Re: Calling Cian :Knowth | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

tiompan Apr 9, 2008 07:38:33

Replying to CianMcLiam

Thanks for taking the time Ken , judging by the title of the talk K15 was going to be central , it’s hard to believe that he hadn’t had a look in the field or some good pics but to be taken in by Thomas’ drawing of K15 seems a bit remiss , at least he had the bottle to back down .BTW K15 has a few incisions , not on the drawing either , plough scars are a bit unlikely considering it’s situation . Possible defacement ?
It looks like he was covering old ground Kintraw is a bit of a cause celebre in archaeoastronomy .Thom proposed that the winter solstice sun would set in a notch formed by the Paps of Jura You can’t see the notch due to an intervening ridge so a higher observation point was suggested with the stone as foresight but this means crossing a deep gorge and finding a spot on the other side , a ledge was discovered by Thom’s Granddaughter and this later excavated by Mackie .No evidence of human activity was discovered but Mackie claimed it was man made .
Dougie Scott surveyed the site in 2003 and showed that if the intervening ridge was treeless , looking from ledge the notch would just be visible but the sun wouldn’t have set in the notch he comments “As much as I admired Prof. Thom, it looks as if he projected his winter solstice concept onto the landscape without testing it by observation. By doing so he created a myth, which many people still believe today.” The Bush Barrow lozenge fits in nicely with the Lozenges at the Bru but the astro claims from Thom and North seem unlikely and could never be proved either way . Ruggles and Gordon Barclay have taken Mackie to task in various entertaining papers in Antiquity . What is sad is that all of Thom's good work doesn't get mentioned due to the emphasis on the wild speculation .

beatles Apr 10, 2008 13:01:55

Replying to tiompan

this thread is very interesting.
in arizona on the hopi reservation, the tribe sets its yearly events (quarterly and half-way days) by watching the sunrises in the notches of a line of hills about 50 miles away.
the hopi have a society of sun priests. one old man spends the entire day sitting on a rooftop and watching the sun. all the sunrise observations are made from a single point. this point is in the village of old orabi. this is the oldest constantly inhabited town in north america. no outsider ,native or european, is ever allowed to spend the night in old orabi so no outsider has ever been there for the sunrise observation.
these yearly observations mark the equinoxes and solstices and the points half way between.... the planting and harvest are set by these observations as well as certain ceremonies.
when the midwinter night occurs, the men gather in the kiva and pray the sun back towards summer. when they exit the kiva at dawn they see that the sun is rising slightly north of its southernmost point. their line of sight is over 50 miles long. they have done this ceremony and observation for perhaps 5,000 years.

CianMcLiam Apr 14, 2008 21:57:29

Replying to tiompan

To give McKie proper credit he did give Thom (& son) their due several times during the talk but didn't gloss over the more glaring errors, as far as it went with the material he was presenting.

There was a bit of wry humour at the end, his last slide was the obligatory 'Chimp Slapping Own Face' photo with a caption that read something like 'bang goes a promising career in archaeology!'.