|
|
 Log in |
Register
|
|
|
England
The Swastika StoneCup and Ring Marks / Rock Art
|
Show map (inline Google Map)
|
|
|
Sites in this group:
|
3 posts
WoodHouse Crag Cup Marked Stone |
News |
 Add news |
Swastika Stone is Actually a Carving of a Boomeranghttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/3699593.stm A top children's writer is suggesting that the boomerang was invented in West Yorkshire rather than Australia... continues... |
Posted by juamei10th May 2004ce Edited 10th May 2004ce |
Images (click to view fullsize) |
Add an image |
Photographs:
Maps / Plans / Diagrams:
|
Fieldnotes |
Add fieldnotes |
|
I first saw this carving when I was 10-years old and it had one helluvan effect on me! The cups in the design align north-south and east-west. The northern line points directly at Simon's Seat on the northern skyline. The eastern axis points directly at Almscliffe Crag, above which the equinox sun seems to rise from here. For the real alignment fanatics, check out the alignment from Twelve Apostles to here: on the date of the last major lunar standstill (occurrent every 18.6 years), the moon set over the cairn at Lanshaw Lad. It wasn't until I got home and checked the veracity of this line, that I realised if you follow this moonset line further, you hit the Swastika Stone bang on! The single 'outlying' cup from the four spiralling arms is, to me, the point from which the four-arms originated and not the other way round. In early cosmogenic patterns the world over, the worlds emerged from the round, the single, the point, or uroborous - and this is what this Swastika Stone appears to represent. (For those of you who aint into using psychedelics at sites, a good overview of this idea is in Erich Neumann's Origins & History of Consciousness [although there's no reference to this symbol] and which should be read by anyone pretending an interest in the nature of the archaic mind. It's a good work on the psychology of the Dreamtime.) |
Posted by Paulus3rd May 2004ce Edited 31st January 2006ce |
| Probably the most famous carved rock on the moor, the Swastika Stone is generally considered to be later than the other carvings here and to date from the Iron Age. If you plan to visit the site it is well worth parking at the bottom of Heber's Ghyll and walking up through the woods – this is a picturesque route that snakes up the steep hillside and criss-crosses Black Beck via several wooden footbridges. Once you get to the top a gate leads through a wall and onto the moor. Turn right and you should soon see the iron railings that surround the rock a few hundred metres ahead. Once you get there don't overlook the actual carving – the one nearest to you is a Victorian copy, the original is just beyond it and is now very faint. Like several other sites on the moor there are some fantastic views across Wharfdale, especially to the northwest along the river valley. |
Posted by Chris Collyer12th April 2003ce |
Miscellaneous |
Add miscellaneous |
|
Is the Swastika Stone really prehistoric? The Swastika Stone is always held up to be the classic example of Bronze Age rock art in Britain, but is it really that old? Whilst there is strong evidence for the use of the swastika symbol in general going back to the Neolithic, I'd make a case that the fylfot design of the Ilkley Moor Swastika Stone is mediaeval in date. In a small church on Anglesey I recently came across a 13th Century gravestone with a carved image that is virtually identical to the Swastika Stone. I've attached a picture here. Rock art is notoriously difficult to date, unless it is overlain with other datable material to give it context. Most dating is done on stylistic grounds. Since the fylfot design appears in a firmly dated mediaeval context on Anglesey, I'd argue that it is a mediaeval design. This means that a mediaeval date for the Swastika Stone is entirely possible, even probable. The chance of the design persisting almost unchanged across 2,500 years and from one side of the country to the other can be discounted. I'm happy to be challenged on this, but in the absence of any positive evidence I would not regard the Swastika Stone as ancient. |
Posted by Dunstan16th March 2008ce |
|
First described as a 'swastika' by J. Thornton Dale in 1880, the image had become known by its present title at the end of that decade and seemed immortalised with the name when J. Horsfall Turner wrote about it in the very popular history book he co-authored with Rev. Collyer in Ilkley Ancient and Modern. (1885) By then, comparisons had already been drawn with the acknowledged swastika symbol in Tossene, Sweden, and by the time Harry Speight described it in his colossal Upper Wharfedale (1900), other near-identical European swastika carvings had been found in Valcamonica, northern Italy. (though these lacked the 'tail' found on Ilkley's carving) The Leeds Buddhist scholar, Steve Hart, said that Ilkley's Swastika Stone "to a Buddhist should be a sonorous gatha (a sutra or verse), a plenitude of transcendental boddhisattvic vision. The swirling wheel of the four arms suggests the four realms as experienced by Jains, upanishadic sages and ancient Buddists. They ARE samsara. The samsara is resolved into the nirvana at the hub. The four realms are the human realm, god realm, hell realm and the nature realm. There are no clear delineated demarcations between these realms. All interpenetrate." (Images of the popularised 'modern' swastika - a huge misnomer - can be found on several church bells in Yorkshire, where they were used as charms to protect against lightning, following in the mythic fashion of Thor. These swastikas date from the 15th century.) |
Posted by Paulus 29th July 2005ce Edited 31st January 2006ce |
|
The fylfot motif is very similar to the Iron Age 'Camunian Rose' design of Valcamonica, in Northern Italy. This is a design based around a cross of nine cups, with an interweaving groove. Not always in a 'swastika' pattern. The Roman Fort at Ilkley (which may or may not have been named Olicana), was at one point the station of the Second Cohort of Lingones, who were originally recruited from among the Lingones tribe inhabiting the Adriatic coast of Northern Italy, the old province of Cisalpine Gaul. They were stationed at Ilkley during the 2nd century AD. It seems very likely, that the swastika was carved by one of the Lingones Celts during the Romano-British period. |
Posted by Kozmik_Ken9th June 2004ce |
Links |
Add a link |
Reclaim the SwastikaHistory, Symbolism & Discussion about this Universal Archaic Symbol |
Posted by Paulus 10th March 2009ce |
Verbeia knolI've tried to consolidate information about Verbeia, the Romano-Celtic goddess from Ilkley, here. It includes recent research that seems to provide a historical link between the Lingones troops who created the Verbeia altar, the Swastika Stone, and the Camunian Roses in northern Italy. (As Ken suggests above - I'm 4 years late on this one!) Please suggest any other good info on the knol... |
Posted by gyrus 2nd October 2008ce Edited 2nd October 2008ce |
Swastika - The Symbol of the BuddhaAn informative website about this worldwide known design. |
Posted by rockartuk14th April 2006ce |
Dreamflesh - Interview with the SwastikaCrazy to some - not to others. Here's one man's overview on the sacred history of this archaic symbol - for anyone who wants to look further into the nature of the design (found on the Dreamflesh website). |
Posted by Paulus 19th August 2005ce Edited 6th February 2006ce |
SkiptonwebSwastika Stone for Tourists Although we've already got the info on TMA about this stone, there's a rather lovely photo of the carving here. |
Posted by Paulus 19th August 2005ce Edited 19th August 2005ce |
Tracce no 9The motif of the "Camunian Rose" in the rock art of Valcamonica This post appears as part of the weblog entry The Ambient Rambler's Book of Journey - Ilkley Moor - April 2003
|
Posted by Kozmik_Ken 22nd September 2003ce |
Plato's Jacuzzi |
Posted by shortithehorn 17th January 2003ce |
Latest posts for the Swastika Stone |
WoodHouse Crag (Cup Marked Stone) — Fieldnotes |
|
About 50m west of the swastika stone to the rightof the footpath lie 2 fallen gateposts. The one which is the smaller of the two has two shallow cups and rings on it. This post appears as part of the blog post "Its A Fair Cup?"
|
Posted by treehugger-uk23rd September 2006ce |
WoodHouse Crag (Cup Marked Stone) — Images (click to view fullsize) |
 
|
Posted by treehugger-uk 23rd September 2006ce |
Top of page