Ritual Landscapes

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FourWinds F
FourWinds Oct 9, 2005 07:42:51
Replying to nigelswift

One the failings some people have is to expect to find a general rule that governs all sites in all regions. This just ain't gonna happen in my opinion. You certainly cannot say that because one site has a characteristic then it was important at all others. Equally you cannot say that because one site does not have a characteristic it was not important at another site. You certainly can't say that rules for wedge tombs in Antrim apply to wedge tombs in Cork.

Take Christianity for instance. Irish Christianity is very different from French Christianity, which is different from the Spanish variety. Obviously there's one big common theme, but there are local variations. There are not only regional differences but also time based differences. Many Romanesque churches have exhibitionist carvings. New churches don't. Just because more modern churches don't have these can you say that they were not important to some Christians at some point in time? No you can't.

The same applies to ancient monuments. There are a lot of wedge tombs in Ireland and they were certainly built over a large time span. There will never be a universal set of rules that apply to just this one set of monuments let alone every type from every time period. I believe that trying to find this is everyone's failing in this field so far.

This is a double edged sword though. What is needed is a very hard thing to achieve: local assessment of site groups while staying aware of the broader picture.

M moss
moss Oct 9, 2005 10:10:20
Replying to FourWinds

I probably don't believe in ritualised landscapes, ancestral yes, they build up over time. What I do think though is that we forget that these people had language and needed to narrate the story of their lives, and the expression of ritual/religion is bound up in the landscape. To go back to basics, to survive we must know our environment - forget modern day counterparts we live in a kaleidoscope of fast images our senses are so blunted as to be almost non existent. They had to live and survive, and probably most important of all create a view of their world. The natural world would have created the words to explain hills, rivers rocks, animals etc., from there we take "mother earth" hills that form breasts, our eyes see shapes and we process them logically, this progression is fluid it takes different forms. Religion is always fluid, ritual builds up over time and the reason why it is there is forgotten - stone circles are put up in imitation of others with no understanding of the reason why, and probably also in rockart. But I reckon the landscape would always have been important it centered the world in which you lived, it had to be named when you travelled, and neolithic people definitely travelled, it may not have been ritualised but it was given shape and form in words and therefore is part of the narrative or story...