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Disgwylfa Fawr

Canoes? You what?

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GLADMAN G
GLADMAN Nov 26, 2012 23:10:51
Replying to Howburn Digger

Howburn Digger wrote:
I recall reading (and I posted it up here somewhere...) of a similar find of dugout tree trunks used as coffins. Though these were found at a great depth rather than a great height! Here

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/img_fullsize/110354.jpg

I note that the dug out tree trunks at Disgwylfa Fawr are not referred to as canoes in the report. As their lengths are only 2.4m and the other 1.08m, they don't really seem the right size to be canoes.

I recall as a wee boy being taken up to Loch Doon in Ayrshire by my dad and uncle. My uncle had trained at the seaplane gunnery school up there in WWII. On the shore was laid out a row of ancient wooden tree trunks. Some were just that, others were obviously dug-out canoes. They were part of a group of canoes (some 7 metres long) found when the loch level was lowered. A couple ended up in the National Museum. The rest were left there. I remember sitting in one with my wee brother and playing!

It's very weird to have found these at altitude... I noted the lengths but assumed - rather too uncritically, perhaps - they had been 'trimmed' to fit inside the cairn for a symbollic 'journey'. Like some of the chariot burials where the vehicle was laid flat like a 'kit'.

Then again, as you say, just because they were hollowed out logs doesn't mean they actually were... or were meant to represent.... dug-out canoes. The point is what else could they be or represent?

T tiompan
tiompan Nov 26, 2012 23:32:58
Replying to GLADMAN

GLADMAN wrote:
Howburn Digger wrote:
I recall reading (and I posted it up here somewhere...) of a similar find of dugout tree trunks used as coffins. Though these were found at a great depth rather than a great height! Here

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/img_fullsize/110354.jpg

I note that the dug out tree trunks at Disgwylfa Fawr are not referred to as canoes in the report. As their lengths are only 2.4m and the other 1.08m, they don't really seem the right size to be canoes.

I recall as a wee boy being taken up to Loch Doon in Ayrshire by my dad and uncle. My uncle had trained at the seaplane gunnery school up there in WWII. On the shore was laid out a row of ancient wooden tree trunks. Some were just that, others were obviously dug-out canoes. They were part of a group of canoes (some 7 metres long) found when the loch level was lowered. A couple ended up in the National Museum. The rest were left there. I remember sitting in one with my wee brother and playing!

It's very weird to have found these at altitude... I noted the lengths but assumed - rather too uncritically, perhaps - they had been 'trimmed' to fit inside the cairn for a symbollic 'journey'. Like some of the chariot burials where the vehicle was laid flat like a 'kit'.

Then again, as you say, just because they were hollowed out logs doesn't mean they actually were... or were meant to represent.... dug-out canoes. The point is what else could they be or represent?

The use of single tree trunks in funerary contexts either split to form two D 's , usually pre BA here or hollowed out to form a coffin usually BA here but more common in northern and eastern Europe might be connected . " Boat burials " sometimes have lids which makes the boat simile less likely , although there is a connection with death and real boats in Egypt .

T thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Nov 27, 2012 18:17:15
Replying to GLADMAN

Do you think their presence on the Pulumon massif is significant? After all, both Hafren and Wye have their sources there and both must surely have been viewed as enormously important rivers (for food, water, transport, maybe territorial boundaries) during the BA.