nigelswift
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Re: Stonehenge: Rosemary Hill
Jul 06, 2008, 09:09
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"Now waiting to be 'done up' for the Olympics, the government paying lipservice as always to what it will do and the handservant EH spending vast amounts of money that went exactly where - no where but into the pockets of those that would get greedy on anything that goes and will fit into their bank balances very nicely thank you ;)"
Oooh, thank goodness I'm not as cynical as you lot!
I'm sure EH will return to me the taxpayer the oodles they spent on the land and the £17.5 million they paid in architects fees, all for a Visitors Centre that can't be built.
The fact they spent that money BEFORE knowing if it could go ahead or even if they could get planning permission is a mere detail.
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Littlestone
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Re: Stonehenge: Rosemary Hill
Jul 06, 2008, 14:17
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In the 18th century, the antiquary William Stukeley dismissed the architect John Wood's theories as the "whimsys of his own crackt imagination"
Didn't English Heritage consult with Australian architects on a design for the new Visitors' Centre; one wonders how much the 'whimsys of their crackt imagination' in this instance cost the taxpayer ;-)
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nigelswift
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Re: Stonehenge: Rosemary Hill
Jul 06, 2008, 14:27
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I just told yer.
£17.5 million.
Gone. Kaput. Pissed into the Wiltshire turf.
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Littlestone
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Re: Stonehenge: Rosemary Hill
Jul 06, 2008, 14:43
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nigelswift wrote: I just told yer.
£17.5 million.
Gone. Kaput. Pissed into the Wiltshire turf.
Blimey, hadn't realized all of that had gone to Aussie. I'm changin' me job...
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Littlestone
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Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy
May 16, 2009, 09:39
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Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy: From Giza to Easter Island by Giulio Magli
"In the new authoritative study of the growing discipline of archaeoastronomy, Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy: From Giza to Easter Island, Professor Guilio Magli asks, 'Was it an attempt to reproduce the sky on Earth? To bring down the power of the stars to where they could see it, worship it, and use it?'
"The motives of ancient civilisations have often been misconstrued, maligned, or even dismissed. Magli shows the limitations of orthodox archaeology in relation to astronomically based artefacts and examines what led the ancients to construct such magnificent structures as the city of Teotihuacan in the Mexico Valley, the Ceremonial Centre of Chaco Canyon in the United States, the Avebury stone circle in Great Britain, and the great pyramids in Egypt."
More here - http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09051510-the-role-astronomy-antiquity-examined-new-book
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gjrk
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Re: Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy
May 16, 2009, 11:56
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Thanks for that LS, will check it out.
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moss
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Re: Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy
May 17, 2009, 08:30
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Another book has just arrived in my email looks exciting but long (and a bit expensive at £30)
Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain By Ronald Hutton:
"As Ronald Hutton's Blood and Mistletoe makes clear, we like the idea of the Druids so much that we’ve made up almost everything we know about them," says Noel Malcolm.
http://tinyurl.com/pt5h7l
It will obviously be a very sensible book about Druids, but Ronald Hutton is the expert on the subject. ;)
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Littlestone
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Edited Jan 05, 2010, 20:04
The Gathering Night - Margaret Elphinstone
Jul 26, 2009, 18:00
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The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone
ISBN 9781847672889
"The Gathering Night, set among the hunter-gatherers of Mesolithic Scotland, is a story of conflict, loss, love, adventure and devastating natural disaster. This pre-historical novel is set deep in our stone-age past, but resonates as a parable of our troubled planet 8000 years on."
More here - http://www.margaretelphinstone.co.uk/
"Nature" would not be graced with a separate word in Mesolithic culture, with the trials and tribulations of these humans co-existing in the same holistic world with animals, rivers, mountains; inextricably linked, not separate. It is Elphinstone's formidable depiction of nature which is the greatest strength of this atmospheric novel. Nature is depicted as both cruel and benign, from the harsh and biting winter in forbidding terrain where the family pull lily-roots from the freezing mud, to a time of plenitude, when birds flutter throughout the land.
"Water and islands are at the heart of her work and here a river runs throughout the narrative; Elphinstone is in her element in depicting the sea flooding into estuaries, white gulls wheeling overhead. Here the river is a metaphor for storytelling, and this indeed is a novel which flows at its own pace, with many voices trickling into its main current. The powers and pitfalls of storytelling are explored and also exemplified; the voices of the multiple narrators oscillate so rapidly that it is difficult to build up fully-developed, three-dimensional characters."
More here -
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-gathering-night-by-margaret-elphinstone-1696219.html
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Rhiannon
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Blood and Mistletoe - Ronald Hutton
Jul 27, 2009, 11:40
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Thought I might add this latest of Hutton's to your list, Littlestone. It's about the druids again - how the concept developed and was used "to forge a common past for the newly formed British superstate at the beginning of the 18th century", so says the review in the Fortean Times, who give it 9/10.
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VBB
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Re: Blood and Mistletoe - Ronald Hutton
Jul 27, 2009, 16:47
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Rhiannon wrote: Thought I might add this latest of Hutton's to your list, Littlestone. It's about the druids again - how the concept developed and was used "to forge a common past for the newly formed British superstate at the beginning of the 18th century", so says the review in the Fortean Times, who give it 9/10.
I thought I had already put this on tma, it is a great book, Ronald at his best.
BTW Stukeley's Stonehenge is available in paperback for just a few quid!
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