A thought

Great Orme Mine 2

Image by texlahoma

Rhiannon May 8, 2006 09:06:12

I was watching a rerun of 'Coast' the other night, and they were at the copper mine on the Great Orme. The archaeologist was rootling through all these tupperware boxes of finds but she only found two bits of human bone, and they were from recent centuries.

I suppose the mining went on long after the bronze age, so anything of that era could have been lost (though it seems unlikely consider the trillion other bits and pieces from then that that they found - bones for digging out the ore). But really it seems likely that there were no human bones left there.

Now I was just thinking - well, it's such an important place to the society, and the copper was traded far and wide, you'd imagine there'd be an amount of superstition connected with the place. You know, a few little tokens left lying around to ensure everything kept going alright. But these weren't mentioned. I wondered if anything like that was found or not? Clearly no-one was buried in the mine. (you wouldn't get me in those tunnels in a month of sundays I have to say).

It also brought to my mind the figure supposedly found in the flint mines at Grimes Graves - thought to be highly suspicious and probably planted there by one of the people excavating (either to be funny or as a supposedly genuine 'look what I found aren't I clever' artefact).

Sorry these are kind of unformed thoughts but I thought I'd mention it, see what anyone else could think of.

moss May 8, 2006 11:19:32

Replying to Rhiannon

Animals dragged human bones in or out of caves, so mines would probably have had a similar history over time.
Grimes Graves "female goddess" figurine seems to be a hoax, according to Hutton anyway.
Apparently it was all very suspicious, excavation notes were never published, site notebook stopped on the day it was found, it looked freshly carved and there was an expert carver on site... Hutton doesn't believe there was an overarching mother goddess cult anyway, he reckoned that the venus figurines could just as well have exemplified obesity (not a good sign now - blame it on Mcdonalds) as showing signs of plenty, a bit like the plump buddha...

fitzcoraldo May 8, 2006 13:46:20

Replying to Rhiannon

Hi Rhiannon,
I think I can remember Francis Pryors Britain BC show mentioning something about small caches of hammerstones in unusual places within the mine.
I'm sure the miners must have had their superstitions and beliefs regarding their winning of the ore.
I suppose you could look upon the large scale mining of metal ores and the production of Bronze tools as possibly the first industrial revolution. A period of time when man advanced his dominance over nature, a process that began with the first farmers of the Neolithic and has continued more or less ever since.
I guess this could have been a time when new deities may have entered the pantheon, Gods of the underworld, fire and metalworking.
Perhaps the old beliefs regarding the earth were put aside or completely disregarded in favour of the persuit of wealth. Who knows?
I have worn a copper band for a few years now and when I sweat my wrist turns green. I wonder if the miners were little green men?

Chris Collyer May 8, 2006 18:43:08

Replying to Rhiannon

I'm sure there was a huge amount of superstition surrounding the mines, I don't know why there was so few artefacts that we would expect to find as ritual offering found but here's a little of what Francis Pryor has to say about Great Orme-
"We cannot escape ritual and ideology even down a mine. In fact I'm inclined to say 'especially down a mine' . . . I think it highly unlikely that people ever entered a mine – even a relatively shallow surface mine – lightly. I image that the spiritual dangers that were thought to lie below the ground were vastly more frightening than the prospect of a roof collapse. More likely the two would have been considered interrelated. At Great Orme and elsewhere mines have produced evidence for special offerings of one sort or another. Even the shallow surface working at Great Orme produced large quantities of animal bones, not all of which could have been used as tools . . "

-Chris

Hob May 8, 2006 21:41:41

Replying to Rhiannon

>a few little tokens left lying around to ensure everything kept going alright

I've a vague memory that in Africa, there are red ochre mines that were very carefully backfilled, requiring loads of time and effort that can only be explained in terms of the belief system of the miners. I kow Africa ain't Llandudno, and red ochre ain't copper ore, but there's a sort of conection there, albeit very tenuously. Something like 'special stuff from out of the ground has to be taken respectfully'.

Rhiannon May 9, 2006 11:15:58

Replying to Rhiannon

The final emergence of those miners from the Tasmanian mine today reminded me of this too. And watching Tony Robinson talking about children being sent to work down mines. Ie - it's not nice being in a dark, enclosed space. And because of the danger and fear, you're bound to come up with superstitions and ways of coping aren't you? There are loads connected with mining in this country in modern times.
Also there are all the connections with the underworld (a concept wot is surely in most cultures across the world).
I suppose, Hob, that your ochre would also have all the connections of being like blood, so the blood of the earth, and might require extra special rituals because of that.

Cerwyd May 20, 2006 14:13:29

Replying to Rhiannon

Hello, Rhiannon.

Please forgive me for contacting yo this way, but I'm new here and could not figure out how to contact you directly.

You once posted the following on King Arthur's Round Table in Cumbria:

<In 1538, Leland (who was the king's antiquary - what a position) wrote:
"It is of sum caullid the Round Table, and of sum, Arture's Castel."

In 1724 Stukeley said "The site is used to this day for a country rendez-vous, either for sports or for military exercises, shooting with bows, etc."

The Cumberland historian Hutchinson was told by villagers in 1773 that the place was an ancient tilting yard where jousts had once been held. He said wrestling matches had taken place there within living memory.

info in Marjorie Rowling's 'Folklore of the Lake District' (1976). >

Do you still have easy access to these sources? And, if so, could you please write me at my regular email address ASAP with the more complete quotes from the sources on the henge at Eamont? I would like to insert this material into the galley proofs of a book I have due out around Christmas.

Thank you and very best wishes,

August Hunt
[email protected]

StoneLifter May 20, 2006 15:45:30

Replying to Rhiannon

At the Bold Venture Mine ( http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/8262 ) there's a cist fifty, or so, metres from the entrance. There's a cairn field a short way away. Around about the mine there were carved stones and other monuments - most of them now wrecked. The mine itself is only half explored - a couple of decades ago - and seems to have been thoroughly scoured by the later miners, up until the 1920's. As the mine entrance is just a few metres from a strong little river the spoil was simply dropped into it and carried away downstream.

I am trying to 'wind', 'impel' or challenge Hob, et al., to have a wander down this mine in the light of the more recent Rock Art findings in Northumberland. There is also an ochre mine - exactly the same style of construction - a few miles away that would bear close examination. All it takes is a pair of wellies and a good torch. From what I can deduce from the arrangement of the remains in the valleys I'd say that the miners were little people - small farmers - and the big guys were 'in the big valleys'.