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Paulus

769 posts

Re: Ancient sites: Protect or Use?

Jun 26, 2007, 23:14

Hi Mirla -

Mirla wrote:

These signs are ugly lumps of stone with bold writing warning people that they will be prosecuted if they are found to be damaging these sites.....in their opinion "damaging" includes
-Lighting fires (Understandable-i agree)
-Dropping litter (I agree)
-Camping (depending on the respect of the campers)
But the next one i find stupid...
-No leaving offerings of any kind!!!!!

It's a bittova weird one this - with local variations in attitude and application. Since megaliths have become "in" and increasingly popular on the tourist bandwagon (much more damaging than any biogredable offerings), such issues are increasingly pertinent. My very first visit to Twelve Apostles (Ilkley Moor) for summer solstice as a teenager found just a handful of people there - the most interesting being an old chap who was very well educated and obviously quite wealthy. He'd been visiting the Apostles each solstice for a few decades and was brought here when small by his parents who used to come here for the same occasion. Then, as now, a fire was made in the circle to celebrate the longest day. After a few years the Stonehenge festival was banned and, as a result, many folk started checking out sites in their own locale up and down the country. As a result, numbers at the Apostles and many other sites increased ten-fold within a year or two.

But these 'old folk' who'd been coming to their local sites for a long time slowly stopped coming: the newcomers approaching these old places with differing psychologies pushed the old folk away, so to speak. I've come across this at various megalithic sites from Yorkshire northwards. And now, with the huge increase of tourists who visit these sites, we're told by the newcomers that we can't have fires, we can't leave offerings (never left any misself), cos others know better and wanna make it nice n' clean for everyone else. Odd thing is, these places were actually quiet and undisturbed until folk started making 'em "more accessible", etc. Seems like some people don't seem to be able to make the link between 'more people = more mess.' The simple issue of biodegrable offerings is, simply, yet another part of modern cultural psychology wanting Nature to be as clean and sterile as the houses people live in. (y' know the sorts: they have weird judgements on 'good' weather, 'bad' weather - instead of simply seeing all types as various cloaks of the same thing)

The issue of offerings itself relates simply to the animistic principle of 'spirit of place'; which is thankfully still very much alive in a number of countries where we find similar things left for trees, wells, rocks, etc (India's crawling with such examples, way-away from the tourist spots).

One final comment (to those who might not like my attitude on this issue): on various occasions when I've encountered people leaving crap at sites (always the tourist-types), they receive a very loud and direct order to pick up their shit before I stick it somewhere quite personal. It never fails to work!

Cheers - Paul

PS - I'm knackered & drunk so this probably doesn't make much sense. Sorry...

In reply to:
Ancient sites: Protect or Use? (Mirla)

Replies:
Re: Ancient sites: Protect or Use? (Paulus)
Re: Ancient sites: Protect or Use? (tiompan)

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