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Julian Cope and reclining women. |
Laughing_Ball
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|  Posted 20-08-2006 at 23:27
In Julian Cope's book, The Modern Antiquarian, he say's that many sites are situated within view of hills and that sites are often positioned in such a way that when viewed from a site, the hills appear to merge creating the illusion of a reclining woman, representing a goddess.
Does this theory stand up?
Ben
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Laughing_Ball
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| Posted 20-08-2006 at 23:34
I try and look at possible formations in the hill's from sites but can't always be sure. What are other people's experiences opinions?
Ben
P.S. I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, I tried but failed to find anything in previous discussions.
[ This message was edited by: Laughing_Ball on 2006-08-20 23:38 ]
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Andy B
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| Posted 20-08-2006 at 23:47
Some bright spark will probably suggest discussing this elsewhere, but there's no reason JC related stuff can't be mentioned here.
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ragnarok
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| Posted 21-08-2006 at 00:50
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On 2006-08-20 23:27, Laughing_Ball wrote:
the hills appear to merge creating the illusion of a reclining woman, representing a goddess.
Does this theory stand up?
Ben
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No.
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Wiggy
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| Posted 21-08-2006 at 13:43
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On 2006-08-20 23:27, Laughing_Ball wrote:
In Julian Cope's book, The Modern Antiquarian, he say's that many sites are situated within view of hills and that sites are often positioned in such a way that when viewed from a site, the hills appear to merge creating the illusion of a reclining woman, representing a goddess.
Does this theory stand up?
Ben
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Depends how you look at it. 
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Wiggy
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| Posted 21-08-2006 at 15:13
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On 2006-08-21 13:43, Wiggy wrote:
[quote]
On 2006-08-20 23:27, Laughing_Ball wrote:
In Julian Cope's book, The Modern Antiquarian, he say's that many sites are situated within view of hills and that sites are often positioned in such a way that when viewed from a site, the hills appear to merge creating the illusion of a reclining woman, representing a goddess.
Does this theory stand up?
Ben
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Depends how you look at it.
[/quote]
By which I mean:
Cope is as much an artist/poet as he is a scholar - lots of what he says appeals on that level (and who's to say that isn't important?).
Of course, in much European myth/floklore we find examples of landscape as giant human figure, sleeping God etc, and there is plenty of evidence from psychologists etc that the human brain will try to sort random patterns into recognisable shapes (which is why so many people seem to find the face of Jesus in rusty wheel barrows and cheese and onion crisps!) There is also lots of archaelogical evidence of widespread "Goddess" worship, so I suppose it's easy to come to the same conclusions as Cope.
I like the idea - but it would be hard to "prove".
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cropredy
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| Posted 21-08-2006 at 15:29
Laughing_ball, hello,
What do you mean, "stand up" , the hill?
Or the theory?
I often notice this, but I do look at the world from a strange angle, it sort of depends on where my dowsing rods are pointing, they do point at pointy bits quite a lot, and if I go near the hill figures this continues wether the pointy bit be male or female looking?
I consider that the resemblance of many hills to a reclining female is to do with the weathering from the predominately westerly air flows.
I also have a theory that everything has been created by a matrix type system of crossing lines, the way this occurs leads to compression and explosion at specific points, where there has been explosion in the past, I consider that a harder deposit of rocks are present ( hills) and where the compression occurs there are depressions.
All of this is then subject to severe weathering, but because it occurs in specific points and distances, and due to the rounding effect of the weathering, it takes on the appearance of a reclining female.
If I had been looking at this many thousands of years ago, I may well have had a different understanding of what I percieved.
Julien cope appears to have a strong belief in the goddess, therefore he may percieve what he views from this belief point of view?
I consider it is, as I said ,the result of how the whole planet has been created by the incoming flows of light and it earthing and re-emitting, but this is just my little theory?
I consider ancient mankind percieved the two points I mention as male and female points on the planet, and positioned stones etc accordingly to further represent this?
Fertility would have been paramount in their lives, for themselves their animals and crops, anything that enchanched this would have recieved all their efforts.
Kevin
[ This message was edited by: cropredy on 2006-08-21 15:31 ]
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Laughing_Ball
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| Posted 21-08-2006 at 21:29
Cope also says that a lot of the hills and place names near sites are derived from the names of different goddesses, but I guess this is also difficult to prove. Although if there is truth in what he says, it sounds like etymology and place names meanings could hold a key to predicting where sites may be hidden.
The sacred mountain idea seems probable but I don't know about the reclining goddess thing, however it still sounds more plausable to me than energy or lay lines.
Ben
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Kieren
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| Posted 22-08-2006 at 00:04
I've seen many examples of this myself, the most notible one for me is not in this country but Tenerife (Canary Island) where you see two lying down rock giants either side of the gorge that approachs mount Teide, the sacred place of the native Guanches.
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Salopian
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| Posted 22-08-2006 at 01:01
Personally I find it hard to go along with some of the things Cope says but I find the way he writes about sites absolutely enthralling. He must have converted huge numbers of people into being fans of these places.
I find no difficulty in thinking there were such things as mother hills, judging by the placing of many sites, nor maybe that some of them were thought of as reclining women. After all, if a hill has retained a female name for say ten centuries and its origins are lost in the mists of time, why shouldn't it have rolled down from millennia ago. Place names seem one of the most enduring parts of culture - mainly because, once given, they have no reason to be changed I suppose. I find it deeply satisfying to think we may be using words for places that were first adopted by neolithic people.
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mishkin
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| Posted 22-08-2006 at 06:23
"I find it deeply satisfying to think we may be using words for places that were first adopted by neolithic people."
I suppose because prehistoric people had to tell how to get from one place to another that language started to evolve, I've often wondered how they communicated in this country - map drawing in the dirt, the hill that looks like a female, the river that curves to the great sea, the great ridge that takes you to other tribes. They would have woken in the morning, taken their bearings from the sun, using it through the day to keep to their journey.
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rbatham
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| Posted 22-08-2006 at 09:42
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On 2006-08-22 00:04, Kieren wrote:
I've seen many examples of this myself, the most notible one for me is not in this country but Tenerife (Canary Island) where you see two lying down rock giants either side of the gorge that approachs mount Teide, the sacred place of the native Guanches.
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take a look at the water course 'Swan River" Perth W.A> Looks like a woman diving. Then it depends on how much water you have mixed with whatever you are drinking.Roy
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jasonvaughn
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| Posted 22-08-2006 at 11:49
The highest hill in the Clwydian range is called Moel Famau which means "Mother Hill". It is an area rich with iron age hillforts and numerous bronze age burial mounds. Would cairns and barrows have been used as navigational aids in prehistoric times? Standing stones would have marked boundaries between kingdoms? IMO hills and mountains have a female character but maybe that's just my flight of fancy.
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Salopian
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| Posted 22-08-2006 at 11:55
IMO hills and mountains have a female character but maybe that's just my flight of fancy.
Not at all. This has also been my experience of women....
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Salopian
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| Posted 22-08-2006 at 12:12
"Would cairns and barrows have been used as navigational aids in prehistoric times?"
I reckon well-worn tracks would be the earliest artefacts ever created by Man and if most of the land was scary forest they'd have tended to hug the high unforested ridges. They say the Ridgway is 6,000 years old but i bet its been a route for far longer than that. Its the mother of all leylines (in the Alfred Watkins sense, which is the only permissable one in this part of the forum!)
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TimPrevett
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| Posted 12-09-2006 at 13:33
Just noticed this thread whilst searching for some info.
Having spent some time around Radnor a few weeks ago, this site & pic here:
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/32704
is about the most convincing I have personally seen in my limited experience of these.
Some folk also see sleeping dragons / serpents in the landscape - one around Guildford, and another around the Roaches in Staffs, some have claimed, IIRC.
Cheers
Tim
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AngieLake
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|  Posted 15-09-2006 at 01:34
[quote]
On 2006-08-20 23:27, Laughing_Ball wrote:
In Julian Cope's book, The Modern Antiquarian, he say's that many sites are situated within view of hills and that sites are often positioned in such a way that when viewed from a site, the hills appear to merge creating the illusion of a reclining woman, representing a goddess.
Does this theory stand up?
Ben
Hi Ben
Reading this brought to mind the information board near Loughcrew during a visit to Ireland in 2001.
I couldn't help thinking that, in the diagram, the hills represented two large breasts and must have been a focus for lower-level ceremonial sites. When I googled 'Loughcrew' I noticed that such sites had been found using Lidar. (Carnbane East was also known as the Hill of the Hag).
Also googled 'the Paps of Anu', another fine 'pair' in Kerry/Cork area, where there are loads of sacred sites.
While we're on 'paps' ...  .. how about the Paps of Jura? Aren't there stones framing them?
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Aluta
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| Posted 15-09-2006 at 02:34
This is an interesting topic even over here on the wrong side of the Atlantic. One of the people investigating the native stonework sites found one significant site when he noticed what looked like a reclining figure on the horizon, while looking from another site. Whether or not the cairn with a hole in the middle that he found when he visited the hill that made up the head of the figure was really supposed to be an eyeball as he suggested (tentatively), I'll never know, but I see those hills frequently when I use certain roads, and they never fail to amaze me with their uncanny likeness to a human figure. I was pleased to find a mention of the landscape-as-body-of-the-goddess idea mentioned by Paul Devereux in his book The Sacred Place.
There's a certain fairly common mystical experience in which the world briefly seems to the receiver like a benign being. That kind of experience might make these female landscapes especially arresting to those of a poetic mindset.
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bawn79
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| Posted 26-10-2006 at 16:48
There is a lesser know part of Ireland in Tipperary near where I live where there is an acutual mothers mountain, it is literally called Mahurslieve or Mothers Moutain. http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/7751
There is a nipple on top and about 10-15 megalithic tombs built around it all in site and some aligned on the mountain itself.
Also in limerick there are two hills named after the sun-goddess grainne, Cnoc Aine and Knocgraine.
This is not including all the tombs in Ireland that are associated with the hag as some of the previous posts mention.
None of this proves any theories but I think it does show that idea of a mother goddess being important in ancient religions and monuments being aligned to them is fairly plausible.
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