True or False?
Submitted by Thorgrim on Sunday, 08 May 2005 Page Views: 3231
Fun
Things are seldom what they seem – or are they? Facts and fancies, myths and mistakes. Just for fun – can you separate True from False?
1…Cup and ring marks are found only in northern Britain and Ireland
2…Buried archaeology can be found by striking the ground with a hammer.
3…Britain’s oldest wooden artefacts are the Mesolithic tools from Star Carr.
4…The Summer Solstice falls on Midsummer’s Day.
5…Iron Age Britons made weapons of clay.
6…A “henge” is a stone circle
7…The first Frenchmen were German.
8…The earliest evidence of an ability to count is a quarter of a million years old
9…Hadrian’s Wall was built by the Romans to keep out the Picts and the Scots.
10..Glastonbury means the “Glass Island.
How many fooled you?
1…Cup and ring marks are found only in northern Britain and Ireland
False. They occur on the continent and particularly in the Galicia region of north-west Spain. Known sometimes as the Galician style of rock art, there are three main motifs: Cup & Ring, Cup & Ring with Gutter and Gapped Concentric Circle.
2…Buried archaeology can be found by striking the ground with a hammer.
True. Bosing is a technique whereby a heavy object such as a weighted mallet or hammer is struck against the earth. Undisturbed ground produces a dull note, whereas a filled in ditch or pit produces a more resonant note. Success depends very much on the skill, experience and musical “ear” of the “Boser”.
3…Britain’s oldest wooden artefacts are the Mesolithic tools from Star Carr.
False. A wooden spear point from the Lower Palaeolithic was found at Clacton in Essex. Star Carr dates from about 10,000 bp while the Clactonian falls within the Hoxnian interglacial (300 –200,000 bp)
4…The Summer Solstice falls on Midsummer’s Day.
False. The solstice falls on the 20th or 21st June, but Midsummer’s Day is the 24th June. Like most ancient festivals, Midsummer’s Eve is the significant time (All Hallow’s Eve – Hallowe’en, May Eve – Beltane and even Christmas Eve)
5…Iron Age Britons made weapons of clay.
True. When sufficient pebbles of the right size could not be obtained, clay slingshot was made. Stocks of rounded clay missiles have been found neatly stored by the ramparts of certain hill forts.
6…A “henge” is a stone circle.
False. A henge is a ritual enclosure, usually circular, consisting of a ditch and earthen bank with one or two opposing entrances. The word “henge” is Anglo-Saxon and means “hanging”. The early Saxons used the word, either to describe the lintel stones of Stonehenge, which appeared to be hanging in mid air, OR because the whole structure looked very much like the wooden gallows used by the Saxons. The term is now an unfortunate misnomer for a circular bank and ditch structure that does not hang in any sense of the word. The “henge” at Stonehenge encloses the stones and Seahenge was not a henge at all as it had no bank or ditch.
7…The first Frenchmen were German.
True – sort of. The Franks were a Germanic tribe living east of the Rhine. They invaded Gaul and settled in areas of modern Belgium and northern France. Hitler and Himmler used this fact to justify their invasion of France as part of their master plan to re-unite the German people.
8…The earliest evidence of an ability to count is a quarter of a million years old
Possibly true. A bone object from the Lower Palaeolithic site at Bilzingsleben in Germany is about 250,000 years old. It shows a series of vertical and parallel cut-marks quite different from those made when butchering meat. If it is not a counting tally, then it is a decorative object. Other similar objects have been found from the same period and more recently at 40,000 years old.
9…Hadrian’s Wall was built by the Romans to keep out the Picts and the Scots.
False. Hadrian ordered the construction of the Wall in 122 AD. The Scots did not invade from Ireland until about 500AD long after the Romans had gone home. The tribes to the north of Hadrian’s Wall were the Selgovae and the Votadini.
10..Glastonbury means the “Glass Island”
True and false! The original name was something like “Glastonia” a name derived from the Old British (Celtic) word “glasto” meaning “woad”. The original meaning was therefore that of a place where woad grew. The Saxons took this name and added “ingas” and changed the name to “Glaestingas” meaning “the people of Glastonia”. To that was then added the word “ieg”, which means “island” as well as in its more usual form of “burg” - a fort. Perhaps they saw it as a fortified island. So Glaestingabyrig was the name in 1000AD and by Domesday (1086) it was Glaestingeberia. However, the Welsh mistranslated the Saxon “Glaestinga ieg” as Glassy Island. Written in Welsh, this became “Ineswytrin” from “ynis” meaning “island” and “gwydrin” from the Latin “vitrea” meaning “of glass”.
So from British woad to Roman glass via a Welshman who couldn’t quite read Anglo-Saxon!
Things never are quite what they seem!
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Wir möchten mehr über diese Stätte erfahren. Bitte zögern Sie nicht, eine kurze Beschreibung und relevante Informationen in Deutsch hinzuzufügen.
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