<< News >> Seahenge Update
Submitted by Andy B on Friday, 25 January 2002 Page Views: 996
DiscoveriesTHE UPSIDE-DOWN TRIBE - John Pratty - The Sunday Times, 13:01:2002> The unique monument consists of 55 wooden posts
>surrounding a giant upturned oak, and was discovered
>by an amateur archaeologist amid the beach's shifting
>sands. It excited experts worldwide, and conservation
>of the fragile site has led to heated controversy
>which has prompted pioneering laser work to create a
>digital 3-D replica.
> Probably the most important discovery is the earliest
>evidence yet of Bronze Age tools at work in Britain,
>and in the insight it gives us into the minds of these
>inhabitants of ancient Britain.
> The bleak site, exposed to North Sea winds and fog,
>sits in shallows which 4,000 years ago lay inland. It
>is likely to have been part of a busy ritual landscape
>- a collection of burial mounds, shrines, and
>monuments - which brought far-flung families together.
> Every aspect of daily life would have been
>conditioned by respect for the rule of ancestors.
>Seahenge itself was probably built by Saami people
>from Finland, according to Francis Pryor, the director
>of the Flag Fen archaeology centre, evidence of Nordic
>invaders arriving in Britain long before the Vikings.
> So why did the Finns build this monument in such a
>peculiar way, round an inverted tree? Pryor thinks
>that the Saami held a prehistoric belief in a
>parallel, upside-down universe.
> "It's a world which is an exact mirror-image of our
>world: they thought there were people below their feet
>mimicking or mirroring their day-to-day activities,"
>he said. "What they saw as transferring life from our
>plane to their plane, was to cut down a tree and then
>bury it upside down. The life forces of the tree
>would then be transferred from this world to the
>next."
> The shape of the tree stump bears out his theory. It
>looks like a giant hand, fingers outstretched, ready
>to cradle the body of someone beginning a journey into
>the next world. Seahenge bears little resemblance to
>other henge monuments, which are a uniquely British
>phenomenon. The Saami practices are at odds with the
>role of an astronomical observatory ascribed to
>Stonehenge in Wiltshire. "People would have to come
>to worship at the site from 30 or 40 miles away," said
>Francis Pryor. "The worship of ancestors and the
>belief in the next world was what gave people stature
>and authority in the real world."
> Analysis by carbon-dating shows that the trees
>forming Seahenge were cut in the Spring of 2049 BCE,
>not the usual season t cut timber, as it is then
>resinous. This reinforces the theory that the oak was
>cut specifically for the monument.
> Further scrutiny shows that the stump was erected
>first, then encircled by a wall of timbers 22 feet in
>diameter, into which was let a slim entrance. The
>uprights were split into semicircular logs, the bark
>side outwards. When built, according to the wetland
>archaeologist Maisie Taylor, the posts may have been
>12 feet high, the edifice looking like one giant tree
>trunk hiding the central stump. This had been lowered
>into the ground with honeysuckle ropes, traces of
>which, incredibly, survive.
> Just as astonishing were the fresh-looking marks made
>by metal tools on the timbers. These tool marks are
>the earliest found in Britain, and appear only 100
>years after it is thought bronze was first smelted and
>sharpened here. At least 38 axes were used on the
>timbers, so the project represents a huge communal
>outlay of energy and technology. It would have had
>great spiritual significance.
> So what to do with a site of such immense religious
>and archaeological value? Inspections soon after the
>discovery revealed that the tide was scouring away the
>remains. The solution, proposed by experts from
>English Heritage, was to dig up the posts and
>investigate further before they were destroyed by the
>elements.
> The decision proved unpopular not only with the local
>community and conservationists, but with Druids who
>protested at the destruction of a spiritual site. "I
>stated that I intended to stop that work," said a
>Druid called Raven. "So I went into the circle and
>sat on the central oak, and just tuned in."
> Police were called when the Druids and Pagans
>confronted the archaeologists. English Heritage had
>the unenviable task of keeping the peace, and decided
>to transfer the timbers to Flag Fen archaeological
>centre near Peterborough, where Maisie Taylor began
>the delicate task of measuring, recording and dating
>the wood.
> Controversy rumbled on, and one public meeting at the
>village of Holme-Next-The-Sea voted overwhelmingly to
>rebury the relics near the original site. The
>archaeologists, however, insisted on conserving the
>monument.
> English Heritage decided to have each timber scanned
>by a new portable 3-D laser, from which animated
>reconstructions have since been recreated which will
>be made available soon on the internet. Seahenge is
>the first instance of scanning lasers being applied in
>archaeology and has resulted in precise records of the
>delicate axe marks in the oak, which chemical
>conservation may obscure in the future.
> Pryor said, "In my opinion, in 20 years
>archaeologists will regard laser scanning as just as
>vital a tool as radiocarbon dating."
> "The scan allows us to preserve unique fingerprints,
>the axe marks left by the early Bronze Age people who
>built the structure," said David Miles, chief
>archaeologist at English Heritage, which has agreed a
>five-year £40,000 programme to display the finds.
> Meanwhile, every few weeks more relics are
>materialising in the Norfolk sands. Who knows what
>further clues to the upside-down cult are lurking
>beneath the waves?
<< British Museum urged to hand Bronze Age relic back to Wales
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