Re: Stone Not Circle | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

The Nine Stones of Winterbourne Abbas 8

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Stone Not Circle

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Sanctuary Nov 13, 2013 11:06:45

Replying to nix

nix wrote:

Well it is nice to hear about Margaret
She always seemed the perfect combination of mathematician and mythologer.

But are the true circles really true? Don't if Avebury is one of these - but it seems very wobbly!

A lot of the oldest circles (well those where I live anyway alongside Bodmin Moor), seemed to have been marked out like more of a demarcation exercise rather than a perfect circle. Liken it to kids marking out an area to play footy in. It's just an area that they 'did' something in rather than a precise space. I wonder if the later smaller circles which were on the whole perfectly circular were more in the way of being a representation of what they did in the 'old days' when an important function was once carried out in them but now used more in the way of celebrating a past belief. Just a thought.

Evergreen Dazed Nov 13, 2013 11:45:08

Replying to Sanctuary

Sanctuary wrote:

Liken it to kids marking out an area to play footy in.

Ah, I remember the long summer holidays. Jumpers for goalposts, the ball being kicked over somebodys garden fence, burying an arthritic 35yr old woman in a huge ditch we'd dug to mark out the pitch, arguments about whether the ball was over the line, playing on until the autumn equinox sun dipped behind the quartz veined stone we had as a cornerflag, being called home for tea.

Littlestone Nov 13, 2013 12:00:30

Replying to Sanctuary

Sanctuary wrote:

I wonder if the later smaller circles which were on the whole perfectly circular were more in the way of being a representation of what they did in the 'old days' when an important function was once carried out in them but now used more in the way of celebrating a past belief. Just a thought.

But and interesting one.

Although the Avebury Henge itself is not circular, stones 201-227 surrounding the Cove in the north-east quadrant and stones 101-129 surrounding the Obelisk in the south-east quadrant do appear to be circular (with the Cove and the Obelisk at their centres :-)

nix Nov 14, 2013 18:24:56

Replying to Sanctuary

Sanctuary wrote:

Absolutely - that is what I meant - the enclosure was more important than the circumference. In fact, mightn't the circumference not really have been important at all- perhaps even to be avoided? Given their skill, it would have been so easy, even simpler, to make.

And that is an interesting thought that the later true circles were an idealisation!

That is very much often the case with the development os sacred architecture elsewhere