Head To Head
Log In
Register
The Modern Antiquarian Forum »
Zennor Quoit query
Log In to post a reply

37 messages
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
tiompan
tiompan
5758 posts

Re: Zennor Quoit query
Sep 08, 2012, 14:18
bladup wrote:
tiompan wrote:
bladup wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
I don't have any expectations about Trethevy or any other monument you have to take them at face value .They are not utilatarian so anything goes , there is no blue print for portal tombs you even get double capstones What is the one off possibility at Trethevy ?


Maybe my terminology (one-off) is wrong but I feel some of the stones are out of position and give a false impression of what it may have been like on first-build. That's all I want to say about it at this time other than I believe that happened when the capstone partially slipped.
An interesting thing about most of these monuments is that if you took them all apart and laid the pieces out on the ground I wonder how many people would reassemble them as they stood beforehand if they hadn't seen them before but were told what they were?


I assume that the stones that you feel are out of position are where they are due to natural forces and not the hand of man .
We shouldn't apply our preconceptions like necessity , opportunism ,simplicity or utility to the design when these principles were unlikely to have been important to the builders .


Fallen by natural forces when the lid slipped, but moved by man to resolve the problem created by the slippage. I doubt anyone given all the pieces would ever put it back together like it is now if they hadn't previously seen it.


Do we know for sure there has been some re-arranging and if so when ?


No...but sometimes in life you have to work things out for yourself and not rely on the written word continually, especially if it hasn't been written :-). I don't follow the herd as you will have already gathered as I like to work a likely chain of events out for myself using the clues available. That's why I like pre-history as we all get a chance to use our brains a little if we allow ourselves to. All will be revealed in the fulness of time.


If you're allowed to!!!


What's stopping you ?


Well look what you put me though, for me believing [ still ] that the "archeology" they find in an average stone circle on the norm is years and years before [ ie timber post holes ] or years and years after [ ie cairns/ringcairns etc ] and when the circle was in use by the builders of it, it would have been clear of most things like this, as they had long since rotted or aren't there yet [although the odd post, burial and offering here and there i acknowledge], the dates are so tight and like you said they are getting tighter dates with carbon dating, but their not that good just yet, we still live an age where posts could still be said to be contemporary with the stone circle yet in reality they rotted away 70-100 years before, i still think it's something for the future to prove one way or the other, and you can't know the truth any more than me, your attitude has stuck with me, i can clearly see how clever you are, but no ones right about everything.

The question was “Who is stopping you thinking ?
Are you suggesting that I stop you thinking ?

“Put you through “ ? you went on for post after post at times like a rude adolescent rather than accept that what you had said was not true .”Stone circles have nothing left in them
[thats why archeologists don't like them]
and when they do find stuff it's from a different age [romans liked leaving coins] to when the circle was built, “ Was shown to be wrong in all three points .The fact that timber was replaced by stone I mostly ignored although in those cases where it happened it is obvious the erectors of the monoliths would have been aware of the earlier siting of the timbers just as knowledge of the siting of earlier flat graves were known by the builders of later covering barrows . You can believe what you like but excavation has shown that earlier activity took place at the sites of many stone circles and that activity would have been obvious to the builders e.g. ring cairns , and the erection of the circle was not long after after the earlier activity . Excavation has meant that we have learnt a lot and have moved on in our understanding of these monuments in the past decade or more .
Topic Outline:

The Modern Antiquarian Forum Index