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Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , coldrum , Klingon , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith , sem
The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Stones Forum >> avebury/silbury
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avebury/silbury |
Anonymous
User not Registered |  Posted 24-05-2006 at 22:26
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.... These monuments were built not in the Neolithic, but in the Paleolithic....
maybe Erich von Daniken wa right. rbatham
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His banker thought he was right as rain, no doubt, but noone else does.
And you are way wrong. The "Neolithic" or the "New Stone Age" is when Avebury and Silbury Hill were constructed, after 3000 BC. There are reliable radiocarbon dates. See Neolithic article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic
"Neolithic traditions spread west and northwards to reach northwestern Europe by around 4500 BC."
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 24-05-2006 at 22:36
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On 2006-05-24 02:52, Anonymous wrote:
I wonder what the ancients wrote on to work out all there sums?
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I wonder if the circles and stones are how they wrote? Who would be so silly as to write what is important on paper.  It would never last! Paper is for offices and cleaning orfices 
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Anonymous
User not Registered |  Posted 25-05-2006 at 11:08
But someone must have sent a chitty to Preseli or how would the masons know what the customer had ordered, sizes, colour, finish, delivery date etc., . The transport department would have to organise overnight accomodation for the crew,{and gruel wasn't cheap, even in them days}.
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rbatham
Joined:
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Messages: 680
from Western Australia
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| Posted 25-05-2006 at 13:02
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On 2006-05-24 22:26, Anonymous wrote:
[quote]
.... These monuments were built not in the Neolithic, but in the Paleolithic....
maybe Erich von Daniken wa right. rbatham
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His banker thought he was right as rain, no doubt, but noone else does.
And you are way wrong. The "Neolithic" or the "New Stone Age" is when Avebury and Silbury Hill were constructed, after 3000 BC. There are reliable radiocarbon dates. See Neolithic article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic
"Neolithic traditions spread west and northwards to reach northwestern Europe by around 4500 BC."
[/quote] Most books I've read start the Neolithic 2800BC .Stonehenge started 4000Bc. Whether palo or neo is academic. The question still remains bout a society with sophisticated mathematics and astronomy at these early dates. rbatham
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rbatham
Joined:
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Messages: 680
from Western Australia
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| Posted 26-05-2006 at 12:12
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On 2006-05-25 11:08, Anonymous wrote:
But someone must have sent a chitty to Preseli or how would the masons know what the customer had ordered, sizes, colour, finish, delivery date etc., . The transport department would have to organise overnight accomodation for the crew,{and gruel wasn't cheap, even in them days}.
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 No chit was sent, orders were relayed verbally across the country an you know what happens, the message becomes garbled. The original order was for six uprights 3ft high and 4 lintels to contruct 2 double aches 22 yards apart. What they got was totally different and delayed the inventioon of cricket for 5000 years
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 26-05-2006 at 16:41
Some people still say that they have seen a giant ghostly white clad apparition wandering Englands landscape,wielding a wooden club. Some people call him Freddie Flintstone.
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 26-05-2006 at 18:45
Seriously though..... apparantly Silbury hill has a little sister 5 miles east {in the grounds of Marlborough public school}. Does anyone have any*****. Name etc.
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 26-05-2006 at 18:49
Sorry, I went to Harrow.
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PeteG
Joined:
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Messages: 287
from Avebury
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| Posted 26-05-2006 at 19:20
Merlins Mound is in the grounds of Marlborough college.
There is another Silbury type mound very close to Silbury hill
http://aveburytour.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/Silbury/MiniSilburyA.htm
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MickM
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Messages: 192
from London
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| Posted 26-05-2006 at 20:08
There is also this site in SW Scotland
Dunragit
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Anonymous
User not Registered | Posted 26-05-2006 at 21:23
The mound at marlborough has been dated to the middle ages {mott and bailey mound }. See Thorgrim Tuesday 3rd January 2006 .
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AnewMerlinian
Joined:
17-12-2004
Messages: 164
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| Posted 13-06-2006 at 08:24
Interesting,
I've posted some, and some embarassing, speculation on this subject in ''Sacred Sites''. Here I find an earnest discussion of the astronomy.
The 1/7th fraction intrigues me. Let's de-emphasise, for a moment, the circumference of the earth and the rather high concept involved there; and imagine they were given to taking the azimuth of stars with a sextant-like disk. One can assume this would have been a ''magical'' device, and a priestly duty. If they found a location in their lands where the polar stars had an elevation of 1/7th this disk... It may have been important to them, and a propitious place to build a temple.
Thereafter, the number 7 would have gained an aura of its own, and one could expect them to apply it, immediately, in temple layouts. Example: Silbury Hill may or may not have had a spiral ramp of 7 windings... (6 is the more common estimate.) A quote from an article in British Archaeology magazine follows:
''What of Atkinson's contention that the hill was raised in tiers? The new survey work suggests otherwise. The uppermost terrace, when circumnavigated, returns to a point several metres below the starting point - in other words, it spirals down. Weathering has obscured the detail of ledges further down the slope; but if we assume the feature is continuous, it implies a spiral path all the way from the summit to the base.'' (http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba70/feat2.shtml)
Stonehenge had 8x7 Aubrey holes.
However I'm skeptical that they were crack astronomers. I think that part of the attraction of paleo-astronomy---of the allignments and careful surveying attributed to them---is in its secularity. It's a way of saying, ''These were not sorcerers, they were scientists''.
There's a difference between being a sorcerer and believing in sorcerers. The former, is in reality impossible. The latter, is ubiquitous when talking about early societies.
And belief in magic causes and benefits from a certain inexactness. Engineers focus on what's measurable, because the measurable can be duplicated. Wizards are more interested in what's not, because ''magic'', can not. One of the remarkable feats of the time was that both apparently thrived together.
In this capacity, it is sometimes useful to entertain crazy ideas. To speak with those who may be, well, a little off the rocker. Because we/they think in magical terms.
Please have a look at our discussion on the Sacred Sites forum.
~Anew Merlinian
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AnewMerlinian
Joined:
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| Posted 14-06-2006 at 11:23
I've been re-reading some of the earlier posts, while considering, rather fancifully, the milleau.
Excerpting from rbatham's May 25th post:
''My original question was whether Silhill could have been sundial of sorts. Well, if the base angle is the same as the latitude then this suggests a gnomen. From the south the line of sight up the slope would point to the celestial north pole.'' ... ''The architects must have had Knowledge of a round Earth, and solar movements, a well developed mathematics.''
This is a lot to consider. The slope of Silbury Hill is almost exactly 30 degrees, a twelfth part of a circle. That was likely known and significant to them. But to point to the polar stars, (from the South), the slope would have had to be about 51 degrees. To serve as an ideal gnomon, a slope of about 38 degrees would have been desired. The latter could have been accomplished by setting a 90 foot pole at the center of the top platform, the former, 215'. Evidence of this, however, would be hard to find as in 1776, the Duke of Northumberland dug a shaft from top to bottom, (he wasn't alone), presumably at the center.
''A well developed mathematics.'' The evidence is persuasive that they had a knowledge of numbers, particularly rational fractions; and an interest in their application to circles and triangles. The following is a quote from Wikipedia's article on West Kennett long barrow:
''The latest excavations also revealed that the side chambers occur inside an exact isosceles triangle, whose height is twice the length of its base.''
How far they took it is difficult to say, but since they were applying it to their religious monuments... that interest was likely both fostered, and guarded by, the priesthood. We have the ingredients of a storm.
What follows hypothetical sketch of two successive paradigm shifts. West Kennett to Avebury, Avebury to Stonehenge. Yes, someone may well have known: The world is round.
Let me begin by excerpting from Wikipedia's article on West Kennett Long Barrow:
''The construction of the West Kennet Long Barrow commenced about 3600 BC, which is some 400 years before the first stage of Stonehenge and it was in use until around 2500 BC. The mound has been damaged by indiscriminate digging, but archaeological excavations in 1859 and 1955-56 found at least 46 burials, ranging from babies to old people. The bones were disarticulated with some of the skulls and long bones missing. It has been suggested that the bones were removed periodically for display or transported elsewhere with the blocking facade being removed and replaced each time.''
What we see is a tradition that, at least for a time, coexisted with the circle-building, indeed there may have been a crossover. However the linear nature of their barrows suggest that these practitioners held their outdoor rituals at Cursi, (Cursuses). Thus there would have been those who saw life as a journey, and those who saw it as a circle. (Interestingly, the spiral, another popular symbol, combines the two.)
I imagine the Cursus-Kennett believers saw the world in linear terms. That it was, in a way, like a path, longer in one direction than the others. They may have been encouraged to pursue a path themselves---to pick a compass point to call their own and travel in said direction and back again---throughout their lives. There is a remarkable continuity of culture in the British Isles, and the Cursus believers may have been integral to this. Indeed, they may have built some of the first circles, as a way of saying, ''This is my journey's end, here I turn around''. Beautiful.
Circle-builders, for their part, could have held that the earth was a giant henge. A ring of safety, surrounded by a ditch filled with peril, then an unclimbable far escarpment. People were thus advised to stay within ''boundries'', to become locals, as it were.
I would think both traditions had the earth as stationary and central---after all, we rarely feel like we're moving when we're still... The sun was borne through the sky on the back of a snow-white goose, and the moon an owl... Lovely.
As long as times were good, traditions such as these could view eachother with curiousity, perhaps bemusement... but the differences between the faiths were likely real, and growing.
Times turned hard. Another quote from Wikipedia's West Kennett article: ''It is thought that this tomb was in use for as long as 1,000 years and at the end of this period the passage and chamber were filled to the roof by the Beaker people with earth and stones, among which were found pieces of Grooved ware, Peterborough ware and Beaker pottery, charcoal, bone tools, and beads. Stuart Piggott, who excavated this mixture of secondary material, suggested that it had been collected from a nearby 'mortuary temple' showing that the site had been used for ritual activity long after it was used for burial.''
Another interpretation, is that the new tradition attacked the old; gathering all local artifacts, packing it into the barrow, and closing it for good. People are capable of this.
Almost immediately, work began on Avebury-Silbury, intended to be the defining statement of the new religion. It was to include a temple to the sun and a temple to the moon, both within a massive henge, (a temple to the earth). It would have a sacred mountain for the dead, and an outlying funeral temple, processional avenues... For a while, fortune smiled on them, whatever pestillence had afflicted the land let up, and the people in their unity and enthusiasm constructed a truly massive complex. Did I say ''massive complex''
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
One of the priests, (be it male or female), who regularly handled the disk to take the azimuth of the pole star, all in ceremony; realized the world was round---all the way round. Whether he or she went to the leadership immediately for permission to disclose this information is unknowable, (it's all unknowable), but that permission would have been denied. They'd already told the people something else; if they went and told them this now, they'd be wrong, and wrong is a bad thing for a religion to be. Especially if it has blood on its hands.
Then the priest realized that the earth spun and the sun stayed still... he or she fled with the knowledge and the church split. The reivisionists were received by an independent church on the Salisbury Plain where Cursus worshipers were still extant. More arrived, and they warred with Avebury, gaining access to the Sarsens of the nearby Downs, and possibly siezing some of the temple's own. The great single circle of Stonehenge was built; likely incorporating sight-lines, honoring the Cursus faith in the new.
Avebury regrouped. Stonehenge was sacked and one of it's retainers buried in the ditch. (That, there's evidence for. The skeleton of an archer was found which was contemporary with the main phase. He had apparently fought hard, and died with six arrows in him. See ''Hengeworld'', by Mike Pitts). Uprights were pulled down to break the circle.
Where things went from there is unclear, (it's all unclear); but the knowledge of a round earth had yet to take root in nearby Denmark as late as the Bronze Age. There, a find shows how it worked to them. The Sun was drawn through the sky on a caisson by a horse. This horse likely had its name, and the people knew him as one of their own. (How are you going to compete with that?)
At any rate, I hope your patience has been rewarded. You've some wonderful things to think about now; and I'll have it be known my banker believes me 100 percent.
~ Anew Merlinian
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cropredy
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from Oxon
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| Posted 14-06-2006 at 14:45
Anew merlinian, two fabulous posts.
As a person who is so percieved to be off his rocker that they have barred me from landing at the end of the rainbow ?
Your references to WKLB, and that the side chambers form perfect isosceles triangles, they will for very simple reason, I swear to you that the alignments and subsequent measurements are there for all, or perhaps mainly to those descended from Merlin ?
The measurements are to devine proportions, as are all the layouts of the later norman churchs, who must have used the lines to setout the floor areas, it is beyond coincidence that they are all bang on ?
I love finding later ones that are not quite right, especially victorian ones.
Also you refering to skull and thigh bones, I consider these will have been kept in the side chambers and at the end point of the barrow , until the moon does its little stone trick.
Once every 13 months of the year, it causes an alteration in the flow along the lines that WKLB is so precisely aligned to, for SEVEN minutes life will have been percieved to be coming out of the spirals formed in the isoisceles triangles, the skull and thigh bones will have been brought out as a sign of re-birth, in exactly the same time span as the womans menstrul cycle, WKLB, is the womb of the goddess.
The Earth goddess
Kevin
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AnewMerlinian
Joined:
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| Posted 14-06-2006 at 23:45
Thanks, Kevin, some recognition does help.
You're bringing up perception and flows, though; so I'll respond on the other forum.
Michael
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cropredy
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from Oxon
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| Posted 15-06-2006 at 10:35
anew merlinian, you are right, it is so hard for me not to respond , when I feel I can contribute, so apologies , and I wiil take the alternate route.
Kevin
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