Head To Head
Log In
Register
The Modern Antiquarian Forum »
A quick sketch
Log In to post a reply

Pages: 26 – [ Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ]
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
Evergreen Dazed
1881 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 11, 2012, 21:33
tiompan wrote:
Evergreen Dazed wrote:
Thanks Tiompan. I've got Stan Beckensalls 'circles in stone' (not got around to yet) is there a 'classic' on the subject that I should add to the shelves?

Has there really not been any serious attempts to interpret the motifs at all?


Signing the Land :Richard Bradley is good .

Nothing that is any good re. interpretation of "meaning " for British /Atlantic RA .


Thanks, will check that out too.
tjj
tjj
3606 posts

Edited Sep 11, 2012, 23:59
Re: A quick sketch
Sep 11, 2012, 23:51
tiompan wrote:

It doesn't take long to make a cup mark but multiple rings are quite time consuming and difficult .
Some markings are on quite prominent rocks in the landscape ,in these cses they are often quite simple cup marks .Often the more complex engravings are on less prominent rocks or in passage graves suggesting that there might be two audiences . Who the markings are intended for in the first case might be anyone but the others suggest something more private , locals who know the landscape or whoever may be allowed access to the passage grave .
The most common motif is asamll group of cup marks sometimes just one , what might that convey , if anything ?
Most people who know about and discover rock art avoid dicussion on "meaning " , if you see a book or article with "the meaning of rock art " in the title you csn be sure whoever wrote it knows very little about the subject .One point that has become clear in the past twenty years is that the medium i.e. the rock shape , surface and cracks /fissures etc dictates much of the message .


I know this discussion is about British rock art, this may be of interst though. I watched 'The Vikings' earlier this evening. Surprisingly, a large part of the programme was about prehistory - Neil Oliver went to Gotland to look at the Faro Rock Carving (Bronze Age) which is submerged under frozen water. He compared it it to other prehistoric Scandanavian rock art and they clearly seem to be images of early long boats - reflecting the long tradition of sea-faring which the Vikings inherited. While on Gotland, Neil Oliver also visited the Ansarve Stone Ship (the first time I've seen it) - something akin to a stone circle but shaped like a ship.
tiompan
tiompan
5758 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 09:02
bladup wrote:
Evergreen Dazed wrote:
In the latest edition of British Archaeology (digital subscriprion, get me eh) there's a feature on Rock Art and the findings from recent excavations at a couple of sites in Scotland. Part of the feature concerns quartz stones found near the panels, which are thought to have been used to create the motifs.

Something that surprised me was learning that experiments using similar quartz stones found that it took between only half an hour and an hour and a half to create simple motifs.

Given this relatively short amount of time (relative to, say, hauling a rock 5 miles and standing it upright) I would have thought we might expect to see much more elaborate and physically larger designs on rock panels.
This leads me to think the motifs were kept deliberately 'minimal', as if people were developing the most efficient way of communicating information, important information which needed to remain visible, but with the least possible effort.

I haven't read much concerning theories for British rock art and I was wondering if any work has been carried out to construct a 'language' of sorts from the motifs, perhaps attempting to correlate recurring motifs with recurring features in the landscape, sources of water etc and if so have there been any particular ideas which seem to fit?
Is there any reason to think the motifs were created to impart information to others?

At lot of regions [ maybe all ] where there's rock art is water that's got a lot of metal in it [ water at places like Ilkley and Kilmartin have high iron contents ] and would have been poisonous over quite a short time, so finding good clean water in these places if you didn't know the region would have been a matter of live and death, the places that have mainly clean water don't seem to have rock art, one thing i think they show is where the clean water is in an area, i discovered this by realising that the tree of life stone in yorkshire was a map of the landscape you could see from it, i then looked at the map and realised that the cups with rings were matched up with the springs [ flowing clean water ] and the lines linking the cups matched the water lines [ and the flow of the water ] in the valleys between the hills and cups without rings with still water, i think the way in is seeing cups with rings as moving water [ thats why it looks like a stone been thrown into water- as it signifies moving water and the lines between cups is where that water goes and cups without rings as still water [ never the best to drink, even without the metal content ], and i've got a feeling [ because of the slope of a lot of rock art panals ] that if you put water or a liquid on it in a certain place they may even show how the water moves though that area, if so it's fucking genius, i could use the tree of life to find clean water even now, i think this proves something.


Iron poisoning from running water is extremely unlikely you're probably getting confused about Ilkley spa where punters go to get an excess of the stuff . If local stream and springs were a health hazard they would be pointed out and known , not engraved on a rock . How do orientate yourself with this “map “ where is the “you are here “ point ? What about all the other marked rocks in the area some within a matter of metres also with cups how do you know which is the right rock and are they all telling of potential danger . You mentioned comparing the rock with a map could you point out how this worked either a pic of the diagram of the springs or pointing to an online source of local maps with a similar configuration of springs to markings ? The 1:25000 scale map has no springs recorded and the nearest stream has cup and ring marked rocks even closer to it . There would have been no problem for the people who engraved the “Tree of life “ rock finding fresh water iron rich or otherwise .
Hob
Hob
4033 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 09:09
tiompan wrote:

Most people who know about and discover rock art avoid discussion on "meaning "

In't that the truth? (More's the pity imho, I loved all that 'wear and tear from snakes curling up' in Morris' list) . As a culture, we don't cope well with polysemic concepts. And if there's one thing RA means, it's that it means more than one thing.
Sanctuary
Sanctuary
4670 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 09:23
Hob wrote:
tiompan wrote:

Most people who know about and discover rock art avoid discussion on "meaning "

In't that the truth? (More's the pity imho, I loved all that 'wear and tear from snakes curling up' in Morris' list) . As a culture, we don't cope well with polysemic concepts. And if there's one thing RA means, it's that it means more than one thing.


Because rock art frequents some areas but not others, does it suggest a 'different' culture or type of person/race to areas where there is none or very little? Hope that's not a daft question.
tiompan
tiompan
5758 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 09:32
Hob wrote:
tiompan wrote:

Most people who know about and discover rock art avoid discussion on "meaning "

In't that the truth? (More's the pity imho, I loved all that 'wear and tear from snakes curling up' in Morris' list) . As a culture, we don't cope well with polysemic concepts. And if there's one thing RA means, it's that it means more than one thing.




What we like is to "explain away " as quickly as possible , often picking on hot topics of the day , from the early 60's we have had , ufos ,space (race)/astronomy , drugs/shamen , computers .These days climate change is becoming more often touted as an explanation for historical shifts , coming up terrorism , fall of empires/economies , sporting excellence ?
Sanctuary
Sanctuary
4670 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 09:40
tiompan wrote:
Hob wrote:
tiompan wrote:

Most people who know about and discover rock art avoid discussion on "meaning "

In't that the truth? (More's the pity imho, I loved all that 'wear and tear from snakes curling up' in Morris' list) . As a culture, we don't cope well with polysemic concepts. And if there's one thing RA means, it's that it means more than one thing.




What we like is to "explain away " as quickly as possible , often picking on hot topics of the day , from the early 60's we have had , ufos ,space (race)/astronomy , drugs/shamen , computers .These days climate change is becoming more often touted as an explanation for historical shifts , coming up terrorism , fall of empires/economies , sporting excellence ?


Ah, so that's what those swirly things are...the discus hurtling through the air! This is too easy :-)
Rockrich
Rockrich
448 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 11:15
tiompan wrote:

Iron poisoning from running water is extremely unlikely you're probably getting confused about Ilkley spa where punters go to get an excess of the stuff . If local stream and springs were a health hazard they would be pointed out and known , not engraved on a rock . How do orientate yourself with this “map “ where is the “you are here “ point ? What about all the other marked rocks in the area some within a matter of metres also with cups how do you know which is the right rock and are they all telling of potential danger . You mentioned comparing the rock with a map could you point out how this worked either a pic of the diagram of the springs or pointing to an online source of local maps with a similar configuration of springs to markings ? The 1:25000 scale map has no springs recorded and the nearest stream has cup and ring marked rocks even closer to it . There would have been no problem for the people who engraved the “Tree of life “ rock finding fresh water iron rich or otherwise .


My thoughts exactly G. I think you'd be one confused little bunny if you were trying to decipher anything from rock art be it water, stars maps.
tiompan
tiompan
5758 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 11:43
Rockrich wrote:
tiompan wrote:

Iron poisoning from running water is extremely unlikely you're probably getting confused about Ilkley spa where punters go to get an excess of the stuff . If local stream and springs were a health hazard they would be pointed out and known , not engraved on a rock . How do orientate yourself with this “map “ where is the “you are here “ point ? What about all the other marked rocks in the area some within a matter of metres also with cups how do you know which is the right rock and are they all telling of potential danger . You mentioned comparing the rock with a map could you point out how this worked either a pic of the diagram of the springs or pointing to an online source of local maps with a similar configuration of springs to markings ? The 1:25000 scale map has no springs recorded and the nearest stream has cup and ring marked rocks even closer to it . There would have been no problem for the people who engraved the “Tree of life “ rock finding fresh water iron rich or otherwise .


My thoughts exactly G. I think you'd be one confused little bunny if you were trying to decipher anything from rock art be it water, stars maps.


Fuckenell Rich , last night Hob ,you today , Fitz this Evening ?

The one map that looks likely is one of neural connections (or lack of ) of the interpreter .
tjj
tjj
3606 posts

Re: A quick sketch
Sep 12, 2012, 12:50
I'm not quite sure where to put this as there seems to be two threads about rock art and haven't managed to read them all yet.

I picked up a library book the other day by Frank Delaney called 'Ireland'. From what I can make out it is the history of Ireland as told by a travelling story teller in the 1950s. He pitches up one night looking for food and shelter. As the family who take him and their neighbours gather around the fire he tells the story of how Newgrange was built (the opening chapter of the book). Fictional of course but quite fascinating:

"Here and there he stopped to caress the shapes. He stroked the stern triangles and merry whorls, geometric chevrons that looked like worried frowns, smiling triskelia and swirls, a little rippling field of diamond patterns, sweet presences on and in stone. They reflected the world around Newgrange: the triangles made by the hilltops in certain phases of light; the rings on a tree's trunk; the eddies and whirls of the river Boyne."
Pages: 26 – [ Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ] Add a reply to this topic

The Modern Antiquarian Forum Index