Julian Cope's Megalithic European has arrived. Competition and initial thoughts

Submitted by Anonymous on Tuesday, 19 October 2004 Page Views: 15289

**Ménec alignements** submitted by JJ : Aerial photo copyright JJ Evendon (Vote or comment on this photo)

The results of the competition to win a copy of Julian Cope's Megalithic European are below. Thanks for the submissions everyone, keep them coming in.

enkidu41 72 (1st Prize)
thecaptain 63 (2nd Prize)
ernar 36 (3rd Prize)
AngieLake 21
MawnanIan 18
cosmic 13
RoyB 9
bec-zog 9
VirtHist 9
nicoladidsbury 8
etc...
The competition was as follows:
Starting from NOW (14th Oct) until the launch of the book, the prize of one copy of the Megalithic European will be awarded to the person who contributes the most new site listings or photos to the Megalithic Portal web site. To keep with the theme of Megalithic Europe, each site listing or photo you contribute of outside the UK will count for double points! Make sure you are logged in when you post sites, so they are registered to your user ID.

We are looking for quality sites and photos, so mass posting of poor quality images or sites will be deleted as appropriate. No more than four photos of each location will be counted from each contributor, and then only if each photo is useful, adding to the sum total of knowledge. The judges' descision is final.

The closing date is the end of the 18th October 2004, so there's not long to get cracking.

Full prizes as follows:
1. The Megalithic European by Julan Cope
2. Prehistoric Cheshire by Vicky and Paul Morgan, another quality production
3. Choice of books from the bottomless 'bargain pile'
Due to the extreme weight of the book (see below), regrettably the 1st prize is only open to residents of the UK or N Ireland unless the winner is prepared to contribute to the postal costs.

On to some initial thoughts on the book:

The gazetteer information, and overall design is excellent, as I was expecting. Essentially the style is as the Modern Antiquarian book all over again, and as he says, he has managed to pack in a large number of photos by putting several on a page in many places. Those of a nervous disposition will be pleased that the colour coding has been toned down to the corner tabs and introductory pages. As for the main contents I'll have more to say on that another time - stones - writing - photos, you know the score. He's continued the tradition of 'notes from the sites', which give a personal feel to the book. There are also what look to be good directions and even pronounciations where needed.

He writes 'I'm past the stage of trying to theorize about these places', well congratulations to that man :-) I'm also pleased to see he is now backtracking on his belief in all-encompassing goddess worship, as frankly I found all that a rather cringeworthy part of the original Modern Antiquarian, indeed something that for me clouded an otherwise excellent book. It's good to he is prepared to move with the times and not get stuck in a rut like so many people do as they get older.

He writes in his introduction that he considers it 'archaeologically thorough'. It certainly appears to be, again the influence of mixing with the likes of Burl, Gillings and Pollard seems to have rubbed off.

More good news is that the quality of the photos has improved greatly from the original book, in which some of them looked like they were taken as 126 holiday snaps in the 1970s. I know he's been at it a long time, so perhaps they were! For better or worse he keeps with the 'Hello Mum' format featuring people in the photos, including himself in one degree or another of hairyness.

Overall the photo reproduction is improved by having full gloss paper cover to cover. This makes for an even weightier tome, up from the 1950g of TMA to a lap-crushing 2.3Kg. Being unhealthily familiar with the cost of posting things, I know this book will cost mere mortals like myself over £7.00 to send out. Sadly this finally kills any contemplation of stocking it in our online shop. Stop for a moment and marvel at what an incredible deal Amazon are offering at £21 including free delivery. I know they must have a mega discount with the Post Office and Harper Collins but I really can't see how they are making any money on it.

I think a health warning is appropriate at this point - be careful which way you hold it. In carring two copies upstairs to the bedroom nerve centre [no, not that bedroom Fourwinds] I dropped one. This was on purpose of course in the spirit of a Which? style product test and not as a silly accident, but it was useful as it would appear that the binding is solid and not prone to coming apart. I know we'll all be monitoring this point carefully, let me know how your copy holds out, but don't come running if you break your toe with it.

All in all, if this doesn't wake up the inhabitants of mainland Europe to what's on their doorstep like a brick through the proverbial, I don't know what will.

In the introduction he writes 'Of course, the ultimate reason for this book's existence was to create a forum for dialogue'. Indeed, and if you too are inspired to search out our prehistoric past in ever more remote places, you've come to the right place to add to the sum knowledge of megaliths worldwide.

Andy

P.S. Don't forget the details of the ~~Hero Worshipping~~ Book Signing sessions.

Note: Winner of the Megalithic European book announced

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