly, the assumption has been made that the Altar stone was collected at the same time by the same party, but it is extremely unlikely that 80 bluestones, the figure usually estimated as being used in the construction of Stonehenge, would have been collected on one expedition. More likely that different parties went at different times. The fact that the Altar stone has nothing to do with the Preseli Hills is nothing new, but who knows where they could have found this stone? But of course this is seen by some as a glacial erratic. However, this poses the question; why only one?

Glacial Modelling
The results released thus far from this study by Ixer et al indicates the geological provenance of one type of bluestone from north of the main Preseli ridge at Pont Season, but it fails to explain where the stones were collected from. Very conveniently, so the theory goes, a glacier swept across southwest Wales, no one is exactly sure when, and then turned sharp left and travelled in an easterly direction along the Bristol Channel before depositing the 80 bluestones in southern England.

The glaciologists claim there is no evidence of mankind moving these stones to Salisbury Plain. We also see no evidence of how they built the pyramids, but they are there. But there is also no evidence of glaciation on Salisbury Plain. Consequently the glacial model is modified and said to have deposited the bluestones in Somerset south of Glastonbury. From here the Neolithic people collected the bluestones for their construction of Stonehenge. The Altar stone was moved by south Wales ice and picked up by the glacier moving east along the Bristol Channel.

Significantly the glacier deposited exactly the right number of bluestones and just the one Altar stone for the construction of Stonehenge. Oddly, south Wales bluestones are not found in any megalithic construction in Somerset were we would expect to see them littered about the place. Indeed, to date, apart from the dubious claim of a 'bluestone' being found in Boles Barrow, we are presented with a complete absence of bluestones in any other megalithic monument outside of Wales. [3]

Stonehenge bluestones

Conjoined to the glacial hypothesis is the argument promoted against human transportation of the bluestones; Neolithic people had neither the technical capability or the inclination to move 4 ton megalliths across rugged terrain some 200 miles to Salisbury Plain.

Let's consider the first point; is it possible to move huge megaliths over considerable distances without the use of modern lifting aids? But move these massive blocks of stone they did, the evidence is there around the world for all to see; because we do not know how we cannot dismiss it out of hand.

Moving Megaliths
The sarsens used at Stonehenge are thought to have been collected from Marlborough Downs some 20 miles away. Moving these sarsens weighing up to 50 tons over that distance was a significant feat in itself and suggests transporting 4 ton stones was certainly not beyond the capabilities of Neolithic man. Indeed there are ample examples around the world of mankind moving huge megaliths (from the Greek 'great stone'). They left behind no evidence of their techniques, we are simply left to scratch our heads and gape in awe but move these huge blocks of stone they certainly did.

Noting that modern cranes lift weights in the region of 200 tons, stone blocks of 400 tons were used in the construction Khafre's Pyramid at Giza. The Great Pyramid, or Khufu's Pyramid, built around 2560 BC, contains 43 blocks of granite weighing between 30 to 70 tons that were transported 500 miles from the quarry site and raised 150 feet into the King's Chamber. At the nearby Sphinx temple 100 ton blocks were raised 40 feet above the ground. The wonders of the pyramids and how they were constructed persists but they retain their secrets. However, many ancient monuments used stones far exceeding these weights.

A massive statue estimated to have weighed a colossal 1000 tons was transported 170 miles from the quarry at Aswan, by the ancient Egyptians to the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 BC, to the Theban necropolis in Upper Egypt. This a a similar distance to the Stonehenge bluestones, and probably most of its journey was on water.

The two massive statues of Amenhotep III (14th century BC) known as the Colosii of Memnon are estimated to weigh 700 tons each. The statues were transported 420 miles from el-Gabal el-Ahmar, near modern-day Cairo, over land to the necropolis at Thebes.

Ancient South American temples used massive stones in their constructions, typically at Tiwanaku, Bolivia, several ashlars weighing 100 to 130 tons were transported over 6 miles and at Sacsayhuamán wall near Cusco, Peru, the largest stones weigh over 125 tons. But perhaps the most remarkable feat in the New World is around 45 miles northwest of Cusco, at the Sun Temple at Ollantaytambo, Peru, constructed with six enormous stone blocks of pink granite, known in modern times as the Wall of the Six Monoliths, estimated to weigh around 100 tons each. Perhaps not the heaviest megaliths when compared with others mentioned here but remarkable in that the stones were quarried from Kachiqhata, about 2.5 miles away on the other side of a deep ravine across the Urubamba River. Then these massive stones were somehow raised hundreds of feet up the steep mountainside to the site of the Sun Temple.

Wall of the Six Monoliths, Ollantaytambo, Peru.

An unfinished obelisk lies in an Aswan quarry and is estimated to weigh over 1000 tons. It lies still attached to the bedrock from which it was being carved, perhaps it was never meant to be moved, but if the initial intention was to quarry and use this massive block the stone masons were certainly undeterred by its size and weight. A similar stone lies in a quarry less than a mile from the ancient temple complex at Baalbek, high above the Beqaa plain in Lebannon. Known as the Stone of the Pregnant Woman, or Stone of the South, and like the the unfinished obelisk at Aswan, it is still attached to the bedrock. Measuring 71 feet long, 14 feet high, and 13 feet wide it is estimated to weigh 1000 tons. A second ancient monolith was discovered in the same quarry in the 1990s, its weight estimated at 1,242 tons.

The Roman temple complex at Baalbek, then known as Heliopolis (City of the Sun) appears to have been constructed on the base of an ancient temple site, suspected to have originally been constructed by the Canaanites and dedicated to the god Ba'al and his consort Astarte. Legend records it as the construction of Cain before the Deluge and rebuilt by a race of giants under the command of Nimrod after the flood. Incorporated into the foundations of this ancient temple are three massive stones estimated to weigh 800 tons each known as the Trilithons. The Trilithons were raised 20 feet to sit in the third course of the temple foundations, beneath these 24 blocks of 300 tons make up a lower course. The Trilithons have been so accurately placed it is not possible to push a knife blade between them.

The above are but a few examples of the many cases worldwide in which man has moved massive stones over difficult terrain and long distances; it is undeniable fact [4] and all pose exactly the same question as the Stonehenge bluestones; how and why?

Yet this evidence is ignored by some who promote the notion that the ancients were incapable of moving such massive weights. But as Aldous Huxley once said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Now does moving 4 ton bluestones still sound beyond the capability of ancient man?

Next: Stone Selection in Megalithic Monuments

See: Bluestone Source Pinpointed

Notes:
1. Mike Pitts, Hengeworld, Arrow, 2001, p.210.
2. New Discovery 'will rewrite Stonehenge history' – University of Leicester, 25 Feb 2011.
3. There is significant doubt about the claimed 'bluestone' found in Boles Barrow. For a full account see: Mike Pitts, Hengeworld, Arrow, 2001.
4. Largest Monoliths in the World.

* * *

New Discovery Questions Bluestone Transportation Route

2011-03-05T14:07:00.009Z

The origins of the Stonehenge bluestones, the smaller distinctive stones that form the inner circle and inner horseshoe standing between the larger sarsens, has continued to baffle geologists and historians for centuries; how and why were these rocks transported from the Preseli mountains in Wales to Salisbury Plain, 200 miles away? Now scientists claim to have made their most significant discovery in 15 years.

'Bluestone' is a term loosely used by geologists for the group of exotic non-sarsen stones at Stonehenge. One type of bluestone at Stonehenge, the so-called ‘spotted dolerite’, were first identified as having originated in south west Wales and convincingly traced to the Preseli Hills area in north Pembrokeshire in the early 1920's by the geologist Herbert Thomas. However, the sources of the other bluestones - chiefly the volcanic rhyolites and the rare sandstones remained, until recently, unknown.

Now a team of geologists claim to have identified the source of one of the volcanic types of rhyolite, matching this one particular type to an area north of the Mynydd Preseli range, in the vicinity of Pont Saeson (the Bridge of the Saxon's, or English), on the B4239 road between Crosswell and Brynberian, Pembrokeshire, south west Wales.

This latest news is being heralded as an exciting new discovery that ‘will rewrite Stonehenge’s history’, providing an opportunity for a new debate on how the bluestones might have been transported to Salisbury Plain and the theory that they were regarded as 'sacred' rocks held in special reverence by Neolithic man.

Stonehenge: the smaller bluestones standing between the huge sarsens.

Dr Richard Bevins, Keeper of Geology at Amgueddfa Cymru, in partnership with Dr Rob Ixer, University of Leicester and Dr Nick Pearce of Aberystwyth University, have concentrated on the rhyolite element of the bluestones from the 8000 rock samples available, leading them to believe it is of Welsh origin and have uncovered new evidence of its source. Their findings are published in the March 2011 edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Dr Ixer said, “The first result was the recognition that the huge sandstone Altar stone does not come from Milford Haven but from somewhere between West Wales and Herefordshire and has nothing to do with the Preseli Hills. This calls into question the proposed transport route for the Stonehenge bluestones.

“The second unexpected result was that much of the volcanic and sandstone Stonehenge debris does not match any standing stones (so far only 2 stones out of thousands from the debris match)- it may be the debris is all that is left of lost standing stones- it is difficult to see what else it could be.

“The third is that the geographical origins for many of the Stonehenge rocks are not from impressive outcrops high on the hilltops but in less obvious places, some deep in valleys.”

Ixer added that work already undertaken and more in progress suggests that, unlike the belief of the last 80 years, namely that all of the Stonehenge bluestones were from the top of ‘sacred’ Preseli hills and moved southwards to the Bristol Channel and then onto Stonehenge, most or all of the volcanic and sandstone standing stones and much of the debris at Stonehenge comes from rocks in the low-lying ground to the north and northwest of the Preseli Hills and, if, they were moved by man, then they travelled initially in the Irish sea before heading south and east.

Dr Bevins said: “It has been argued that humans transported the spotted dolerites from the high ground of Mynydd Preseli down to the coast at Milford Haven and then rafted them up the Bristol Channel and River Avon to the Stonehenge area.

“However, the outcome of our research questions that route, as it is unlikely that they would have transported the Pont Saeson stones up slopes and over Mynydd Preseli to Milford Haven, we would assume that they would not carry the rocks up and over a steep mountain range.

“If humans were responsible then an alternative route might need to be considered.”

Richard Atkinson proposed the bluestones were brought from the Preseli Hills down to the Milford Haven estuary, from where he proposed they collected the Altar stone, then transported by raft along the South Wales coast of the Bristol Channel, then either through Somerset and down the river Avon or rounding Land's End and along the south coast of England to the site of the modern Christchurch harbour and up the Hampshire Avon into Wessex.

Mike Parker Pearson, Professor of Archaeology at Sheffield University, added: “This is a hugely significant discovery which will fascinate everyone interested in Stonehenge.

“It forces us to re-think the route taken by the bluestones to Stonehenge and opens up the possibility of finding many of the quarries from which they came.

“It’s a further step towards revealing why these mysterious stones were so special to the people of the Neolithic.”

The Stones of Stonehenge
We must keep this new discovery in its proper context; it is one type of bluestone and does not represent all the foreign bluestones at Stonehenge, and certainly not the spotted dolerites of the inner horseshoe.

The Stones of Stonehenge - Anthony Johnson

The inner horseshoe of bluestones, stones 61 – 72 above, are comprised of spotted dolerites, identified as occurring at just a few outcrops along the central spine of the Preseli ridge, and have been finely worked, tapering in height toward the back of the sarsen horseshoe, mirroring the sarsen horseshoe, increasing in height toward the great trilothon of stones 56 and 55 (now fallen) and lintel 156 (also fallen). The outer circle of bluestones, 31 – 49 above, are unworked and comprises of rhyolites, tuffs and non-spotted dolerites, which outcrop in the landscape north and south of the main Preseli ridge.

In an article in the March edition of Current Archaeology magazine archaeologists Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University and Geoffrey Wainwright, former Chief Archaeologist for English Heritage, propose that quite literally the physical landscape of Preseli is reproduced in microcosm at Stonehenge in the disposition of the selection and placement of the stones. Darvill and Wainwright's viewpoint would appear to be in line with these new findings of Ixer et al.

Next: Moving Megaliths

See: Bluestone Source Pinpointed

Sources:
1. New Discovery 'will rewrite Stonehenge history' – University of Leicester, 25 Feb 2011.
2. New Discovery in Stonehenge Bluestone Mystery – National Museum of Wales, 22 Feb 2011.
3. New discovery in Stonehenge bluestone mystery – Aberystwyth University, 22 February 2011.
4. Timothy Darvill and Geoffrey Wainwright, The Stones of Stonehenge - Current Archaeology magazine, Issue 252, March 2011, pp. 28 – 35.

* * *

The Eternal Flame of Brigid

2011-02-05T19:37:00.010Z

One of the most complex Goddesses of the Celtic pantheon, yet Brigid is one of the most powerful religious figures of Irish history. The tales of Brigid the Goddess and Christian Saint are irrevocably entwined and impossible to separate out as fact or fable, but from elements of her Christian story we find clear indications towards a pagan origin. In the story of Saint Brigid she was said to be a Druid's daughter who predicted the coming of Christianity and was then baptised by St. Patrick. She became a nun and later an Abbess who founded the Abbey at Kildare. As Abbess, Brigid was said to have had the power to appoint the bishops of her area, a role not usually delegated to such a rank, oddly her bishops were also required to be practising goldsmiths.

There can be little doubt that Saint Brigid is based upon a Celtic Goddess who was presented in Christian attire by the sins of the early church fathers in order to win over her pagan Irish followers. As a pagan Goddess She is known by her many names, Bride, Bridey, Brighid, Brigit, Briggidda, Brigantia; the traditional patroness of healing, poetry and smithcraft. Her name meaning literally “the high one” or "the exalted one”.

Veneration of St Brigid appears to have incorporated many elements of a much older tradition, possibly pre-Celtic. Sun and fire are particularly stressed in the early lives of the Saint which were no doubt based upon older sources which appear to reflect traces of ancient lore relating to the Goddess. Significantly, the Gaelic word for Kildare is 'Cill Dara', which means the 'Cell, or Church, of the Oak'. Here Saint Brigid built her Abbey around 480AD, on a hill beside a great oak tree. This was always an important gathering place and pilgrimage site in earlier centuries; the site became the centre of a great cult of the Goddess Brigid, who presided over healing, inspiration, poetry and smithcraft. She is provider of plenty, giver of life and identified with fertility and fire. Priestesses are thought to have gathered on this hill at Kildare to tend their ritual fires while invoking the Goddess to protect their herds and to provide a fruitful harvest.

St. Brigid’s Fire Temple

On the north side of St Brigid's Cathedral, Kildare, are the restored foundations of Brigid's ancient fire temple. The fire was lit on the 1st February, St. Brigid’s day. This flame was symbolically relit in 1993 and is now tended at Solas Bhride.

Tradition tells us that Brigid kept a shrine at Kildare, Ireland, with a perpetual flame tended by nineteen virgin priestesses, later called Daughters of the Flame. No one knows how long the flame had been tended by the priestesses, however, it is likely to have pre-historical origins. This perpetual flame was said to have been tended by nineteen Virgins symbolising the nineteen-year, metonic, lunar cycle; a period of 235 lunar months, or 19 years at the end of which the phases of the moon repeat in exactly the same order and on the same days as the preceding cycle. Needless to say, the moon was very important to astronomer-priests of pagan religions, the number 19 being found again and again throughout pagan mythologies and megalithic sites around the world. For example, at the world famous megalithic monument at Stonehenge we find 56 Aubrey Holes about a metre inside the ditch. [1]

Throughout mythology we find a cauldron possessing magical properties on an otherworld island tended by nine maidens, the number nine being half a metonic cycle to the nearest whole number. In Celtic mythology we find the story Preiddeu Annwfn (The Spoils of Annwfn), an early medieval Welsh poem from the Book of Taliesin. The poem recounts a raid on the Otherworld by King Arthur to retrieve a magic cauldron: “In Caer Pedryvan, four its revolutions; In the first word from the cauldron when spoken, From the breath of nine maidens it was gently warmed”. A similar theme is apparent in Culhwch and Olwen and the Second Branch of the Mabinogi which have been interpreted by some as the origins of the Holy Grail.

With the advent of Christianity in Ireland it quickly became apparent that the Goddess Brigid was so deeply etched on the Irish people that it would be impossible to eradicate her. The Christian solution was to make her a Saint and in the 6th century, a monastery was built on the site of the temple where the vigil of the eternal flame had been held. Consequently, a sacred fire continued to burn in Kildare from early Christian times and the custom of keeping the fire alight continued; the fire representing the new light of Christianity, the Daughters of the Flame kept her flame eternally lit, ensuring it was never extinguished.

In the 12th century the Welsh Chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) visited Kildare and recorded that the fire of Saint Brigid was still burning and attended by twenty "servants of the Lord" a clear reference to the tradition that each day, for nineteen days, a different priestess (or nun), would keep vigil over the sacred fire but on the twentieth day Brigid would tend the flame herself. By the time of Gerald's writing the fire had been burning continuously for at least 600 years, probably several hundred more, yet had apparently never had its ashes cleaned out, yet the ashes never seemed to increase in size.

No male was ever allowed to come near the eternal flame and neither were these women permitted to associate with men, consequently all their supplies were brought to them by women from the nearby village. Thus, surrounding the fire was a hedge that no male could ever cross. One legend recalls of when a man attempted to cross the hedge he ended up going insane. Another tells of an attempt to cross the hedge but just as his leg crossed the threshhold, his comrades pulled him back. Unfortunately the leg that did cross the hedge became maimed and he was crippled for the rest of his life. No trace of this legendary hedge with magical properties has survived today, but it clearly provided protection to the flame from male invaders by cursing them to either go insane, die, become maimed, or even have their penis wither.

However, in 1220 AD, a Bishop disagreed with policy of non-admittance of men to the Abbey of Saint Brigid of Kildare. The Arch-bishop of Dublin, Henry of London, insisted that as nuns were subordinate to priests they must open the abbey to inspection by a priest. They refused and requested the inspections be carried out by a female official such as another Abbess. The Bishop was not impressed with this show of disobedience and decreed that the keeping of the eternal flame was a Pagan custom and consequently demanded that the sacred flame to be extinguished. The flame was thought to have been briefly extinguished but was quickly relit by the local people and the Eternal flame survived up to the suppression of the monasteries in the sixteenth century.

It was at this time that King Henry VIII demanded the destruction of many monasteries and the Eternal flame was extinguished but never forgotten. Brigid remained the most popular Irish saint along with Patrick and on Saint Brigid's day, 1st February, in 1807, the Bishop of Kildare, Daniel Delany, commenced the restoration of the the ancient order of the Sisterhood of Saint Brigid with the clear intention to revive her legacy.

During Vatican II so-called modernisation of Catholicism in the 1960's it was declared that there was insufficient proof of Brigid's sanctity or even of her historical existence; consequently the Church's gradual program against Brigid was finally successful and She was de-canonised. Today She is often called just "Brigid of Ireland" and it can be difficult to obtain images or even holy cards of Saint Brigid outside of Ireland.

In 1993 at a conference, entitled “Brigid: Prophetess, Earthwoman, Peacemaker” held in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Saint Brigid’s Peace Cross Project, Mary Teresa Cullen, the then leader of the Brigidine Sisters, re-kindled the Eternal flame in a ceremony in Kildare’s Market Square. Since then, the Brigidine Sisters have tended the flame in their centre, 'Solas Bhride' (Light of Brigid) in Kildare.

In 2005 Kildare County Council commissioned a sculpture to house the flame in Kildare Town Square. The sculpture comprises a twisted column, flourishing at the top into a bronze, acorn cup holding the flame nestled amongst oak leaves. Surely, we have come full circle with the oak leaves symbolising the Druidic element of the legend of Brigid and the name of Kildare, 'Cill Dara', the Church of the Oak.

As Breo-Saighead (Fiery Arrow), Brigid was known as The Flame of Ireland; She is clearly the best example of the survival of an ancient Goddess into Christian times; disowned by the church, dismantled by the very hands that rocked her cradle, yet still held in high reverence by the people.

Note:
1. The number 56 is the nearest whole number to three metonic cycles; 19 + 19 +18 = 56. More accurately 3 metonic cycles of 18.61 = 55.83.

* * *

Brigid

2011-02-01T21:00:00.008Z

Goddess of the Dawn

Goddess of the fire,

Protectress of smiths,

Healers and poets.

The Exalted One
The pre-Roman festival of purification known as Lupercalia became subsumed into the festival of Februra, celebrated by the Romans around the middle of the month and derived from Februus, personifying February as the month of purification. Februa was but one of many significant epithets attached to the goddess Juno, who was before other things the goddess of marriage and protector of married women. Every year, on the first of March, women held a festival in honour of Juno called the Matronalia. As Juno Februtis she was a purifier and fertility Goddess, especially connected with the month of February and the festivities in its latter half. The first days of each Roman month, the calends, were considered sacred to Juno, the month of June named after her. Juno had a long history of worship in Rome and was one of the three supreme deities known as the Capitoline Triad, along with Jupiter and Minerva.

One of Juno's oldest titles carried the epithet Lucetia. As Juno Lucetia, she was the Roman Goddess of light, (Lucetia = 'Giver of Light'), a Moon-Goddess and Goddess of the Dawn and the growing light of the day. As Goddess of the light of heaven, she was by derivation the goddess of childbirth, Juno Lucina, for the new-born child brought into the light of the day for the first time.

In addition, practically all of the many attributes and epithets attached to Juno, hold strong similarities to the traditions and customs of Brigid, Christian Saint and Gaelic Goddess, born at the dawn, Her feast day synonymous with the festival of Imbolc containing the lighting of fires, purification with well water and the ushering in of the new growing season by the maiden known as the Queen of the Heavens.

Imbolc
Many aspects of the ancient festivals of Lupercalia and the Matronalia, carry strong similarities to the traditions and customs associated with the pre-Christian festival of Imbolc celebrated on 1st February celebrating the lengthening of the days and the first stirrings of spring to the land. Imbolc, or Imbolg, is the feast marking the end of winter and the beginning of spring usually referred to as “when the ewes are milked at springs beginning”.

In Cormac's Glossary (Sanas Cormaic c.900 AD), we find 'Oímelc', a similar term for Imbolc, denoting "the time the sheep's milk comes. milking i.e. the milk that is milked". This has led some scholars to state that the pagan festival of Imbolc has something to do with the period of the coming into lactation of sheep. On the other hand some scholars reject this explanation, claiming this to be a false etymology based on a derivation from the term oí-melg ('sheep', and 'milk') and that the feast of Imbolc is based on an old pastoral term which simply means 'milking'. However, apart from the time of year, this does not explain the the role of milk (or milking) in connection with the festival, indeed there appears to be no evidence for sheep having a ritual purpose among the Gaelic people.

It has been argued that the meaning of Imbolc more correctly derives from the Old Irish 'imbolg' meaning "in the belly” a reference to the pregnancy of ewes. Another suggestion is that the word for Imbolc has possibly developed from the original Indo-European root *uts-molgo, meaning 'purification', this in turn developed into *ommolg, which simply means 'milking'. The festival for `purification', at this time of year would appear to have been established by association with various Roman customs, as discussed above, particularly the Lupercalia, and the goddess Juno, whose epithet februa, means `purifying'. Significantly, Imbolc is immediately followed by the Christian festival of Candlemass, which marks the end of the season of Epiphany, and is also known as the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, commemorating the ritual purification of Mary, 40 days after the birth of her son Jesus. The beginning of February is unavoidably associated with purification.

Saint Brigid
Imbolc is also known as St Brigid's Day, an Irish festival heralding the beginning of spring. Brigid is associated with milk and is often depicted with a cow and milking stool, perhaps suggesting an ancient tradition linking milk at this time of year with a purification ritual.

Imbolc in the Somerset town of Glastonbury is traditionally known as the Maiden Brigid's Festival in which the Light of Illumination from Her perpetual flame is brought into a darkened room, heralding the coming of spring. Small honey and barley cakes are eaten and milk drunk in Her honour. On the first day, ears of corn gathered from the Lammas Corn Doll are planted in the ground and the dried stalks are burned, the flame releasing the life back into the earth. The ashes are spread upon the ground renewing fertility to the earth.

Brigid holds a special association with Glastonbury and is depicted on Saint Michael's tower on the Tor milking a cow. She also appears on the north door of the Lady Chapel in the Abbey ruins in a carved figure and has traditional connections with the Somerset town. According to Giraldus Cambrensis and John of Glastonbury, Brigid visited Patrick at Glastonbury during the 5th century. William of Malmesbury claimed that Brigid stayed at Beckery on the western side of Glastonbury where she founded a small chapel. Near the foot of Wearyall Hill, made famous by Joseph of Arimathea and the legend of the Glastonbury Thorn, is a small hillock known as Bride's Mound. On this mound was a spring known as Saint Bride's Well. Relics of hers including a spindle and a bell were left at Bride's Mound where the adjacent fields are called “The Brides.”

The Cult of Saint Brigid of Kildare
Saint Brigid of Kildare (c. 451–525) is one of Ireland's most important saints along with Saint Patrick. Brigid is associated with Kildare and many other holy wells in the Celtic lands; She is commemorated in both Ireland and the highlands and islands of Scotland. Her feast day is 1st February, the traditional first day of spring in Ireland, significantly the underlying tradition associated with St. Brigid's Day, probably originally held mid-February, is food production as a continuous process and the successful reproduction of livestock as a perennial cycle.

St. Brigid was associated with perpetual, sacred flames, such as the one maintained by 19 nuns at her sanctuary in Kildare, Ireland. According to Giraldus Cambrensis the sacred flame at Kildare was said by to have been surrounded by a hedge, which no man could cross and any who attempted to were said to have been cursed to go insane or die. The tradition of female priestesses tending sacred "eternal flames" is a feature of ancient Indo-European pre-Christian spirituality.

Patrick is undoubtedly a historical figure as attested by his writings, the Confessio and the Letter to Coroticus,- which provided his hagiographers with reliable information, whereas Brigid’s Cogitosus of Kildare and the anonymous Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae (the so-called First Life of St. Brigit from the Leabhar Breac) and Bethu Brigte, were left no such texts to work from. Brigid had been commemorated in Ireland by Latin prose vitae from the 7th century onward. However, the surviving texts are known only through the numerous manuscript copies made in continental Europe. Indeed, the Life of Brigid is probably the most-copied of all the vitae of early medieval women saints in Europe, yet no copy of the early vitae survived in Ireland.

The oldest account of St. Brigid is the hymn of St. Brogan-Cloen, said to have been composed at the request of his tutor, St Ultán of Ardbraccan, who collated all of her miracles in one volume. From this volume St Brogan recorded the miracles of Brigid in verse, which he must have composed prior to the death of St Ultan, recorded as 656 AD in the Martyrology of Donegal.

The Vita Brigitae of Cogitosus is thought to have been written no later than 650 AD, at the request of the Kildare church, and the first life of Brigid, Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae thought to have followed about a century later. The Bethu Brigte followed in the early 9th century. Cogitosus' account has a mythological feel to it as it is made up of the many miracles Brigid is said to have performed with images of fire and sun being plentiful. In Cogitosus’ Vita he recalls the famous story of her hanging her cloak on a sunbeam, a motif probably taken from an apocryphal Continental story about the Christ child:

“As she was grazing her sheep in the course of her work as a shepherdess on a level grassy plain, she was drenched by very heavy downpour of rain and returned to the house with her clothes wet. There was a ray of sunshine coming into the house through an opening and, as a result, her eyes were dazzled and she took the sunbeam for a slanting tree growing there. So, she put her rain soaked clothes on it and the clothes hung on the filmy sunbeam as if it were a solid tree.”

Devotion to Brigid was associated with Marian devotion and to the Irish She was popularly known as 'Mary of the Gael', and equated with the Virgin Mary. The worship of Saint Brigid has persisted up until the early 20th century with her Irish cult almost supplanting that of Mary. Indeed, the earliest documentary reference to Brigid, recalls how “She will be another Mary, mother of the great Lord ” and a prophecy of Brigid entering the Irish site of Kildare states, "This site is open to heaven ….and today the girl for whom it has been prepared by God will come to us like Mary”.

According to the vitae, Brigid has a legendary involvement in the life of Jesus. Brigid being the midwife present at the birth, placed three drops of water on Christ's forehead. No doubt this is a Christianised account of the ancient Celtic myth telling of the Sun of Light upon Whose head three drops of water were placed in order to bestow wisdom. Brigid was said to be the foster-mother of Jesus, emphasising the very special position this Saint held.

Celtic Goddess
There can be little doubt that Saint Brigid is based upon a Celtic Goddess who was presented in Christian attire by the early church fathers in order to win over her pagan Irish followers. She is perhaps one of the most complex Goddesses of the Celtic pantheon; Brigid can be seen as one of the most powerful religious figures of Irish history with many separate traditions intertwined. She is known by her many names, Bride, Bridey, Brighid, Brigit, Briggidda, Brigantia, as the traditional patroness of healing, poetry and smithcraft. Her name means "exalted one”.

Veneration of St Brigid appears to incorporate many elements of a much older tradition. Sun and fire are particularly stressed in the early lives of the Saint which were no doubt based upon older sources and may reflect ancient lore relating to the goddess Brigid. The perpetual flame at Her shrine at Kildare in Ireland was said to have been tended by nineteen Virgins symbolising the nineteen-year, metonic, lunar cycle.

In Irish mythology, Brigid was the daughter of the Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She had two sisters also named Brigid, the attributes of a classic Celtic Triple Goddess:

“Brigit i.e. a poetess, daughter of the Dagda. This is Brigit the female sage, or woman of wisdom, i.e. Brigit the goddess whom poets adored, because very great and very famous was her protecting care. It is therefore they call her goddess of poets, by this name. Whose sisters were Brigit the female physician (woman of leech craft), Brigit the female smith (woman of smith work), from whose names with all Irishmen a goddess was called Brigit.”

Many places in the British Isles bear witness to her name as an ancient Goddess. As “Brigantia” she gave her name to the Celtic lands of the North of England, and to that of the ancient people that bore her name, the Brigantes. She was worshipped especially in Yorkshire, and her name is still echoed in the names of rivers Briant in Anglesey, Brue, Somerset, and Brent in Middlesex. She was probably seen as the power of rushing rivers and the thrusting hills of the countryside; the Goddess in the ancient landscape.

Goddess of the Dawn
Imbolc, or St Brigid's Day falls on one of the four cross-quarter days of the Celtic calendar halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere ultimately indicating its origins as a solar festival. Brigid's attributes are light, inspiration and associations with fire. Indeed, we find one of Brigid's most ancient names is Breo-saighead meaning 'fiery arrow'. This is a reference to Brigid as light from the sun; she was born at the sunrise and is the Goddess of the Dawn. She possesses an unusual status as a Sun Goddess who hangs her Cloak upon the rays of the Sun and whose dwelling-place radiates light as if on fire. Brigid took over the Cult of the Ewes formerly held by the Goddess Lassar who also is a Sun Goddess.

In Irish mythology, Lassar, or Lasair ("Flame"), is the eldest of three sisters, a triple Goddess, her sisters called Inghean Bhuidhe and Latiaran; together they represent the growing, ripening and harvesting of crops. Lasair, was Goddess of the spring budding. She later also became a Christian saint with her sacred well at Lough Meelagh in Ireland. Lassar's feast day is May 1st, Bealtaine.

History or Myth?
So, was the Christian Saint Brigid a real historical person, or the mythical Celtic pagan Goddess in another form?

Brigid is arguably the most important Goddess in British history yet most of what we know of her has been passed down through oral tradition. The extant written sources date from several hundred years after Brigid had established her community at Kildare, so we must show caution in re-constructing a Goddess from what we know of the Saint; the two are so interwoven it is virtually impossible to separate them with any certainty.

St Brigid's Cathedral, Kildare

Second only to St Patrick in the esteem of the Irish people, yet of all the early Irish saints celebrated in hagiography and cult, Brigid is the most difficult to link to a genuine historical figure; it has been suggested that she was a living person, a Christian woman called Brigid who local people saw as a reincarnation of the Goddess. Sharing both her name and feast day with that of the earlier pagan Goddess Brigid may indicate that Saint Brigid is partially or entirely a fictional creation based on the pagan figure in order to convert pagan Celts to Christianity.

Burial Place of Saints
In Down, three saints one grave do fill,
Patrick, Brigid and Columcille.

After Brigid's death the monastery at Kildare flourished. The first Life of St Brigid was written not much later than 650 AD, by a monk of Kildare named Cogitosus. The "Life" was a compilation of stories of St Brigid providing a glimpse of life in Kildare from that time. Cogitosus describes the great church of Kildare where the bodies of the Saints Brigid and Conleth were:

"laid on the right and left of the ornate altar and rest in tombs adorned with a refined profusion of gold, silver, gems and precious stones, with gold and silver chandeliers hanging from above and different images presenting a variety of carvings and colours"

The Irish Annals record that in the year 836 AD a Danish fleet of 30 ships arrived in the Liffey and another in the Boyne. They plundered every church and abbey within the territories of Magh Liffe and Magh Breagh, destroying the town of Kildare and carried off the shrines of Saints Brigid and Conleth. It is claimed that in the previous year, 835 AD, the remains of St. Brigid had been removed for safe keeping to Down.

Tradition claims that St. Patrick is buried at Down Cathedral (Cathedral Hill) in Downpatrick, County Down, alongside St. Brigid and St. Columba, although this has never been proven. However Down suffered too from Viking raids; a further tradition claims her body was removed from Down and buried in a place known only to a few priests so that eventually all knowledge of her resting place was lost.

An alternative version claims that in 1185 St. Malachy, Bishop of Down, wanted to discover the burial place of St. Brigid who was supposed to have been buried with St Patrick and St Columba. Malachy prayed to the Lord to reveal the burial place. A beam of light settled over a spot on the floor of the church and sure enough when St. Malachy dug at this spot he found the graves of Saints Patrick, Brigid and Columcille. Malachy petitioned Pope Urban III for permission to move the bodies to Down Cathedral. His request was granted and the remains of the saints moved on 9th June 1186, the Feast day of St. Columcille. During the dissolution of Henry VIII, the sacred shrine was despoiled and the relics of the Saints were scattered. Luckily some were saved and the head of St. Brigid was recovered and said to now rest in a chapel in Portugal, devoted to her in the Church of St. John the Baptist in Lumiar, near Lisbon.

Sources:
The Festival of Brigit the Holy Woman - Séamas Ó Catháin
Brigit: Goddess, Saint, ‘Holy Woman’, and Bone of Contention - Carole M Cusack

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Return of the Aubrey Seven (5)

2011-01-15T21:49:00.022Z

Quest for the Missing Dead

Part V

The Destruction of the Sanctuary

“The Overton-hill, from time immemorial, the country people have a high notion of it. It was (alas, it was!) a very few years ago, crown'd with a most beautiful temple of the Druids. They still call it the sanctuary.....” - William Stukeley, 1743.

In Part IV: The Empty Long Barrows we visited Stoney Littleton and West Kennet Long Barrows and noted how both of these two Neolithic tombs had been robbed of their contents; their very purpose for being stripped out. West Kennet, complete with twentieth century glass skylights, for me had lost much of its atmosphere, an empty shell, a carcass, denude of its ancestral remains. It saddened me that these great long barrows had persisted for millennia but it had only taken modern man the last couple of hundred years or so to completely rape them of their heart and soul. No longer the home of human remains, the only thing we found in here were the remains of tealights, their soot stains and melted wax running down the stones, and offerings of fruit and berries in the chambers. Why can't these people show a little respect and take their 'ritual litter' home with them after casting their spells on moonlit nights. I for one really don't want to see it in here. Whatever happened to that old adage 'leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photographs'. After a thousand years of use the long barrow had been sealed by tons of chalk rubble. It is meant to be closed; perhaps that's how it should have remained to stop this abuse.

The Star Chambered Barrow
Standing outside the barrow it's hard not to be drawn to the view of the top of Silbury, which although not the same height, certainly is at a similar level. There must be an intended relationship here between the two sites but Silbury, now unstable after archaeological digs of the last few hundred years, retains its mysteries. In the seventeenth century Aubrey had drawn the long barrow with the chamber capstones and the facade seemingly aligned on the Sanctuary on the skyline of the distant Overton Hill. In 1724 William Stukeley described the barrow as “pointing to the dragon's head on Overton-hill”. In fact the West Kennet long barrow points almost due east-west and misses the Sanctuary, but nevertheless, the barrow forecourt does look toward it and suggests a correlation between Silbury, the Sanctuary and the long barrow.

John North proposes that with the blocking stones of the facade removed the five chambers within the eastern end of the long barrow were aligned toward five significant stars by two flanking stones that purposefully limited lines of sight from within the chambers. North continues that the ditches of the West Kennet long barrow appear to have been cut in six sections, rather than one continuous ditch either side as one would expect, with deliberate changes in direction. North suggests that the ditches could have provided viewing platforms at right angles to the barrow, although he adds caution in the fact that the ditches have been far from fully excavated. He goes on to propose that looking from the southern ditch across the barrow c. 3600 BC Neolithic man would have witnessed the star Arcturus dip down to touch the tomb, rest there for about half an hour, then rise up again. Some four and a half hours after that, viewed from the northern ditch across the barrow, Sirius would have risen over the tomb then fallen again. Vega mimicked the behaviour of Arcturus over the barrow, descending into the tomb before rising again. A fourth star, Rigel, completed the symmetry by following Sirius in the southern sky, rising out of the tomb then quickly falling back in. Of course seasonal limits would vary from star to star for viewing this phenomena but three could be seen on every clear night from about a fortnight before the autumnal equinox and a month prior to the winter solstice. North calculates that the period between the mid point of Arcturus' visit to the tomb and the mid point of Vega's visit on the same night would be about six hours. Insufficient investigation has been carried out at East Kennet long barrow to ascertain if a similar phenomena occurs but the tomb does align with Rigel rising. [1] The Sanctuary was our next port of call before returning back to Avebury, so we left the barrow and headed for the Ridgeway and Overton Hill.

The Dragon's Head
After walking alongside then crossing the river Kennet, skirting around the perimeter of a wheat field, we joined the ancient trackway of the Ridgeway and made our way uphill towards Overton Hill. As the trackway levelled off at the top of the hill we noticed several barrows on our right, appropriately named Seven Barrows in Aubrey's day. We saw more barrows on the otherside of the busy A4, Bath – Marlborough Road, as the trackway continued northwards but we departed the Ridgeway here and turned left into the English Heritage enclosure of the prehistoric site of the Sanctuary; now just concentric rings of low lying concrete blocks. The Sanctuary is thought to have been constructed c. 2400 BC, about a thousand years after the West Kennet long barrow but around the same time that the barrow went out of use as a tomb and was sealed. The latest wisdom is that Sibury was constructed over a hundred year period between 2400 and 2300 BC. [2]

A last view of the Sanctuary before its destruction in 1724

Therefore, the stone rings of the Sanctuary, the closure of West Kennet long barrow, the construction of the great mound of Silbury and the Avebury Avenues all appear to be contemporaneous; all constructed within a couple of hundred years of each other. The closure and sealing of the long barrow would appear to indicate a change in religious practice, but not necessarily the complete termination of its utilisation, and would take the Avebury complex into a new phase linked through the Kennet and Beckhampton Avenues. As we have seen above the West Kennet long barrow forecourt was targeted toward the barrow complex at Overton Hill, or Seven Barrow hill as it was formerly known. The megalithic monuments of the Sanctuary, Silbury and the Kennet long barrows all share intervisibility; from one you can see the others, but for the most part the Avenues are concealed from Silbury. No one is really sure of the significance of this intervisibility and concealment between megalithic monuments but it is becoming increasingly recognised as an important design feature in determining their position in the Neolithic landscape.

For example, although scholars still debate the purpose of Cursus monuments it is significant that at least eight long barrows are targeted on the now obliterated barrow, Amesbury 42, at the eastern end of the Stonehenge Cursus, now lying under a bridleway, the oldest of the eight alignments directed toward Rigel. [3] Furthermore, of the thirty nine extant or destroyed earthen long barrows on Cranbourne Chase the course of the Dorset Cursus would have been visible from at least fourteen with nine of those directly associated with the Cursus; two incorporated within its course and seven aligned on its terminals. [4] Were they laid out like this so as not to impede but permit movement of the ancestor spirits between the tombs?

There is not much to see at the Sanctuary today, just those concentric concrete rings and the standard English Heritage information boards. Said to be large enough to contain the outer ring of stones at Stonehenge, the later structure at the Sanctuary was the site of a stone circle that formed the terminus of the West Kennet Avenue, linking it to Avebury stone circles. From here we could see the West and East Kennet long barrows and peeping up behind Waden Hill was the top of Silbury.

Waden Hill is an important hill of the Avebury complex, used by Neolithic man to great effect in his games of visibility and concealment. Waden Hill shrouds Silbury from the West Kennet Avenue and the Sanctuary, just the top of the man made mound being visible from Overton Hill. The infant river Kennet, also known here as the Winterbourne, trickles along the western side of Waden Hill which once had nine Bronze Age round barrows on it but now only one remains on the north end. Stukeley sketched a barrow on the south end but there are no traces of it on the ground now. The site was excavated when a sewer was being put in, which uncovered molluscan evidence indicating that the barrow had been constructed in an established grazed downland. [5] Ploughing has removed many of the barrows that once existed in the Avebury area such as the cemetery on Waden Hill; crop marks providing evidence of there former existence. A similar barrow cemetery existed on Windmill Hill and also at Folly Hill between the Longstones and Silbury Hill.

John Aubrey is acknowledged to be the first antiquarian to recognise the significance of Avebury when he came across it by chance while out fox-hunting in 1649. Aubrey's enthusiasm for the Avebury monuments eventually lead to a visit by king Charles II in 1663. His work at Avebury and other sites of antiquity was eventually to be recorded in a large manuscript titled "Monumenta Brittanica", written circa 1690 but unbelievably not published until the 1980's.

An extract from Pepys's Diary, following a visit to Avebury in 1688 indicates the Sanctuary was in still in relatively good condition:

"In the afternoon came to Abury, where seeing great stones like those of Stonehenge standing up, I stopped, and took a countryman of that town, and he carried me and showed me a place trenched in like Old Sarum almost, with great stones pitched in it, some bigger than those at Stonehenge in figure, to my great admiration: and he told me that most people of learning coming by do come and view them, and that the king (Charles II.) did so: . . . . . I gave this man one shilling. So took coach again, seeing one place with great high stones pitched round, which I believe was once a particular building in some measure like that of Stonehenge. But about a mile off, it was prodigious to see how full the downes are of great stones; and all along the valley stones of considerable bigness, most of them growing certainly out of the ground: which makes me think the less of the wonder of Stonehenge, for hence they might undoubtedly supply themselves with stones as well as those of Abury."

Writing in 1833, John Bathurst Deane commented on Pepys Diary entry: “To a person acquainted with the localities of Abury, Kennet, and the Grey Wethers, it is needless to remark, that the 'place with great high stones pitched round - like that of Stonehenge', which the traveller saw very soon after getting into his carriage, and about a mile before he reached 'the stones in the valley', was the Sanctuary upon Overton hill.” [6]

Abury Restored by William Stukeley

William Stukeley's findings at Avebury were published in 1743 in his "Abury, A Temple of the British Druids". In 1723 he recorded that he saw the site at Overton Hill, as the head of a huge serpent, Beckampton being the tail, referring to it as the “hakpen”, or the “serpent's head”, although he claimed the country people called it the “Sanctuary”. It was composed of two concentric ovals, the outer containing 40 and the inner 18 stones, 39.6m and 13.7m diameter respectively, standing on what is still called Mill Field. A year later it was gone; Stukeley records the destruction of these rings in the winter of 1724:

“Farmer Green took away the stones and Farmer Griffin ploughed up the field...........in order to clear the ground for ploughing and so gain a little dirty profit".

He added, "…..The loss of this work I did not lament alone; but all the neighbours (except the person that gain'd the little dirty profit) were heartily griev'd for it. It had a beauty that touch'd them far beyond those much greater circles in Abury town." [7]

Aubrey's drawings of the Avebury monuments unveil the presence of stones which had disappeared by the time Stukeley was to study the site; testament to the period between the two men's visits as one of major destruction to the monument and the Avebury prehistoric complex. For example, at the time of his visits in the 17th century, Aubrey records that there were 20 stones in the Southern Inner Circle at Avebury whereas Stukeley found only 5 still standing only 60 years later.

And that's how the Sanctuary remained, a once proud megalithic circle now reduced to a flat field, largely forgotten until 200 years later when excavated by the Cunnington's in 1930 who managed to locate the site from Stukeley's sketches and writings. Local archaeologists Maud and Ben Cunnington determined that the first stage of activity at the site consisted of six concentric rings of timbers erected around 3000 BC, probably as a series of three increasingly large timber structures, which may have supported a thatched roof, which has been suggested as originally the observatory of an astronomer-priest. The timber circles at the Sanctuary were eventually superseded around 2400 BC by the two concentric stone circles, at this time the axis was realigned 10 degrees to the west where three stone pillars were set radially on the outer circumference, appearing to form an entrance that joined a short avenue that would later be extended to lead downhill and onto Avebury.
In her report on the 1930 excavations Mrs Cunnington records that only one burial was found at the site. This consisted of the crouched skeleton, always termed a youth but probably a girl of some 14 or 15 years of age in a shallow grave on the eastern side of ring C immediately behind the one single-post hole, lying head to the south, feet to the north, looking towards the east and facing the mid-year sunrise. A beaker was placed between her legs. The body must have almost touched the inner face of the stone at the time of burial, if the stone was already standing, as the grave and the stone hole cut into one another. Cunnington thought it hardly possible that the burial was made before the stone hole was dug, suggesting that it seemed probable that it was made at the time the stone was erected, otherwise the risk of bringing down the stone would have been considerable had the grave been dug later. The bones of the skeleton were nearly all broken, probably due to a certain amount of disturbance caused when the stone fell.

Cunnington saw much in common with the solitary burial found at Woodhenge, a small grave found lying on the line of midsummer sunrise that she suspected was a murdered infant, suggesting they may have been of a similar dedicatory nature and speculated that these elaborate series of wooden circles were not erected primarily as burial places.

Plan of the Sanctuary

Four postholes were found flanking a single recumbent stone at the Sanctuary. Cunnington suggested this solitary stone on the south western side corresponds to the solitary stone at Woodhenge. Calculations have shown that from the centre of the Sanctuary this stone is aligned to the major southern moonset. Just inside the inner ring two much heavier posts were aligned to a north west entrance whose sides are aligned to the mid summer sun. These lunar and solar alignments add further weight to a ritual interpretation of the site.

Both Woodhenge and the Sanctuary were purchased by the Cunnington's and given to nation.

The only other human remains the Cunnington's found at the Sanctuary were three pieces of a lower jaw scattered in stone hole 16 of ring C, interpreted as evidence of funerary practices and ancestor rites with so few antlers and animal bones having been found at the Sanctuary that is considered to be a place of ritual and not a domestic dwelling. These increasingly large timber structures, which may have supported a thatch roofed mortuary house where corpses were kept either before or after ritual treatment at Avebury. The Sanctuary may have been a central ossuary serving the nearby Kennet barrows, Adam's Grave further south and the Devil's Den to the north east. “Rituals connected with death seem likely there.” [8]

But yet debate continues over whether the Sanctuary was roofed or not. Certain mollusc shells were found in the excavations which belonged to snail species found in marshy areas, perhaps lending weight to the theory that the structure was thatched with reeds at some point gathered from the nearby river Kennet. [9]

Mike Pitts and Josh Pollard carried out a small scale excavation at the Sanctuary in 1999 which found a 50cm step on the bottom of one of the double post holes. This step turned out to be Neolithic pit fill, hard-packed chalk. On removal of the fill there was still a step, half the height of the original, which also turned out to be prehistoric packing. Only the deepest pit at the eastern end of the hole had evidence for a timber, in the form of a dark pipe 25cm across. Pitts and Pollard concluded that if each pit held a post, these were later removed with only the last timber was left to rot in place. They could not envisage how this continual replacement could have occurred beneath a heavy thatched roof confirming the growing feeling amongst archaeologists that these sites were displays of free-standing posts. Pitts see this as indication of a continual process; one phase, not several. [10]

Although modern thinking amongst archaeologists is that these concentric rings of the Sanctuary may have held free-standing posts, Maud Cunnington did initially speculate that Woodhenge also held free standing posts and recent surveys at Stanton Drew have revealed huge concentric circles of post holes considered too large to have supported a roofed structure; the function of these timber rings remains obscure. In some cases the gaps between the timbers were so close that a man could not pass between them.

Perhaps it was the concrete blocks laid out in concentric rings, or possibly the solitary burial, or maybe the fact that both sites shared the same excavator in Maud Cunnington, but The Sanctuary today certainly felt and looked similar to what we see at Woodhenge with its low level concrete stumps just a couple of miles north east of Stonehenge. However, the lofty elevation on Overton Hill, the hill of the Seven barrows, adjacent to the Ridgeway, with its views of the Kennet long barrows, Silbury looking over Waden Hill with just the slightest glimpse of the West Kennet Avenue snaking away northward on its journey to the great henge of Avebury, seem to put The Sanctuary out it front, whereas the location of Woodhenge does not feel like it was significantly placed, without any particular views, and looks out of place across the road from Durrington Walls.

But I felt decidedly uneasy at the Sanctuary; something did not feel right here. It wasn't the lone burial; no something else was giving me bad vibes here. We had planned to have lunch here but after a quick drink decided to swiftly move on.

Next: Part VI: A Glimpse of the Underworld

Notes:
1. John North, Stonehenge: Neolithic Man and the Cosmos, Harper Collins, 1996, pp. 74-84.
2. Jim Leary and David Field, The Story of Silbury Hill, English Heritage, 2010.
3. North, op. cit. p.184.
4. Chris Tilley, A Phenoenology of Landscape, Berg, 1994, pp. 170-201.
5. Archaeology in the Avebury Area. Wessex Arch. Rpt. No 8, 1996.
6. John Bathurst Deane, The Worship of the Serpent, 1833.
7. Aubrey Burl, Prehistoric Avebury, Yale University Press, 2nd Edition, 2002, p.133.
8. Aubrey Burl, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press, 2000, pp.313-315.
9. Aubrey Burl, Prehistoric Avebury, Yale University Press, 2nd Edition, 2002, p.136.
10. Mike Pitts, Hengeworld, Arrow, 2001, p.242 – 245

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New Henge

2010-12-12T14:58:00.006Z

Is Stonehenge's sister a Henge, Barrow or Fence?

Back in July the discovery of a New Henge was given extensive media coverage following a geophysical survey by University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria. [1]

This new discovery immediately south of the Curus Barrows and some 900m (2,950ft) NW of the most famous megalithic monument in the world was hailed as Stonehenge’s “long-lost twin” or “sister” and described as the most exciting find there in 50 years.

The University of Birmingham Press Release stated:

“History is set to be rewritten after an archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument less than one kilometre away from the iconic Stonehenge. The incredible find has been hailed by Professor Vince Gaffney, from the University’s IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, as one of the most significant yet for those researching the UK’s most important prehistoric structure.”

Project leader Professor Gaffney added: "You seem to have a large-ditched feature, but it seems to be made of individual scoops rather than just a straight trench. When we looked a bit more closely, we then realised there was a ring of pits about a metre wide going all the way around the edge. When you see that as an archaeologist, you just looked at it and thought, 'that's a henge monument' - it's a timber equivalent to Stonehenge.” [2]

The team also claimed that the Henge had been built about 5,000 years ago, making it roughly the same age as Stonehenge and just like its sister site said to be aligned on the summer solstice.

Bold claims indeed. But perhaps the discovery of a ploughed-out barrow should really have come as no surprise as Stonehenge has one of the largest concentrations of barrows in north-west Europe surrounding the monument's skyline. With many barrows obliterated by modern agricultural techniques there must be many more in the vicinity awaiting to be found, which, hopefully the three year project will unearth.

Henge or Barrow?
The discussion immediately moved to whether the new discovery was actually a Henge or a Barrow. The scan showed a ring of about 10 large dark spots, initially thought to probably be deep pits; set within this a was ring of 24 smaller and lighter circular spots interpreted as postholes. In the centre was a darker area thought to be the remnant of a mound of a barrow since ploughed over. [3]

An irregular ditch, in two arcs, containing the large pits, was claimed to be indicative of a henge; there are no obvious signs of the bank beyond the ditch on the geophysics scan, long ago victim to the plough.

The discussion then moved onto whether the large pits held wooden posts or stone megaliths, with a bout of 'bluestonemania' leading to suggestions that the pits at about 1m (3ft) wide were identical in size to bluestone holes in a 10m diameter circle of 25 stone pits, found at the so-called 'Bluestonehenge' by the terminus of the Stonehenge Avenue at the river Avon discovered last year.

Of course a timber henge would not fit with the recent proposal by Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) that Stonehenge was a Royal cemetery and its megalithic environs was the domain of the dead and timber, as at the nearby Woodhenge and Durrington Walls, the domain of the living.

Or Fence?
Henge or Barrow, stone or timber, it all seems rather confusing and sceptics have pointed out that the scan released by the project team shows the ring of post holes appear to be arranged in an angular pattern more like a hexagon, rather than in a circle as found in a typical henge or barrow.

A Press Release today by the Daily Mail states Mike Pitts claims to have been prompted to study old maps of the area after receiving a letter from an American reader. Pitts and colleagues examined an old Ordnance Survey map from the 1970's and saw a fence marked out, which he suspected to be of early 20th Century construction, erected by the Office of Works or a local farmer.

Pitts is reported as saying: ‘Vince Gaffney says his discovery encircles a burial mound within its circumference, but unless he has some unpublished material to substantiate his discovery, I am in no doubt that this was a modern fence line. If I’m right then the post holes contained modern fencing stakes and they are actually in a hexagonal shape, not a circle.’

He added: ‘I think that perhaps what has happened is that the professor’s field workers have presented him with the wrong picture and he’s shot from the hip and made an over-hasty announcement. He’s generally known for the high quality of his work and his enthusiasm which, on this occasion, may have let him down'.

Gaffney replied: ‘We have mapped numerous fences and we know what they look like. The features appear to be 3ft across and as deep as 3ft. I have never seen a fence line that required holes that are 3ft across and 3ft deep.’ He added that no metal had been found in the holes, like old nails, which would be expected if it was indeed a fence. [4]

Henge or Barrow, this monument clearly is nothing on the scale of Stonehenge and claims of it being a 'sister-henge' are far stretched to say the least. The map print looks pretty conclusive to me but the only way to resolve this matter is for an excavation of the site and full publication of the results.

Notes:
1. Archaeologists unearth Neolithic henge at Stonehenge, BBC News online 22 July 2010.
2. How significant is the 'new henge'? By Mike Pitts Editor, British Archaeology magazine, BBC News online 22 July 2010.
3. Analysing the new site near Stonehenge – Mike Pitts, Digging Deeper.
4. Stonehenge News & Information 12/12/10.

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The Story of Silbury Hill

2010-11-13T13:43:00.010Z

by Jim Leary and David Field

A new book on Silbury Hill, from English Heritage, claims to be the most definitive survey of the ancient mound ever published, shaking up some long held assumptions about the construction and purpose of this mysterious structure, the largest prehistoric man-made feature in Europe.

New book claims Silbury Hill was Anglo-Saxon lookout

Foreword by Sir David Attenborough
Paperback, 224pp, with 100 colour and b&w illustrations.
Published by English Heritage, October 2010.
Featuring cover artwork by David Inshaw

English Heritage have just published a new book on Silbury Hill written by two experts armed with unrivalled information and knowledge from the latest excavations. Claiming to combine both scholarly research and readable narrative, this book sets out the archaeological story of Silbury.

Silbury Hill, near Avebury in Wiltshire, is the largest man-made prehistoric mound in Europe, acquired its distinctive shape in more modern times, according to new archaeological evidence detailed in this book. Similar in size to some of the smaller Egyptian pyramids, it is traditionally thought that Silbury Hill, with its steep banks and flat top, was conceived and completed in pre-historic times, but new research presented in this new book by English Heritage archaeologists Jim Leary and David Field suggests the final shape was a late Anglo-Saxon innovation.

Leary and Field's account sets out the archaeological story of Silbury, beginning with the early recognition of its importance to antiquarian and archaeological investigations of the hill.

The book contains much information from the latest surveys of the hill, including the 2007-2008 re-excavation of the tunnel first dug between 1968 and 1970 by the archaeologist Richard Atkinson. This was due in part to the emergence of a crater on the summit in 2000 owing to the collapse of an 18th Century shaft; Atkinson's tunnel being re-opened in an attempt to repair the mound and fill in this hole in Silbury's summit. However, the 2007-2008 works also resulted in a further minor collapse, although now all known tunnels through the structure have been filled in and the mound re-sealed.

For the first time the results of this recent work are set out in detail, describing early activity on the site, the origins of the monument and the construction techniques used. Here, the authors propose a new theory of the process of construction and thus an new way of interpreting Neolithic monuments.

Leary states that samples taken from the Atkinson tunnel suggest the hill was created not in three stages as previously suggested, but in 15 distinct phases over about 100 years involving some three generations between 2400 and 2300BC, claiming that the people who built it were not so much concerned with the final shape, but more with the ritual of building the structure.

Detailed analysis of the structure points to an ongoing process of ritual construction; archaeological evidence suggests chalk, stones, gravel and turf were consistently used to create textures and patterns, prompting the author's suggestion that the process of construction might have been a means by which peoples from across a much broader area came together. Soils found within the hill seem to come from different areas, and could have been brought to the site by various communities.

Silbury from West Kennet long barrow

The Story of Silbury Hill describes how the monument was seen and used by later communities; from the Roman small town that grew up around the hill - the inhabitants quite literally living in its shadow; to medieval buildings on the summit, suggesting the mound was adapted as a defensive position in the late Anglo-Saxon period.

The Neolithic banks of the hill underwent a certain degree of re-modelling during that period, with the top of Silbury being modified in the medieval period, probably around the year 1000. A massive post hole found on top of the hill during recent work is seen by the authors as evidence of an Anglo-Saxon look out post, with the suggestion that a wooden palisade crowned the summit during the period, with the interior housing either a small fort or a beacon; Leary suggests that the Saxons may have been protecting themselves from Viking incursions, with the hill standing next to a Roman road which invaders could have used.

The book includes reconstruction drawings to illustrate the authors' new interpretation of this iconic prehistoric monument. Finally, the book discusses what Silbury means to people today: its power and spirituality for locals, visitors, New Agers and Druids alike.

"A superb and authoritative work which communicates all the excitement of the quest to understand the mysteries of Silbury." - Barry Cunliffe

"This is the best book on Silbury to date, incorporating the results of all the recent investigations. It manages wonderfully to bring out both why the Hill matters to archaeologists and why it matters to everybody else." - Ronald Hutton

If this is the 'definitive survey' of Silbury Hill, let's trust that archaeologists can now refrain from digging further tunnels into this ancient mound before it finally collapses. Now the tunnels have been backfilled, hopefully the enigma of Silbury will remain.

* * *

Ancient Earthwork found near route of Slane bypas

2010-11-12T18:27:00.010Z

In March this year it was reported how the route of the proposed N2 Slane Bypass will skirt the three main prehistoric sites of the Brú na Bóinne Complex; Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. [1]

There are at least 40 significant archaeological sites in and around the Bend in the Boyne valley, many of these ancient monuments maintain an association with Irish Mythology which has persisted since prehistory. Brú na Bóinne is a vast complex of Neolithic chamber tombs, standing stones, henges and other prehistoric enclosures, with over forty passage tombs and was built with sophistication and a knowledge of science and astronomy, the most well known occurring at Newgrange when light from the winter solstice sun enters the 60ft passage shortly after sunrise, reaching the orthostat at the end of the passage. Astronomical calculations have shown that when Newgrange was constructed some 5,000 years ago first light would have entered the passage exactly at sunrise.

Former Attorney General John Rogers, SC, commissioned an archaeological survey as part of his objection to an N2 bypass running east of Slane. The survey, carried out by archaeologists Joe Fenwick, Gerard Dowling and Roseanne Schot of the Brú na Bóinne Research Project, has found a previously unrecorded “impressively large earthwork”, believed to be part of the outer defences of an early medieval royal stronghold at Knowth. The findings have now been submitted to An Bórd Pleanála as additional information as part of its consideration of plans for the proposed bypass.

The earthwork was said to have been found at Crewbane, near the home of Mr Rogers, and prompted by the discovery in 2007 of a souterrain in Crewbane, at the perimiter of ther Brú na Bóinne UNESCO work heritage site 'buffer zone’ 2km east of Slane village and 1km from the prehistoric passage tomb of Knowth. The archaeologists said that “this impressively large earthwork” is not recorded in the Sites and Monuments Record for County Meath. [2]

Mr Fenwick suggested that the “only realistic option” for the traffic problem in Slane was to ban heavy goods vehicles entirely from the village and provide an east-west corridor to the north of Slane, to redirect this traffic towards “the new and under-utilised” M1 and M3 motorways.

Meanwhile, the Save Newgrange campaign has complained to An Bord Pleanala and the North-South Ministerial Council that the public consultation process for the bypass is in breach of the Belfast Agreement, because the consultation does not extend to Northern Ireland. They say that the road proposal is in breach of EU environmental law, which provides for trans-boundary consultation, where the project is of a trans-boundary nature. [3]

Proposed route of N2 Slane bypass

We await the outcome, but perhaps we should not be too optimistic as discovery of a souterrain at Lismullin in the Gabhra Valley, Co. Meath, was found to be within 7 metres of a slip road instead of the supposed 100 metres. The structure had not been excavated as it was not one of the sites initially listed as being impacted by the M3 motorway route through the Tara Skryne Valley.

The souterrain at Lismullin was the latest in a line of sites that came to light in the area after the initial surveys had been completed, with the geophysical survey failing to identify the huge site, including an ancient temple, a wood henge, that was declared a National Monument in May 2007. Soon afterwards the souterrain was discovered close to the henge and during excavation a huge decorated stone was uncovered bearing megalithic art that is very similar to that found at Newgrange and Knowth, which date to c.3000 BC, demonstrating the connection between Tara and the Gabhra Valley as the nearest example of megalithic art is to be found in the passage tomb of the Mound of the Hostages on the summit of the Hill of Tara. The stone had been split in ancient times to fit into the souterrain and the remaining section may lie somewhere else in this archaeological complex.

Following this destructive road building process through Ireland's historic landscape, campaigners are demanding that the bodies excavated now be buried with dignity.

Petition to Re-Inter Ancient Remains from M3 Construction
Tara Campaigners worldwide are supporting a petition to the Irish Government calling on them to re-inter the remains of individuals whose graves have been desecrated by the ongoing construction of the M3 Motorway in the Gabhra Valley near the historic Hill of Tara in Co. Meath, the putative site of the last battle of the Fianna in 284 AD and they were said to be buried where they fell along with Cairpre Lifechair king of Tara son of Cormac mac Airt.

The petition, which went went live on Saturday 19th July, calls for the remains of those whose graves were “desecrated” during excavations for the M3 motorway through the Tara Skryne Valley, to be re-interred, was handed in at Dáil Eireann on Monday, demanding that the remains removed from their ancient sacred burial grounds now be re-interred in a respectful and dignified manner as closely as possible to their original resting places and as closely as possible to their original ceremonial layout. This campaign has been given the backing of the World Archaeological Conference (WAC) held in Dublin in 2008, attended by over 1,800 archaeologists, native peoples and international scholars from 74 nations.

Construction of the M3 at Lismullin

The WAC said: “Recognising that the reburial of ancient remains in Ireland is subject to the provisions of the National Monuments Act and the agreement of the National Museum of Ireland, the World Archaeological Congress also draws attention to the Vermillion Accord on human remains and suggests that any human remains excavated from the cultural landscape of Tara should be re-interred with due respect as close as possible to their original locations, as this is where these people would have wished to be buried.”

It is estimated that between 60 to 90 remains were removed from Collierstown, the reputed burial site of the last battle of the Fianna. Over 27 were removed from Ardsallagh and many more were taken from individual sites along the route of the M3 motorway route. Over the last 15 years it is estimated that thousands of bodies have been removed and are now stored in warehouses.

M3 motorway through the Tara Skryne Valley

The organisers of the petition, Tomás Mac Cormaic and Carmel Diviney, thanked all supporters worldwide for adding to the call to put pressure on the Irish Government and the National Museum of Ireland to show due respect to Tara’s ancestral remains and said:

"We hope that this petition is the beginning of a debate on the ethics of this archaeological 'resolution' of our ancestors, the indigenous people of Ireland. This debate and respect for our own indigenous people, ourselves, is long overdue and that this puts added pressure on the Irish Govt. to re-inter the bodies".

“We hope that the thousands of other remains unearthed during construction works throughout the country, which are not being held for scientific research purposes, will likewise be given dignified and respectful reburial without delay,” they said. [4]

Notes
1. “When 'Sacred' is no Longer 'Sacred',”
2. Survey finds ancient earthworks near Slane bypass route - The Meath Chronicle online 13 October 2010
3. Survey finds ancient earthworks near Slane bypass route. Vincent Salafia
4. Petition to Re-Inter Ancient M3 Remains - The Meath Chronicle online 10 November 2010

* * *