Zennor Quoit query

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bladup B
bladup Sep 8, 2012 13:29:17
Replying to Sanctuary

Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
I don't have any expectations about Trethevy or any other monument you have to take them at face value .They are not utilatarian so anything goes , there is no blue print for portal tombs you even get double capstones What is the one off possibility at Trethevy ?
Maybe my terminology (one-off) is wrong but I feel some of the stones are out of position and give a false impression of what it may have been like on first-build. That's all I want to say about it at this time other than I believe that happened when the capstone partially slipped.
An interesting thing about most of these monuments is that if you took them all apart and laid the pieces out on the ground I wonder how many people would reassemble them as they stood beforehand if they hadn't seen them before but were told what they were?
I assume that the stones that you feel are out of position are where they are due to natural forces and not the hand of man .
We shouldn't apply our preconceptions like necessity , opportunism ,simplicity or utility to the design when these principles were unlikely to have been important to the builders .
Fallen by natural forces when the lid slipped, but moved by man to resolve the problem created by the slippage. I doubt anyone given all the pieces would ever put it back together like it is now if they hadn't previously seen it.
Do we know for sure there has been some re-arranging and if so when ?
No...but sometimes in life you have to work things out for yourself and not rely on the written word continually, especially if it hasn't been written :-). I don't follow the herd as you will have already gathered as I like to work a likely chain of events out for myself using the clues available. That's why I like pre-history as we all get a chance to use our brains a little if we allow ourselves to. All will be revealed in the fulness of time.
To be sure of re-arranging would rely on investigation not the written word , that would come later, we can all work things out for ourselves given sufficient info although it doesn't mean it we will be right .
The collapse of the backstone explains everything at Trethevy , like Zennor the capstone could have been relatively flat and supported by the doorstone leaving a gap above the side stones , this is fairly typical and not a stone need be out of place . that doesn't mean there might be a more complicated explanation , things aren't always the most obvious but unless there is something we dont' know a less parsimonious explanation will need some pretty convincing evidence .
You are now assuming that the backstone is the fallen stone George, I think differently, so it doesn't explain everything to me, but my working out does.
I used to think that but the more I looked at the structure the more (as someone who spent a lifetime in the construction industry) I got to realise it is not right. What you said earlier is exactly right. There is no definitive blueprint for portal dolmens just a basic 'sort of like this' approach. Your way and my way both fit that catagory.
There's also the chance the whole thing fell down shortly after been built in prehistory and they decided to put it back up a different way, to stop it falling down in the same way again, i don't think this myself but it's just a thought.

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Sep 8, 2012 13:40:25
Replying to bladup

bladup wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
I don't have any expectations about Trethevy or any other monument you have to take them at face value .They are not utilatarian so anything goes , there is no blue print for portal tombs you even get double capstones What is the one off possibility at Trethevy ?
Maybe my terminology (one-off) is wrong but I feel some of the stones are out of position and give a false impression of what it may have been like on first-build. That's all I want to say about it at this time other than I believe that happened when the capstone partially slipped.
An interesting thing about most of these monuments is that if you took them all apart and laid the pieces out on the ground I wonder how many people would reassemble them as they stood beforehand if they hadn't seen them before but were told what they were?
I assume that the stones that you feel are out of position are where they are due to natural forces and not the hand of man .
We shouldn't apply our preconceptions like necessity , opportunism ,simplicity or utility to the design when these principles were unlikely to have been important to the builders .
Fallen by natural forces when the lid slipped, but moved by man to resolve the problem created by the slippage. I doubt anyone given all the pieces would ever put it back together like it is now if they hadn't previously seen it.
Do we know for sure there has been some re-arranging and if so when ?
No...but sometimes in life you have to work things out for yourself and not rely on the written word continually, especially if it hasn't been written :-). I don't follow the herd as you will have already gathered as I like to work a likely chain of events out for myself using the clues available. That's why I like pre-history as we all get a chance to use our brains a little if we allow ourselves to. All will be revealed in the fulness of time.
To be sure of re-arranging would rely on investigation not the written word , that would come later, we can all work things out for ourselves given sufficient info although it doesn't mean it we will be right .
The collapse of the backstone explains everything at Trethevy , like Zennor the capstone could have been relatively flat and supported by the doorstone leaving a gap above the side stones , this is fairly typical and not a stone need be out of place . that doesn't mean there might be a more complicated explanation , things aren't always the most obvious but unless there is something we dont' know a less parsimonious explanation will need some pretty convincing evidence .
You are now assuming that the backstone is the fallen stone George, I think differently, so it doesn't explain everything to me, but my working out does.
I used to think that but the more I looked at the structure the more (as someone who spent a lifetime in the construction industry) I got to realise it is not right. What you said earlier is exactly right. There is no definitive blueprint for portal dolmens just a basic 'sort of like this' approach. Your way and my way both fit that catagory.
There's also the chance the whole thing fell down shortly after been built in prehistory and they decided to put it back up a different way, to stop it falling down in the same way again, i don't think this myself but it's just a thought.
That may have been quite a commom thing to happen. I think we often overlook the really tremendous effort that must have gone into building these structures and the weights they were dealing with. There must have been disasters along the way which led them to a different way of doing things. And so it continued....