Re: The tor maze (or not) | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Glastonbury Tor 12

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The tor maze (or not)

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moss Feb 24, 2010 15:20:56

Replying to Mustard

Well looking at the Rahtz book, and the fact that an I/A settlement was on the top, and of course the two bodies of the supposed monks in the rock cut graves; the sequence of settlement could be read as pagan shrine/roman temple/christian, very similar to other hill top sites in Somerset.
So a maze can't be ruled out, though whether mazes went that far back into history I don't know..spirally path up the Tor maybe equals easier way for pack animals to take stuff up there?

Mustard Feb 24, 2010 15:37:47

Replying to moss

moss wrote:

So a maze can't be ruled out, though whether mazes went that far back into history I don't know..spirally path up the Tor maybe equals easier way for pack animals to take stuff up there?

I'm not convinced that it needs to be a maze in order to be neolithic.

Earthworks on that scale would be a massive undertaking just to give donkeys an easier time on the way up. I'd be quite comfortable ruling that theory out.

The tor pretty much screams "ritual landscape feature" at you as soon as you lay eyes on it - and that's without it being surrounded by marsh and shrouded in mist as it would have been a few thousand years ago. It seems inconceivable that neolithic people WOULDN'T have done something special with it. Whether that involved shaping it is another question, obviously.

StoneGloves Feb 24, 2010 17:56:09

Replying to moss

One of the theories is sheepwalk - which does bear consideration, at least.