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Annexus Quam 926 posts |
Feb 16, 2003, 12:19
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Some of you may remember my photos in Riot Gibbon’s site of the hilltop altar-temple of Ulaca, in central Iberia. This is a stone-cut stone altar, roughly 8 feet high, with steps that lead to the top, where a sort of rectangular and flat ‘cupmark’ used to receive libations. It is evident that these stone altars -along with the nearby ritual saunas built into huge rocks (also photographed)- are common Iron Age occurrences, or they couldn’t have been cut into the rock were it not for iron tools. A few years ago, in a dense megalithic area bordering Portugal in granite-paradise Western Iberia, as I was looking for the many dolmens there, I found two huge stone Eggs of incredible proportions opposite a megalithic Phallic Stone (called the Donkey's Penis). This part of the world is particularly wild, and when I walk through it on my own, I get a deep sense of Fear and Awe. Fear of what may lie there in the wild - wild animals, hostile weather, a stream that is too wide to cross or any strange sounds. And Awe of the incredible smell of Ancientness that soaks some parts of the landscape, unchanged and uninhabited for millenia. Now I know that about 140 of these stone altars are scattered throughout Western Iberia, as well as along the Ebro river (which contains the Ibr- prefix that gives name to the land). Although the relatively more famous of these stone altars -like Ulaca- were chiefly Celtic mountain strongholds, there is the possibility that these solar temples in axial/oracle positions, were taken over by proto-Celtic / Indoeuropean tribes (i.e.Keltic) as they arrived in Europe some time in the Bronze Age and that they belonged to an earlier cult. Cupmarks and water channels, like in other European instances, and the survival until recent of ‘superstitions’ (i.e. of pre-christian cults) by the locals (as well as the usual christianization of the stone with crosses on top) are not uncommon (there is ample historical documentation on pre-Roman ‘superstitions’). Now, does anyone have any evidence of these stone altars anywhere else? The biggest passage grave in Iberia, that lies remote and unvisited, is called Lacara, also in the West, possibly an ancient “L’Kaer”. Has anyone seen the decorated stones of Kermanian / Kervadel in Brittany and is there any relationship here? What is amazing about that place is that it has another undug tumulus nearby that may contain a twin dolmen, as well as a big stone altar in the centre of this sacred landscape (formed by twin temples served by the Lacara river); it's a big natural round Egg-boulder, with rock-cut steps (usually on its north side and cupmarks at the top) which acts as a topo-astronomical omphalos in the area, controlling the view of FOUR mountain tops in the four cardinal points of the horizon. (Donations for a scanner, please!)
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fitzcoraldo 2709 posts |
Feb 16, 2003, 16:05
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Hiya AQ, nice to see you back. I remember your lovely pictures on RG's site and the frustrating lack of explanations. The rock cut alters remind me of the Persian Zoroastrian fire altars of Mazda. I don't have too many details but I should be able to dig out a picture to send you. Are you sure that all of these features are iron age? and are not sites that have evolved. The reason I ask is that the cup marks and passage graves tend to be accepted as neolithic in age, especially in western Iberia. I'm not sure of the Grave art sites you mention in Brittany. I have seen the art at Gavrinis, Locmariaquer and the Table Des Marchands and can supply pictures if you want them. cheers fella Fitz
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Annexus Quam 926 posts |
Feb 17, 2003, 09:48
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Hello, Fitz, mate. I put lots of comments and explanations to the pictures shortly after RG made them public on HH. I was mighty glad to see some of those pictures on the net, and it was easier than sending copies to friends all the time. Yes, that’s just what I’m saying: ‘these solar temples in axial/oracle positions, were taken over by proto-Celtic / Indoeuropean tribes (i.e.Keltic) as they arrived in Europe some time in the Bronze Age and that they belonged to an earlier cult‘. I know about Zarathustra’s altar (though I’d appreciate your pix, please) and, you know, Indoeuropeans that moved west gave the name of KERKUR to ‘altar stones’ (or even dolmens?). Whether this word was a proto-Celtic innovation (the steps may well be) or an earlier megalithic element I’m not sure. But stone altars have always been there, and they date back to the New Stone Age, perhaps even earlier in cases of continuity. Last Friday I discovered a strange rock-cut stone altar with a virgin inside, almost in the middle of nowhere, though probably inspired by the lake and village nearby, and still in use, to judge from the fresh flowers. We accept it when Iron Age cultures adopted elements of earlier ones but I’m sure the worshipping of natural altars dates back to the Mesolithic and beyond. After all, the Cult of the Dead was the first one there ever was.
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RiotGibbon 1527 posts |
Feb 17, 2003, 17:21
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oh yeah, blame the Gibbon ... heh anyway, does *this* little libatory rascal interest you? http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/browse.php?site_id=2136 you can keep your poncy eggs and bulls, Scunthorpe's got a *dragon* nice RG ps how you keeping then AQ? Up to much? when you over next?
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Squid Tempest 8769 posts |
Feb 18, 2003, 12:07
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RG - the link you put on the dragon page, >Alignments through Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, Scunny including our beloved dragon< doesn't seem to work. wb AQ btw! Squiddo x
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Annexus Quam 926 posts |
Feb 18, 2003, 15:05
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Hi Squid, mate. Yes, it won't work in my PC either. I am compiling a series of photos from a large wooded place with huge natural stone formations near where I'm based this year, that resemble all kinds of things/beings. No evidence of ancient human habitation that I know of, too bleeding cold, in fact, it keeps snowing and the wind is bitter icy. RG, perhaps get ready for another photographic landslide. I have to get to see Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian now (damn) now that I know it was filmed -in part -there. Have you seen that old film?
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RiotGibbon 1527 posts |
Feb 19, 2003, 09:47
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it was a college website - they must have graduated, or been rusticated ... shame, the ley lines in Scunthorpe are hard to come by: http://www.leyhunt.fsnet.co.uk/lhunt91.htm RG
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