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

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Stone circles of Cumbria: a short film


An audiovisual blog
I've put together some footage of my weekend looking at stone circles in Cumbria.

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Running rings around the Lake District, part two


13 June 2009
Today we were to meet up with a few people at Long Meg. But before we did we thought we'd first swing by Glassonby cairn circle, which is dead easy to reach from the lane in a field today policed by young Holstein bullocks with only one thing on their minds – to practice close surveillance on us. I armed myself with a large branch, just in case things got nasty. But it turned out these boys didn't have the balls.

As we arrived to inspect the site, so did scubi! "You two get everywhere" he said. Yep, we certainly try.

Glassonby — Images

18.06.09ce
<b>Glassonby</b>Posted by Jane

Glassonby is a very sweet little circle with plenty of brick-sized stones and rubble left in the middle and a good ring of medium sized kerb stones forming the circle. Now it is inhabited by rabbits, some of which scattered down the field while others disappeared into holes dug into the cairn as we approached. Its bucolic hillside setting and tiny diameter makes it particularly charming.

We stopped off to see Little Meg on way our back from Glassonby towards Long Meg, carefully dodging the coast-to-coast bicyclists which swarmed round these lanes.

Little Meg — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Little Meg</b>Posted by Jane
It was far less overgrown than when I was last here in 2003. This, I assume, is also a cairn circle, but its stones are far larger than Glassonby's, and one famously has spirals carved into it.

As we arrived at Long Meg and her Daughters, the light on the pointy menhir showed up perfectly the spiral carvings on the flattest face of the menhir. I'd been here before but could hardly see the rock art then; this time it was as clear Catherine wheels in November.

Long Meg & Her Daughters — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Long Meg & Her Daughters</b>Posted by Jane
Scubi arrived, then Vicster and her mate Vick, then pebs. We cracked open the picnics and sat in the hot sunshine by Long Meg and feasted on cheese, very garlicky hummous, smoked salmon, pebs' homemade olive and ham bread and strawberries.


Like Avebury, this place is so massive you can't stand far enough away to get it all in one view. Also like Avebury, it has a road running through the middle. And also like Avebury some people will insist on tying pieces of tat as so-called 'offerings' to the lowest branches of the nearest 'sacred' tree. There was a broken child's toy lorry lovingly suspended by a piece of carefully selected baler twine, an enchanting old stripey sock, a badge with the legend 'I've been to Ostrich World', some strips of sacred plastic bag, a faded old ribbon, and a red plastic fake crystal heart - no doubt harvested from a Christmas cracker - bobbled around in the breeze.

Long Meg & Her Daughters — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Long Meg & Her Daughters</b>Posted by Jane

Its enormity alone makes Long Meg and her Daughters a very special place. The large stones which form the circle are evenly spaced and despite many of them having been toppled, are so big they still look like they're standing. I defy anyone not to be impressed by Long Meg and her Daughters. Just don't let this impressiveness move you to tie offensive rubbish to the trees. Jack-in-the-Green wouldn't approve.


Scubi, Moth, Jane, Vicster, pebs and Vicky at Long Meg

Replete, and with the sun beating down and tiny high clouds scudding overhead in the bluest of skies, we all decided to head as a convey over to Moor Divock, just 14 miles away to visit The Cockpit stone circle. This involved a walk of perhaps two kilometres over a track on the moor. The company was so good I hardly noticed the walk and only stumbled about twice.

The Cockpit — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>The Cockpit</b>Posted by Jane

Once at the circle, we sat together in the sun and watched exaltations of larks rise out of the moorland.

14 June 2009

Next day we arranged to meet again at Copt Howe, the Langdale boulders, in Great Langdale near Grasmere. We watched as the sun swung round in the sky to until the light was at the right angle to reveal the extraordinary rock art carved on the flat surface of one of the largest boulders. I made a little sketch.

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Running rings around the Lake District, part one


12 June 2009

It's amazing just how many wonderful prehistoric sites you can cram into one short trip if you're so inclined. Cumbria has many stone circles, some of which I had not yet visited.

Moth peruses TMA for pearls of Copey wisdom, while sporting the best T-shirt for the job

As we drove up the M6 we listened to the Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie show on the radio. They were encouraging listeners who may be pop stars (current or ex) to text in to the show. Many were spoofs texted in by naughty listeners just pretending: "Ayup! Elton John here…" Mark and Stuart were guessing which texts might be real. I thought I'd try to fool them. I texted in: "Yowzah drudes, Julian Cope here watching the sun set over Silbury Hill. Awl love from the Archdrude". They were certain it was really Julian.

Next morning, we headed west from the Travelodge in Penrith where we were staying (like Julian did in the film), towards Castlerigg stone circle.

I was last here in August 2003 with my late friend treaclechops. This was one of her favourite sites, and a photo she took of it back in the early 90s has both graced my walls and been etched into my heart for many years. The monument itself is marvellous enough, but the natural amphitheatre of the fells, soft and green all around in the bright sunshine combined with the added poignancy of the loss of treaclechops' made the place today seem more dramatic than ever.

Castlerigg — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Castlerigg</b>Posted by Jane
In my mind I could hear sweeping, heart-string twanging orchestral music and the sound of her dirty laugh.

It may be a reconstruction, but Blakeley Raise stone circle is quite charming and in a satisfyingly remote moorland spot but right next to the lane.

Blakeley Raise — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Blakeley Raise</b>Posted by Jane
The stones are small and whether they were re-erected in the right holes or not didn't matter to me. I cleared the centre of the circle of the rusty horseshoe and remembrance day crucifix and stood back and admired the stones. I loved it here. The sky seemed very big.

Poor Greycroft. This once magnificent stone circle is much neglected, hideously overgrown with thick unmanaged grasses and weeds, fenced in like a prisoner and overlooked by its neighbour, the industrial nightmare of the Sellafield nuclear power plant.

Greycroft Stone Circle — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Greycroft Stone Circle</b>Posted by Jane
But it's not all bad. At least the fence prevents sloppy tractor drivers from bumping into the stones, and at least the weeds offer some kind of untouched habitat for birds, insects and small mammals. The view down to the sea is gorgeous and my one crumb of comfort is that despite everything, it is still here, its pinkish stones glinting in the sunshine.

There's not much left of Elva Plain stone circle.

Elva Plain — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Elva Plain</b>Posted by Jane
Its 14 small stones are all down and it seems to be melting back into the gentle slope of the field, overlooked by distant fells. But like Greycroft, the miracle is that it's still here at all.

Mighty Mayburgh henge is slap bang next to the M6 at Penrith, but don't let that put you off – indeed, let it encourage you to come and see it! The henge's grassy rubble banks rise 20 or 30 feet all around to form a giant cup with a vast menhir in the middle. The last remnant of what, I wondered? A few mature trees grow randomly out of the humungous banks, but the henge is so impressive they seem tiny even though they must rise 60 feet or more.

Mayburgh Henge — Images

17.06.09ce
<b>Mayburgh Henge</b>Posted by Jane
Inside the henge there is no internal ditch, which is a bit weird, but this seems to add to the enclosedness of the site. What was it for? What WAS it for? Private events? Fortifications? Sacred ceremonies? Trading? Cattle market? A sports arena? What WAS it for? To me this henge is way more impressive than Avebury.

Unlike its close neighbour at Mayburgh, Arthur King's round table is smaller in diameter and appears to have mostly melted back into the earth. The earthworks still have sufficient sculpting to impress though and in the strong sunlight its gentle grassy contours looked wonderful. The road has nipped off its most northerly edge.

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Tikis at the edge of the world – part two


Continued from part one


Iipona tikis at Puamau
Twelve miles from Atuona, the main settlement on the Marquesan island of Hiva Oa, is the tiny village of Puamau, on the east of the island, looking out towards the great blue vastness of the Pacific ocean. It takes two dramatic, hot and bumpy hours in a four-wheel drive to get there. The dirt roads are treacherous, winding around impossibly spiky volcanic headlands with sheer drops on either side, through the rainforest, over peaks and around ridges. It's no wonder that until very recently, the only way to get anywhere in the Marquesas was on horseback. With resources on the island so scarce (everything except fruit, fish and chickens has to be imported) we were lucky to get there; the island's one petrol station was almost out of fuel and the supply boat wasn't due in for 48 hours.

The reason for our trip to Puamau was to see the Iipona archaeological site in which five giant tikis stand facing east, among a rubble of pae paes (stone platforms), standing stones, stone steps and ceremonial terraces. I have to tell you that this site blew my mind.


A giant polissoir stands at the side of track which leads you up to the site.


The first tiki you reach is the so-called 'flying tiki' (proper name Maki Taua Pepe) which is supposed to represent a woman lying on her stomach giving birth – though as a mother I can tell you that lying on one's front to give birth is a very silly idea. On the tiki's pedestal is a carved a strange creature perhaps a dog, though to me it looked more like a llama, but what this meant I couldn't begin to guess.


The largest tiki here, called Takaii, is the largest in Polynesia except for Easter Island's moai. It stands 2.67m tall and dominates the site.

There are 3 other tikis here too, standing in this hot jungle clearing. Our driver/guide and a French couple we were travelling with saw our enthusiasm and left us while they went off elsewhere. For an hour and half not a single other visitor came to this spectacular and wild place. This gave us time to think about the complexity of the site: the skill in carving these stones, laying out the vast site, and what did it all mean? Were the tikis the effigies of real ancestral warrior chiefs? Or perhaps god or spirits? How were they used? Did people make offerings? Were the stones sacred? Did they have special powers or were they taboo? Despite being used until a few centuries ago until Europeans came, no one seems to know.


On a nearby pae pae a number of disembodied tiki heads had been placed, lost from their original location indicating that at one time perhaps there were very many more complete tikis here.

A tiny glimpse perhaps, of an early obsession to replicate giant humanoid statues which became out of control on Easter eventually causing its civilisation to collapse?

Our driver collected us and took us down to nearby pension Chez Marie Antoinette for lunch. She had cooked us a delicious vegetarian lunch of rice, avocado and lime, starfruit, fried bananas in coconut, an unidentified glutinous vegetable and fried breadfruit chips. I particularly wanted to try breadfruit as I have long been fascinated by the story of HMS Bounty which came to Tahiti in 1787 to collect breadfruit saplings.

In Marie Antoinette's beautiful garden stood a finely built pae pae and four tombs, including the tomb of the last chief of the Puamau valley who died early in the 20th century.

His tomb was decorated by two small tikis standing guard – clearly they were much older that the tomb. As we travelled through Hiva Oa, we saw many randomly placed giant ancient carved stones, some just lying at the roadside, or reclaimed in people's gardens; one even had a horse tethered to it.

A copra worker burned coconut husks in the forest nearby and a pall of blue smoke crept through the trees. It was very atmospheric. This place took four flights on planes which got ever smaller, nine and half time zones, hours of research and months of saving my pennies to reach. It's so remote and isolated that it doesn't even appear in many atlases. An overwhelming feeling of standing at the very edge of the world hit me and I loved it.

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Tikis at the edge of the world – part one


Short film of tikis in French Polynesia here:



The French Polynesian islands of the Marquesas, make up the archipelago farthest from any continent in the world, lying more than 3000 miles from Mexico. Being so remote and isolated for so long, the islands are home to rare flora and fauna. The archipelago was first colonised by people in about 100 AD, probably by Samoans. The people remained neolithic – that is, without metal tools - until the arrival of Europeans in the 18th century. During their long isolation they developed a culture as unique as the islands' species.

Moth and I visited the Marquesan island of Hiva Oa in early February 2009, arriving on a tiny Twin Otter at Jacques Brel airstrip outside Atuona, the island's main settlement (population about 1,500).

There are two reasons why I wanted to make the long trek out to this remote and savagely beautiful volcanic island. One was the artist Paul Gauguin who lived, worked, died and is buried here. Gauguin's paintings of Tahiti and the Marquesas are largely responsible for the way we perceive French Polynesia today and I wanted to see for myself how much of his vision was fact and how much was fantasy. Gauguin couldn't help but to include in his paintings the mountains, the sea, shady pandanus trees, fruit, dark-skinned women and the giant Marquesan tikis - large stone carvings of humanoid forms.

Some archaeologists believe it was Marquesans who originally colonised Easter Island, taking with them their habit of erecting giant stone tikis, but on Easter taking it to frenzied, massive extremes. Certainly the tikis on Hiva Oa are the largest in the Pacific outside of Easter, and to my eyes have stylistic similarities.

Tehueto
Our first taste of Marquesan archaeology were the Tehueto petroglyphs, ma'ae (sacred space) and pae pae (traditional meeting platform or stone floor). It was a powerfully hot and humid walk down a muddy trail through the lush Faakua valley where trees dropped their fruit uneaten to the ground and up a steamy hillside.

Despite the vagueries of the map we'd been given and my doubts about walking into the forest without a guide, on a slope beneath towering volcanic cliffs, we managed to find a massive boulder 5ms long and perhaps 3ms tall and thick on which were carved seven or more large bas-relief lizards or some such creatures – a totem animal perhaps?

A little further up the track we arrived at the overgrown ma'ae, once the site of a large bustling community. All that remains are monumental dry-stone platforms of huge volcanic stones, arranged into platforms which were once the bases of houses.

Banyan trees and a dense tangle of roots, branches and leaf litter made the site difficult to interpret, but we spotted stones which had once been used for polishing stone axes and knives…

…cup marks, used in the preparation of oils and tattooing dyes; and behind a huge tree trunk, a carved face peeped out:


Smiling tiki
I never did find out the Marquesan name of the smiling tiki, but our host guided us there down a narrow track in the steaming forest just outside Atuona.

It's a small stone rather phallically-shaped in a tiny valley clearing flanked by banana plants. The carving on the face is crisp and clear.

Strangely, it looks like it's wearing specs. He had little hands around his waist and attractive Marquesan style swirls on his face, probably representing the tattoos that Marquesans are so fond of.

Taaoa
The archaeological site at Taaoa is vast.

It's a complex of rectangular enclosures, platforms of large volcanic black stones…

…terraced walls and ritual areas, testament to the advanced civilisation which built it, which was killed off by European diseases in the 18th century.

The rainforest is doing what it can to reclaim the site: great banyans and huge breadfruit trees, as well as grapefruits, papayas, avocados and palms surround the site, though the central ma'ae is cleared and felt to me like a sports pitch. We noticed a number of stones which had clearly been used as polissoirs, with deep grooves for sharpening stone tools. We also noticed lots of cup-marks:

These little pits had been made over generations for preparing inks for tattooing – our guide showed us how leaves and the ash extracted from certain fatty nuts were used to prepare the inks.

Climbing up through the site on stoney paths we headed towards the well-preseved tiki at the back of the site.
Unfortunately as I was preoccupied in trying to avoid getting eaten alive by evil Marquesan nono flies I forgot to ask the guide about the human skull that according to my guide book was hidden in a stone structure near the tiki. The tiki face is not as well preserved as the smiling tiki's but you can see a smile nonetheless.


Continues in part two
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Habitat: Commonly sighted in fields round Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
Distribution: Widespread; occasional migrations to overwinter in Africa or other hot climes.
Characteristics: A tall, blonde, opinionated bird with feisty temper when provoked. Prone to spells of gloom during winter months. Usually sporting dark plumage, except for golden head, can often spotted with sketchbook and brushes near megalithic sites.
Feeding habits: Easily tempted with cheese (any variety) or a nice cup of tea. Unfeasibly fond of curry.
Behaviour: Unpredictable, approach cautiously. Responds very favourably to flattery.
Abhors: slugs, invisible sky gods, Tories, the Daily Mail, bigots, eggs, the cold, walking and timewasting.
Adores: a man called Moth, painting, live music, furry creatures, tea administered frequently, hot places, cheese, writing crap poetry, David Attenborough, Ernest Shackleton, Vincent van Gogh and the English language.
Want more?: see her website.
Big old rocks I find appealling
Their secrets they are not revealing
Some are chambers, some are tombs
Hidden in valleys and in combes
Some are said to act like clocks
With shadows cast out from their rocks
I like the way they just survive
When I visit, I feel alive
So I chase my rocks around the maps
Round England, Ireland and France, perhaps
But there ain't nothin' that I liked so much
As to see the Hunebedden, dem is Dutch.

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