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Slaggyford Stones

Slaggyford Stones .

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tiompan T
tiompan Sep 12, 2011 08:47:35
Replying to StoneGloves

StoneGloves wrote:
"Is rock-art (esp cups and rings)...representative, communicative or aesthetic and will we ever know?"

It continues up until the present day. People are still making Rock Art, of various forms, right now. There's not many of them, and they're not working in a tradition, generally, but it is still going. The gargoyles and flourishes on ancient churches are rock art. So are the Celtic Heads.

The cup and ring motif is well known and easily recognised. Cupmarks, of various form, are found around the world. They are generally assumed to be prehistoric, but that is because they are associated with other ancient monuments. Some of the English cupmarks attributed as prehistoric might even be medieval (or later).

There are said to be three stages of response following new discoveries. Silence, ridicule and hearty acceptance. A person finding a cup and ring marked stone on the moors of North Yorkshire might expect the three stages to occur quite rapidly - in a couple of weeks. A person finding something that has not previously been seen before might expect to wait years or even decades ...

That is total nonsense , if the find is genuine it will be accepted for what is , instantly by the community and in the case of Discovery and Excavation Scotland in print within 18 months and in Canmore within much the same period . In hundreds of examples of finds , "that have never been seen before " I have never had any such problem but that may be because they are genuine and in the few cases there is any doubt the word possible gets used .If it is not genuine it will be politely ignored and if the finder continues to makes claims for it's authenticity it will be reviewed ,if after that they continue to to make similar claims they will probably get a reputation but even then any new sugestion will still be looked at .

S StoneGloves
StoneGloves Sep 12, 2011 13:26:34
Replying to tiompan

"That is total nonsense "

Which part of those three paragraphs is total nonsense? All of it? Or just some of it? I'm beginning to suspect you must be one of the TMA Eds - I had assumed you were Dr George Nash, from your authoritative tone. Describing views as total nonsense just closes down discussion and, yes, I need to spend more time writing. Letters mainly ...

Getting back to this collection of stones. There's six or seven of them, in a band sixty, seventy, metres wide and a hundred and fifty long, going down a hillside. There's only photographs of one of these stones, now, on the site page. It seems to me pointless and futile to express an opinion on all of the stones on the basis of my poor images. Context, as they say, is everything.

The carved stones in the Knar valley are not at all spectacular. I have never claimed that they were. Only two, out of thirty or forty, have ever been visited. Only a (fill in the blank) would draw conclusions about all of them based on the evidence of just two. There are some unique features about some of the stones - but nobody is going to go and look. I've been encouraging others for years to go and take a look, without success.

Your friends, that bagged one of my little rocks, was the closest anyone has got. Pebblethief, Rockartwolf and Hob just nibbled at the edges, with Tortie and Hartleyburn Common. So, my stuff is still in the ignored category. Your view of how finds are developed is true when the finds don't upset anyone's territory.

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