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White Cow
Re: Is it a white cow when you're not looking?
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gjrk wrote:
Thanks very much for that.

Quartz is a funny one. I've always felt drawn to it as well. Though this may just be the precious white shine of it, in comparison to the grey alternatives. The trouble with it, where we're concerned, is, if I may borrow one of Tiompan's phrases (;)), that it's so ubiquitous it would be hard to prove that its presence at monuments was always intentional, except if it could be proved, for example, to have come from some distance away.

I suspect that it may have meant different things in different areas. You coiuld make a good case for universal meaning where a type of architecture is concerned, (although even then, the variation in age and morphology between, say, types of stone circles would seem to put a stop to that run) but not a single type of stone.

Having said that, there has been research (and counter argument) into our reactions and, I think, the 'meanings' we may universally ascribe to different basic colours. I'd have to check this last sentence 'cos I'm working from memory.


Ubiquitous is a splendid word and I take on board what Tiompan was saying; it is odd though why a circle of nineteen stones should contain just one of quartz. I haven't visited the Boscawen-un site (its on the list) though understand it is set out almost like a sun dial with a slanting central stone. I wonder if perhaps the quartz stone reflects the sunlight in a particularly bright and vibrant manner at certain times of the day or year (on a cloudless day of course).

Perhaps I should move to Penzance and ponder on the subject for a few months ....


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tjj
Posted by tjj
3rd September 2009ce
15:16

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