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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Port-U-Gallic Jams Kicked Out Big Time |
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Annexus Quam 916 posts |
Jan 13, 2001, 10:08
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Imagine many a community of rural peasants living from the land for a period of hundreds of thousands of years. According to an endless wealth of wisdom and oral tradition that has come down from the Ur-Mothers and Fathers of Woman-and Mankind since the beginnings of Time, the Ma is both the benign and the heavy metal force that has inspired legends, admiration and respect for thousands of years and being adored on a daily basis, it is one day agreed that the rituals of Life and Death should be of high execution, full of sacred awe and awl-important artistic value, of an E-ternal (non-linear) character. Therefore, from that moment on, some of those communities start creating more durable forms of sacred communal tombs. All of which sparks a frenzy of pride and spiritual experience in each community akin to the mad religious fervour in the old shrines of catholic countries. Four thousand summers go by and all the generations get their fair share of hopes and pains, their illusions and loves, their trips and big times experienced Full-On with no need or room for mindfucks - but Time is a spyral not a line and that's why the execution remains so pure through the vast period. Humanity's life throughout almost 200,000 years. And gradually, at the very end of this process, globalising forces start to appear in the form of marauding metal-grinding tribes from the eclectic celtic-pushing east and the stones are re-arranged, re-used or simply destroyed, for the times they are a-changing. But what’s worse, some centuries later, an ultra-fascist army of mafiosi and thugs run by dictators with city ideals (i.e.abstract power and political glories) begin criss-crossing the land of those mongrel communities, that, by this time, have already begun squabbling with each other. But *some* of the stones remain. The fascist army begin building roads and cities as their concept of life=civitas, i.e. an abstract concept which wills you to believe that your urban tarmac-world is safe and comfortable, deriding the natural world for being...for peasants yet massacring tribes in their own land with their fun-playing wargames. But the stones remain. What's even worse, Monotheism takes hold of this army. The subsequent spiritual upheavals and social chaos in the minds of the population are well-known and historically documented through the ensuing 2000 christian years. One King to rule them all, one King to bind them... But after all the burning and pillaging of the Ma, the stones exist. Hundreds, thousands, if not millions of monuments created in the immediate period preceding the first large-scale colonisations, monotheistic nature-rapes and the first abstract concepts of snivilisation, i.e. Money, Roads and Politics. Imagine the most beautiful Mother Hill located on a plain, a beautiful sea of yellow flowers, even in December, and on top of the sacred hill there is a small hamlet made of slate houses. You go down the cloud-topped hill in the morning (the altitude must be around 1000 metres) and start walking around at leisure. You stumble upon dolmens, some of them broken, some of them still standing. Huge slabs, many of them up to 10 feet high, forming almost chapel-like interiors of the most transcendentally ancient peace. You walk another hundred yards and there's a cromlech with a huge cosmic penis for a monolith surrounded by a square of stones. Before the afternoon you reach another 10 metre high menhir which shines in the rainy (but rainbowed and sunny) day. An area the size of Cardiff teeming with around 200 beautiful stone monuments of all sorts and many a tale to tell, and few signs of a car nearby and you freak out. Limits between TIME and SPACE forever gone, merged in gorgeous PEACE. Why is *this* the perfect feed for humans 4000 years after the stones were built? Draw your own conclusions.
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Annexus Quam 916 posts |
Jan 13, 2001, 10:16
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The hill of Monsaraz is only the beginning, the gateway into a Stone Paradise, a tiny percentage of the most ancient Hub of Megalithic Europe, one of the Ur-Omphalos of pre-Christian/pre-Roman culture. The hill is visible from almost anywhere in the Alentejo area. Even from Evora, where the incredible 100-stone Cromlech of the Almendres (check ModAnt for details) lies on a wooded perfectly-angled slope, the Hill of Monsaraz is still visible. Have archaeologists all overlooked this most important aspect as they were scouring the ground for treasure? I’m sure they haven't for I’m merely Mr Nobody. Apart from Almendres, I could list another 40 places that really did it for me and brought me close to spiritual extasis but the most famous are actually NOT the most gobsmacking. Except for Zambujeiro, an immense Mother opening her legs and showing her sexual slit, through which you have access to a huge uterine walled interior made up of 6 slabs 20 metres high each. The legs still visible, part of a vast receiving barrow. Gland-shaped menhirs... sexuality oozes out of this landscape. I had heard of the amazing sights in Portugal but as soon as I stepped on the land, it blew my mind big time, to the extent that I have lost all interest in everything else and I am already planning my second visit just after getting home. There is SO much to see. Even its inhabitants lack the arrogance and stuck-up-ness of their neighbours. All I had read in anticipation was not enough. In each of the villages of the Alentejo there are scores of antas (i.e.slim, huge and elegant dolmens) and even the –CONSTANT- rain smells good. This is my Promised Land.
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Annexus Quam 916 posts |
Jan 13, 2001, 15:49
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(thanks morfeboy) any info or exp on portugal and its ancient sites from anyone would be appreciated enormously (to email add or here) I reckon 6 modern antiquarians would be quite insufficient cheersus folkses
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canoodle 5 posts |
Jan 14, 2001, 13:17
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Well that settles it. Portugal it is for my summer 2001 holiday.
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Vox Phantom 104 posts |
Jan 14, 2001, 19:14
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Hey Annexus, I was wondering where you'd gone. I tried to email you a couple of times and have had things returned... Has your address changed? Anyway, having been laid off I have a new address (RichpinBarlow@netscape.net) so, get in touch.
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Annexus Quam 916 posts |
Jan 28, 2001, 21:03
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get in touch if you decide to go there and I'll give you tips for accom, etc it would also be a shame if our paths coincided unaware, as it often happens remember I was there in december/january so the tourist season was not in full swing! but the alentejo is not the algarve so no fear; still, I personally prefer the winter season and this one has been exceptionally wet - everywhere I go my feet splash on water and I'm raving mad in blissful mode!
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Annexus Quam 916 posts |
Jan 12, 2002, 11:57
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Exactly one year after that trip, I return from a much broader study of Portugal, north and south, my head reeling after two consecutive months amidst hundreds of antas, circles, standing stones, concentric circles and cup marks on rock and engravings of all sorts. And another muddy, mild and wet holiday in (rock'n')rolling landscape. And the sad thing is, one of the great monuments I raved about last year is gone. The cromlech of Xarez, square in appearance, with a big cosmic menhir in its centre and with the Hill Of Monsaraz in the background, was no longer there. After much mourning and angry banter, to cut a long story short, I stumbled upon it, neatly dissected on a field behind the hill. The reason for this atrocity is another atrocity - (yet) another reservoir in the area. The Portuguese government, like any other sad-old-git government, believes that burning cash on megalomaniac projects or bombing whole villages in a distant country will give them credibility to the masses. Protecting their heritage and aura is not good propaganda. Fuck them. Funny thing is, though I knew of the Copes' visit to the Almendres circle, I had all this time ignored the fact that the aforementioned Cromlech is featured in the Modern Antiquarian too. Only yesterday, Mrs Fortune 'found' a picture of Dorian and Albany by the cromlech on page 80. Are we the only ones alive to have been fortunate to have visited this unique site in Europe before it was destroyed? Bah.
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Jan 12, 2002, 22:01
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Sad news .... another one of the "must rmember to go there" places struck off Bah indeed.
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Annexus Quam 916 posts |
Jan 13, 2002, 15:14
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Don't count it out yet! The Cromlech will be rebuilt on the other side of Monsaraz and become an easy and fast attraction for the entertainment of travellers on the way to the hill-village. Over 136 sites were recorded last century by the Leisner couple in their Megalithic Iberia volumes only in an area of 100 square km around the Hill Of Monsaraz. I have seen a few, very ruined passage graves, still visible in the area to be flooded. Latest estimates are that about 200-300 archaeological sites will be gone, but that is to be expected in such an ancient area. If it helps to make you feel better, just as much is on the other side, and I am only talking about this 100 square km area round the hill. And to add to your bulky account of stone age information, some very ancient Old Stone Age engravings have been found on the banks of the River Guadiana.
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RiotGibbon 1527 posts |
Jan 14, 2002, 17:43
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bizarrely enough, I've actually got a video of it, as well as many other assorted Portugese menhirs/megaliths one of the dolmen tombs has been turned into a house extraordinary I'll see if I can get a copy made (not my video, though it's been lurking in the bag of gently bio-degrading undeveloped film for nearly a year now ...) RG
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