Megalithic Cornwall Tour 2012

Extra tour added to the MEGALITHOMANIA CONFERENCE program 2012, Glastonbury, UK. A unique tour of Megalithic Cornwall, inspired by John Michell's classic book, The Old Stones of Land's End.

The Megalithic Cornwall Tour, 16 - 20 May, will spend 4 nights at Rosemerryn near Land’s End, with ancient on-site 'Fogue', the tour with hosts Glenn and Cameron Broughton and Hugh Newman will explore the haunted landscape of West Penwith with visits to Carn-les-Boel, Holy wells, Fogous, Stone Circles, Menhirs and St. Michael’s Mount, plus The Hurlers and Cheesewring on Bodmin Moor. Includes dowsing the Michael/Mary Lines and Apollo/Athena lines crossing points. Tour includes 4-nights B&B, coach travel, expert guidance, optional dowsing classes and more.

"The development of science is everywhere determined by the cosmological ideas of the time. The modern approach to cosmology is physical and analytical and our science is directed accordingly; but the science of the megalith builders was required to deal with a different state of affairs, a world populated by gods, spirits and the shades of the dead. In these circumstances the best advantage is to be gained by magic. This was certainly the practice of the megalith builders, and it must therefore be in terms of the magical tradition that their monuments are studied. Yet magic in its practical aspect can not be an object of serious academic research by the current methods, partly because the cosmological view to which it relates is quite different from that now established, and partly because of the personal demands it makes on its students. Thus it is that archaeology, which aspires to the status of a science in the modern, materialistic sense of the word, is ill equipped to investigate the stone instruments of the earlier, more comprehensive system, whose secrets can not be excavated along with the bones and potsherds, but must be sought through study of the megalithic scene as a whole." [1]

NOTE: You must either sign-up for the Dartmoor Stone Circles and Avenues Tour on Wednesday 16th May, departing from Glastonbury 8am, which includes a five-hour walk around the incredible landscape of megalithic Dartmoor, Devon, visiting stone circles, megalithic avenues, menhirs and tracking earth energies, OR alternatively make your own way to meet the coach for the Megalithic Cornwall Tour at Dartmoor at 6pm. The Megalithic Cornwall tour will be returning to Glastonbury via Dartmoor on 20th May.

Wednesday 16th May
Travel up from Dartmoor for early evening arrival at Rosemerryn B&B at Lamorna in West Penwith, Cornwall. visit to Boleigh fogou.

Boscawen-un stone circle

Thursday 17th May
Start day with visit to Carn-les-Boel where the Michael & Mary energy currents first come ashore, Boscawen-un stone circle and Sancreed Holy Well.

Friday 18th May
Visit to the Merry Maidens stone circle and St Michael’s Mount.

Saturday 19th May
Visit to iron age settlement at Carn Euny, then Ballowall Barrow, Men-an-tol holed stone, and the dolmens of Lanyon Quoit and Zennor Quoit

Zennor Quoit

Sunday 20th May
Return to Glastonbury via Bodmin Moor, visiting the Hurlers and the Cheesewring.

"Having begun with the modest proposal to investigate the old stones near Land's End, we have come inevitably to face the grand propsect of seeking initiation into the secrets of the ancient world" [1]

See Megalithomania website for full details

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25 Years of Cornish Earth Mysteries

Meyn Mamvro,  the magazine of ancient stones and sacred sites in Cornwall, which has been published regularly 3 times a year since 1986, has reached its 25th Anniversary. Meyn Mamvro No.77 Winter/Spring 2012 focuses largely on the fogou, one of prehistory's most fascinating sites.

The 25th Anniversary issue includes a reprint of an article from the initial issue entitled ’The Riddle of the Fogous’, by Craig Wetherhill, followed by an article ‘Into the Underworld’, discussing 25 Years of Fogou Research. Other articles feature Pendeen Fogou, Boscaswell Fogou and Lower Boscaswell Holy Well, in addition to other sites in the area. There is also an in-depth look at Boleigh Fogou. 

In 1989 Meyn Mamvro formed the Cornish Earth Mysteries Group, studying the ancient sites of Cornwall, such as standing stones, stone circles, dolmens, fogous, holy wells and crosses, including alignments, ley paths and anomalous energies at sacred sites. The inaugural committee consisted of Carol Bishop, Paul and Charla Devereux, David and Dorothy Haynes, Andy Norfolk and Cheryl Straffon.

Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN)

The Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network is a voluntary organisation consisting of representatives from organisations with an interest in looking after the ancient sites, including Meyn Mamvro, whose editor Cheryl Straffon is chair of the Group.

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1. Quotations from John Michell, The Old Stones of Land's End, Garnstone Press, 1974

Silbury Bluestones

Silbury has suffered more damage as a consequence of the intrusive investigations commencing with the sinking of the shaft in 1776 than at any other time in its history. Repairs carried out in the last ten years to make good this damage have led to some important discoveries about the Neolithic mound.

The enigmatic man-made hill of Silbury, the largest artificial prehistoric mound in north-west Europe, was built around 4,500 years ago. Theories abound to the reason for the mounds construction yet a definitive answer remains elusive even though the story of Silbury seemingly never ends with new revelations forcing it to be constantly rewritten.

In 2010 English Heritage published The Story of Silbury Hill by Jim Leary and David Field, telling the archaeological story of the mound. Co-author Jim Leary was Director of Fieldwork for English Heritage 2007-08, replacing Fachtna McAvoy who directed the excavations at Silbury from 2000 until 15th June 2007. This new study of the mound came about following the collapse on the summit in 2000 following a period of prolonged heavy rainfall. Subsequently, English Heritage set up a Conservation Project in 2000 permitting study of the origins of the monument and the construction techniques used. Leary and Hill proposed a new theory of the process of construction leading to a new way of interpreting Neolithic monuments.

Silbury - (c) Jeebs 2011

The Summit Collapse
A substantial and robust man-made mound constructed during the Late Neolithic, around 2400 BC, standing firm for over four thousand years, the 40m high platform became unstable due to intrusive 'archaeological' explorations of the last few hundred years. In May 2000 a large hole, nearly 20m deep, appeared on the summit of the mound. Three major excavations of Silbury in modern times, had each contributed to the destabilisation of the mound.

In 1776, the Duke of Northumberland, along with a Colonel Drax, convinced there was a rich burial within, employed Cornish tin miners to sink a shaft from the top of the monument in search of treasure. This was the time when barrow digging was regarded almost as a field sport and archaeology in its infancy. Rich finds were there to be bagged. The miners were employed to dig a shaft vertically, down through the centre of the mound, yet this failed to provide any new information on the function of the mound and the Duke was disappointed that no treasure was found. Evidently, the 'excavation' was certainly not filled in properly afterwards; in 1849 John Merewether, the Dean of Hereford, observed that the spoilheap from the shaft was still visible over seventy years later and an early aerial photograph taken by Major Allen in the late 1920s revealed that the depression left by the shaft was still visible. It was the remains of this shaft that re-opened and caused the summit collapse in 2000.

In 1849 Dean Merewether was employed by the newly formed Archaeological Institute to excavate a shaft from along the old ground surface to the centre of the mound. Merewether also used miners to dig his tunnel, and though he reached the centre of the mound, he too failed to find evidence of a burial. Traces of this tunnel could still be seen over a hundred years later and was re-investigated by Richard Atkinson during the late 1960s.

In 1866 excavations were carried out by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society to locate the nearby Roman Road thought to have formerly ran beneath the mound. In 1877 the  entrance to the Merewether tunnel collapsed, permitting entry to the mound. This was blocked again in 1923. The Merewether tunnel collapsed in 1915 and exposed a hole in the hill about 4m above the original tunnel opening. During 1916 -1924 a hole appeared at the summit at the site of shaft which was backfilled by the Ministry of Works.

1922 saw Flinders Petrie investigate the possibility of an entrance existing opposite the south-east causeway, cutting a large trench into the base of the mound. This trench was reopened and re-examined as part of the BBC 'Chronicle' series in 1969.

1968 witnessed the collapse of the Merewether tunnel following exceptionally heavy rainfall in December followed by minor subsidence in January 1969.

During 1969-70 Richard Atkinson dug numerous trenches at the site and reopened the 1849 Merewether tunnel. He obtained five radiocarbon dates from the mound that suggested that it had been built between 2500 and 2000 BC. Atkinson envisaged construction of the mound in three stages, consisting of many small events, with little evidence of any break between the phases of construction:

Silbury I – A small mound about 5m high and 8m diameter, using organic materials,
Silbury II – Building up the mound to a height of 25m, using chalk extracted from the surrounding ditch,
Silbury III – Further build-up to create the hill we see today, and the digging of a larger quarry ditch.

Atkinson's interpretation has been questioned with a period of enlargement in a series of drums, like the tiers of a wedding cake, over several centuries preferred by some. Leary proposes that the mound was created not in three stages as previously suggested, but in 15 distinct phases over about 100 years involving some three generations between 2400 and 2300 BC.

Atkinson believed that the tunnels in the mound should be left open for future generations to explore and revisit his interpretations, while others doubted that the iron arches would stand up. The position of Atkinson's late 1960's excavations on the uppermost ledges can still be detected as slight depressions today. The Ministry of Works (now English Heritage), ruled that the main approach tunnel should be backfilled with road stone. However, the process was not completed throughout the tunnel system and the iron arches eventually buckled under the weight of the massive mound above and a complex system of fissures formed. The central part of the chamber caved-in during May 2000 and the 1776 shaft collapsed into this void and a crater appeared at the summit which exposed the original sides of the shaft to a depth of about 10m. A further collapse occurred in December 2000, when the sides of the shaft at the surface fell into the existing cavity.

In May 2007 the English Heritage Conservation Project re-opened the original tunnels and immediately began to find voids in the roof space that had opened up when the tunnel collapsed. Where the tunnel reached the turf mound at the centre of the hill, it opened out to form a chamber which had never been backfilled. It would appear that the original Merewether tunnel of 1849 was present in a void above the Atkinson chamber and that this was left unsupported in 1969-70 with a further void forming.

A major programme of stabilisation began filling the tunnels and shafts from previous investigations with hundreds of tonnes of chalk. At the same time a new archaeological survey was conducted using modern equipment and techniques, including a search of relevant documentation.

Letters written by Colonel Drax regarding the 1776 excavation were found in February 2010 in the British Library which described a 12m "perpendicular cavity" some 10cm wide. Wood fragments, thought to be oak, were found in this cavity leading to suggestions that this may have held an oak tree or a 'totem pole'.

All the known voids inside Silbury Hill, and the crater on the summit have now been filled with a total of 1,465 tonnes of chalk. The mound has now been restored to as near its original condition as possible.

The Silbury Bluestones
During Atkinson's excavations on the summit of Silbury he found a fragment of rock "apparently identical with one of the varieties of Stonehenge bluestone". If correct it would be the first piece of such found away from the site in modern times. Unfortunately it appeared to have been lost with Atkinson being accused of covering up the Silbury bluestone, barely 25mm across, because its find contradicted his theory that human transport was responsible for bringing the bluestones from Preseli in southwest Wales to Salisbury Plain. Archaeologists were sceptical that it was bluestone at all, while others claimed there were over a thousand bluestone fragments found at Silbury which supported the glacier transport theory.

The stone was examined by the Implement Petrology Committee (IPC) of the Council for British Archaeology who published the results over 20 years ago. The IPC claimed the stone was 'hornblende schist' and therefore not of a type normally described as bluestone.

And so the story of Silbury takes yet another twist; the reprint edition of The Story of Silbury Hill reports that three spotted dolerite bluestone fragments were recovered from Jim Leary's recent excavations on the mound top at Silbury as part of the English Heritage Conservation Project program. It seems rather perverse that the collapse of the monument should ultimately lead to the discovery of further bluestone fragments.

These three bluestone fragments have been matched to the  the small, solitary piece of spotted dolerite found there by Richard Atkinson during his excavations in 1969-70 which was found in the Alexander Keiller Museum in Avebury.

Rob Ixer, Department of Geology, University of Leicester, has identified ALL four Silbury bluestone fragments as belonging to a single block of spotted dolerite. HOW, and perhaps more importantly WHEN, the bluestone fragments got to the summit of Silbury remains a mystery but it seems likely they were placed there as artefacts by people.

Now, what if we could get a match from the Silbury fragments to a Bluestone monolith at Stonehenge.

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For more on the Silbury Bluestones see British Archaeology, No 122, January/February 2012

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Conservation Plan to Protect Hill of Tara

Following the destruction caused by the construction of the M3 motorway route through the archaeologically rich Tara-Skryne valley, passing perilously close to the site of the ancient seat of the Kings of Ireland, the Irish government has proposed a Conservation Plan for Hill of Tara.

The immensely important site of the Hill of Tara, County Meath, Ireland, was once the ancient seat of power in Ireland. It is claimed that142 kings reigned there in prehistoric and historic times. In ancient Irish religion and mythology Tara was the sacred dwelling place of the gods, and was the entrance to the Otherworld. From Tara the brilliant white quartz front of Newgrange can be see to the north west. There are over 30 monuments and earthen structures visible on the Hill of Tara, and estimated to be as many again with no visible remains surviving above ground. The earliest settlement at the site was in the Neolithic period. Only two monuments at Tara have been excavated, The Mound of the Hostages during the 1950s, and the ancient earthwork the Rath of the Synods at the turn of the 19th-20th Centuries. Recently a huge temple, made of over 300 wooden posts and measuring 170 metres across, was discovered at Tara.

At the summit of the hill is an oval Iron Age enclosure, with an internal ditch and external bank, measuring 318m by 264m known as Ráith na Ríogh, the Fort of the Kings, or the Royal Enclosure. The most prominent earthworks within the enclosure are the two linked enclosures known as Teach Chormaic, Cormac's House, and the Forradh, or Royal Seat. At the centre of the Forradh is a standing stone, which is believed to be the Lia Fáil.

Lia Fáil, or Stone of Destiny, at which the High Kings of Tara were crowned, stands about one metre in height and considered by some to have been a fertility symbol. This stone is thought to have once stood in front of the entrance to the passage of The Mound of the Hostages, and, like the two pillar-shaped stones that stand in front of both the eastern and western tombs at Knowth, is probably contemporary with the tomb.

The Mound of the Hostages

The passage tomb of The Mound of the Hostages, Duma na nGiall, is the oldest monument on the Hill of Tara dating back to between 2,500 - 3,000 BC and one of the most prominent monuments among the concentration of prehistoric sites at Tara. The passage way is short, and aligned on the cross-quarter days of November 8 and February 4, the ancient Celtic festivals of Samhain and Imbolc. Just inside the entrance on the left is a large decorated orthostat.

Conservation Plan
A conservation plan has been commissioned for the State-owned lands on the Hill of Tara, by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan.

Minister Deenihan, in collaboration with the Office of Public Works (OPW) and the Heritage Council, has commissioned a Discovery Programme to undertake the plan which, he said, "will illustrate the unique cultural and historical significance of Tara and identify appropriate policies to ensure its preservation and presentation".

The area to be examined includes the immediate environs of the Hill of Tara which contribute to the experience and enjoyment of the monument with emphasis on consultation with stakeholders, and the local community.

Navan area town and county councillors received a delegation from the Department of Heritage and the Heritage Council to brief them on the commissioning of the plan at their January meeting. Ian Doyle of the Heritage Council, Brian Lacey of the Discovery Programme and Tom Condit of the Department's National Monuments Service, provided an initial information briefing about the planned preparation of the plan. Mr Lacey said the structure of a conservation plan is quite specific. It is recognised internationally as an ideal formula for protecting heritage and managing change in important historic places.

Lacey told the meeting that since 2005, when the Cunnane Strattan Reynolds Report on the conservation of the Hill was submitted, there has been much further development, including the completion of the M3 and the excavations associated with the motorway building, numerous publications relating to Tara, as well as remote sensing surveys. In the summer of 2010, the Discovery Programme and its partners at NUI Galway doubled the amount of geophysical surveys on the hilltop, identifying what is almost certainly the previously unknown whereabouts of the medieval manor of Tara.

Councillors broadly welcomed the report, yet expressed concerns about possible restrictions on the Hill, in addition to the  'Americanising' of the monument. Cllr Jim Holloway said it was an "exciting" project but that he hoped the "mystique" of Tara would be maintained while visitor facilities and car parking be looked at. Mr Doyle said the purpose of the plan was to look at four points - access, value, protection and enjoyment and there was no intention of creating the 'Disneyfication' of Tara.

As with the recent proposals to the closure of the A344 road at Stonehenge the concern remains whether access to the Hill of Tara will remain open and free to all.

Degradation of the Mound
Archaeological works to investigate the significant degradation of the covering of The Mound of the Hostages have also been completed. The covering of the mound is showing signs of significant degradation which, according to Minister Deenihan, "has begun to increase as a result of the very inclement weather over the last few years". A non-invasive geophysical survey had already been completed which was followed by investigative archaeological excavations overseen by the Department and the Office of Public Works, which resulted in the removal of a portion of the earthen mound over the passage tomb. The excavation results will feed into a detailed conservation and management plan for the mound with options for conservation works to the passage tomb and the restoration of the mound are now being considered and will begin as soon as possible.

Let's hope they get it right with the Hill of Tara because the Irish Government does not have a very good record when it comes to protecting ancient monuments particularly when it comes to road building.

Obsession with Highway Construction
Recent history shows the Irish Government has displayed a voracious appetite for highway construction. The Emerald Isle is now criss-crossed with new motorways and dual carriageways, with accusations of the Government perhaps being under subjugation of the construction companies. In recent years we have seen the major construction projects of the M3 and the M9 and the remedial works on the M50 being completed, with the National Roads Authority (NRA) being accused of using “false data” to show continual traffic growth in justification for its major roads programme when its own figures show that traffic levels are actually falling.

The M3 motorway was contested because the route passes near the Hill of Tara and through the archaeologically rich Tara-Skryne valley. The planned route corridor was initially approved by An Bord Pleanála (Ireland's planning appeals board) on 22nd August 2003. Exactly 4 years later, on 22nd August 2007, they directed that the excavation of the Lismullen monument did not require fresh planning approval.

'Preservation' of Lismullin Monument in 2007

The current National Monuments Act was held in breach of the EU Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive, by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The Court found that the decision by former Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, to demolish Lismullen national monument at Tara was illegal.

Monuments were given protection before Irish independence by the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882, and Irish monuments were similarly protected by the independent state under the National Monuments Act of 1930. The list of National Monuments has since been expanded with nearly 1000 monuments in state ownership or guardianship by 2010, although this represents only a small proportion of Ireland's recorded archaeological heritage.

Incredibly, the most recent amendment act, the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 2004, includes provisions for the partial or complete destruction of National Monuments by the Government if such destruction is deemed to be in the "national interest". These provisions were included, according to press reports, to facilitate road schemes, and in particular the destruction of Carrickmines Castle, a National Monument, to build an intersection along the south-eastern section of the M50 motorway.

NEW National Monuments Bill?
Whatever happened to the NEW National Monuments Bill as reported in The Irish Times, May 2010, allegedly in the draft stages, that was intended to introduce a single licensing regime for all archaeological activities, which would prevent another incident like the Hill of Tara and the M3 motorway from occurring again. Has this been shelved?

The call for a NEW National Monuments Bill was reinforced after the NRA announced that the preferred route for the Slane Bypass, Co Meath, will run within 500 metres of the Bru na Boinne World Heritage Site, and at least 40 other significant ancient sites.

Urgent delivery of the National Monuments Bill was being urged to ensure that the proposed M2 motorway does not harm the Bru na Boinne complex, comprising of the monuments at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, with the minister being urged to strengthen the legislation by incorporating the the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention into Irish law.

Meath County Councillors unanimously voted for a ban on HGVs in Slane, 1,600 of them pass through the village each day, shortly after the last major collision at the end of March 2009, with 22 people having been killed to date. But the County Manager, Tom Dowling refused to enforce it.

Plans for a dual-carriageway to bypass the village of Slane, have been described as “idiotic” by Dr Edgar Morgenroth, associate professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute. Dr Morgenroth, who is the institute’s programme co-ordinator for research on transport and infrastructure, said he would be making a formal complaint to the Comptroller and Auditor General if An Bord Pleanála approved the current proposal.

The proposed N2 Slane bypass, part of the proposed Dublin to Derry road, has now been shelved, until at least 2016 as neither the Council nor The National Roads Authority (NRA) has funding to purchase the land for it if planning permission is granted. This appears to be based solely on fiscal policy - so what happens when funds become available?

The future of Irish monuments remains in the balance.

Source:
Conservation plan to protect Hill of Tara in the future - Meath Chronicle 01 February 2012



UPDATE ON NATIONAL MONUMENTS BILL
The Government's Legislation Programme for Summer Session 2012 stipulates that the Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltachts Monuments Bill, to consolidate, update and improve the legislative code governing the protection and regulation of the national archaeological heritage, has been approved by Government and the text is being prepared with publication expected early 2013.

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