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 Head To Head The Modern Antiquarian Avebury Forum | Start a topic | Search |
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| Tiompan, it would seem that you may have slightly misunderstood what I was saying. At no stage did I intend to suggest that the claimed Earth Figure was meant to be viewed from the air or even designed from the air. The author says he began to understand it when he looked at an overdrawn map of the Avebury area that’s all! And I wasn’t suggesting that he was saying it was a ‘landscape’ thing either because that is not what the book is about at all and certainly nothing like the Michael Dames idea or Paul Devereaux’s. You’ll have to read it for yourself of course but he sees no great mystery to it at all stating that once the idea of an Afterlife crept into man’s way of thinking in Great Britain (as in Egypt for example) then a way of attaining that had to come next and that is where the idea of an Earth Figure used as a ‘vehicle’ to achieve this came along. It then just needed the manpower and time to complete the building work which he argues was done in set stages with each stage being a completed ‘early model’ so that everyone involved in the final construction of it over probably a few lifetimes benefitted from it. He sees it as being built for the people by the people and not just for the hierarchy of its time. As I said previously, it is not an airy-fairy or mystical book, more a nuts and bolts one in keeping with common sense and how Neolithic man in Great Britain probably thought, or was possibly induced to think. To add a little more to his theory, he claims - and I quote; ‘The very positioning of the Earth Figure was totally dependent on the locations of the Ridgeway Path; the Winterbourne stream; the River Kennet and the Swallowhead Springs. All four preceded the Earth Figure but when built its size and angulations were determined by them. It was an outstanding piece of engineering which was without equal for its time in Great Britain’. I’m sure, like myself, others will be pleasantly surprised at how a book of this nature can be presented without the usual mystical/magical approach so often associated with Avebury by writers who are not archaeologists. Oh and something that quite took me by surprise is that he doesn’t see the WKLB as being part of the Figure because he says it preceded it and in due course replaced it in the mindset of the people as part of a new Afterlife belief. It was a case of out with the old and in with the new and is explained really well if you adopt this ‘think Neolithic’ approach as he suggests. I remain fascinated by the idea and look forward to what others have to say about it once they have read the book. It won’t sit easy with everyone of course but it has great merit nevertheless and is a first class attempt at solving one of our major archaeological mysteries. Reply | with quote | Posted by The Jersey Minx 19th April 2010ce 12:36 In reply to: Re: sounds interesting (tiompan) |
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