The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Head To Head   The Modern Antiquarian   Trethevy Quoit Forum Start a topic | Search
Trethevy Quoit
Re: Trevethy Quoit
107 messages
Select a forum:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:

Hi George,
As you know I only live about 15 minutes away from Trethevy (not Trevethy as titled) and in my opinion (without looking at the work done by others) I would guess that at some stage it has fallen and been re-erected...badly!! The fallen internal closure stone is far too tall to be either in the right place or served another purpose originally and in my opinion a couple of side uprights are also misplaced. But in fairness I have never undertaken serious research on it but strangley enough was going to do that this year.


Roy , I'm looking forward to the seeing the evidence for the orientations (and markings ), which must be based on the internal relations of the othostats and capstone as there is nothing external that is the usual stuff of archaeastronomy i.e. foresights etc . The possible number of internal relations is immense and likleihood of finding something apparently significant is consequently high . The orientations are predicated on the the structure being exactly as the builders left it .If there has been any movement or change , apart from the obvious case of the backstone then the argument for intentional alignments like that stone ,collapses .Worse , 50%of Portal Tombs have a surviving cairn and those that don't , as is the case at Trevethy have evidence of one .The surrounding cairn was the feature that at least allowed for erection of the capstone whilst supporting the orthostats .
Any surrounding cairn would diminish the number of possible plays of light except for the hole in the capstone which may not even be contemporaneous with the build , a masons view on this would be helpful i.e. to see what the tooloing may have been .
We do know about orientations of Portal tombs in relation to water courses and valleys and despite some attempts there has been nothing convincing in relation to astronomy .
Despite that it's great to see some time being spent on one monument we are sure to learn to something .


Indications are that there was once a cairn/mound present and certainly as you suggest it would have greatly assisted in the raising of the capstone. Interestingly I was reading just today of the possibility that the capstone hole was drilled out by the Victorians to assist them to put it back after it had fallen! What I find interesting about the hole is that it does give the appearance of being 'drilled out' and certainly when the capstone was in the position (slope) that it is now because the depth of the hole takes a perpendicular angle in relation to the slope.


Reply | with quote
Posted by Sanctuary
18th April 2011ce
19:59

In reply to:

Re: Trevethy Quoit (tiompan)

1 reply:

Re: Trevethy Quoit (tiompan)

Messages in this topic: