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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Robbed cairns. Another myth? |
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PMM 3155 posts |
Edited Mar 25, 2012, 20:17
Mar 25, 2012, 20:13
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Something that had no value when it was placed/discarded/dropped might be of considerable value now. Imagine if a discarded preparatory sketch by Leonardo Da Vince were to turn up in some Florentine cellar. Wouldn't some grave goods fetch a decent return? Edit: Of course, a barrow and a cairn are not the same thing, but to someone unfamiliar with the nuances of prehistoric structures, some unscrupulous scallywag might make the same mistake that I just have.
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rockhopper 275 posts |
Mar 25, 2012, 20:24
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GLADMAN wrote: [quote="thesweetcheat"]Also, much of the robbing occurred back in prehistoric times. I suspect many an iron age rampart/reave/pound etc re-used material from nearby cairns, once the original significance of the mound was forgotten over a couple of thousand years. Not so sure about this, SC. There are quite a number of examples - Foel Dygarn in the Preselis being perhaps the most obvious I've seen - where the preceding monument has been scrupulously respected within the Iron Age ramparts.. you'd have thought in Foel Drygarn's case that three great piles of stone would have been a touch for the builders of drystone ramparts. Also, retaining cairns and long/round barrows (e.g within Hambledon, Cley Hill etc) would have been detrimental to the area of available living space... so it follows that there must have been a very good reason to leave them as they were. There are examples here in Waterford that support that. A couple of cairns in a field only 15 feet from a large drystone wall were left there when the wall was built. Whoever built the wall obviously had respect for the cairns, and were afraid/prohibited by custom to remove them. I'm surprised they're still there, as they're not in the SMR, and could be JCB'd in minutes.
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thesweetcheat 6216 posts |
Mar 25, 2012, 20:30
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:-)
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thesweetcheat 6216 posts |
Mar 25, 2012, 20:33
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blossom wrote: Is it possible that because "treasure" had been found under burial mounds that following on from that it might have been buried under cairns. Then there is natural curiosity..."ere there's a big pile of stones over there...wonder what's under that then?" (that kind of thing) http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/t/the_mold_gold_cape.aspx The description that the cape was found by workmen "quarrying for stones" is a good example of "robbing" of a non-treasure variety, even though it ended up with them finding treasure anyway.
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thesweetcheat 6216 posts |
Mar 25, 2012, 20:42
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PMM wrote: Something that had no value when it was placed/discarded/dropped might be of considerable value now. Imagine if a discarded preparatory sketch by Leonardo Da Vince were to turn up in some Florentine cellar. Wouldn't some grave goods fetch a decent return? Definitely, and conversely many of them would have been more valuable when deposited than now. A polished pebble, for example. The reason for depositing grave goods was presumably that the objects did have value in the culture at the time. It's interesting to speculate that there would have been fairly strict taboos associated with disturbing burials, so that the goods would be "safe", no matter how valuable. But it's also intersting to speculate that, despite such taboos, there might be unscrupulous types who would stoop to grave robbing. After all, why would the pharoahs' tombs have inscriptions warning of the fate likely to meet such an indivual, if no-one would have thought to act in that way. These days we have CCTV and ASBOs. Nevertheless, the sense of collective outrage when someone desecrates a modern grave or steals a bronze plaque from a war-memorial shows just how deep-seated the feeling is.
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rockhopper 275 posts |
Mar 25, 2012, 22:04
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I've been of the opinion for some time that an gorta mor, the great famine, was responsible for more than just a loss of people. It also resulted in a great loss of knowledge associated with these monuments. Up until that time a residual memory existed regarding these structures. We only have to look at the numerous ring forts that existed in Ireland up until that time, but have been susequently erased from the landscape. It seems that the respect people had for these monuments, and the memories associated with them, was lost as a result of the turbulence and dispersal of the population resulting from the famine.
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tjj 3606 posts |
Mar 25, 2012, 22:48
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rockhopper wrote: Did those digging in barrows, mounds, etc in bygone times, find buried valuables? Or was the pursuit of same just opportunism? http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/galleries/index.php?Action=3&obID=89&prevID=9
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rockhopper 275 posts |
Mar 25, 2012, 23:59
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Goodness! That answers that then! It seems mounds and barrows were 'fair game' if you pardon the expression. But back to the cairns...sifting through everything that's been posted during the past 24 hours, I'm even more convinced that while some of the formations/structures encountered over the years have the appearance of being robbed out cairns (and doubtless many were) some are monuments, as yet unclassified, in their own right. Thus far it has been convienient and perhaps over simplistic to regard them as thus, but I remain far from convinced that this is the case.
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Resonox 604 posts |
Mar 26, 2012, 06:38
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rockhopper wrote: I'm even more convinced that while some of the formations/structures encountered over the years have the appearance of being robbed out cairns (and doubtless many were) some are monuments, as yet unclassified, in their own right. Thus far it has been convienient and perhaps over simplistic to regard them as thus, but I remain far from convinced that this is the case. Not sure what you mean here...why are you even more convinced some doubtless are robbed out whilst others are monuments as they are intended to be as they look now and be far from convinced this is the case too?
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
Mar 26, 2012, 08:29
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Some may say that archaeologists are the greatest grave robbers of all and they may be right. It is one thing to remove grave goods and human remains to gain knowledge but does it have to be repeated over and over? Personally I see any sort of burial as sacred and imagine it as any burial done just yesterday. Would you like someone digging up and destroying your parents or children's final resting place? Just because it took place thousands of years ago doesn't mean we should treat them with any less respect IMO.
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