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Trethevy Quoit
Re: Trevethy Quoit
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Mr Hamhead wrote:
I have been reading all the recent posts with interest. It's always interesting to hear new ideas about things that I feel are so old there is no way we can or will ever know what there original use was.

With Trevethy I am sure I have posted by thoughts on it before somewhere. I feel it was a tomb, it was covered and all the stones are still in their original position. I believe that the western stone collapsed when the cap stone was being pulled into place.

As for the hole...it is not modern..but neither is it natural. If it had been caused by erosion then you would expect there to be a large eroded basin on the top surface surrounding the hole. I found a hole in a rock on top of Bearah Tor recently which had been formed after the rock basin had eroded right through the granite. By the way, the sun also shone through this hole and it's light on the rocks below caused shadows to move.

Knights etching of 1845 shows the Quoit as it is now...all be it surrounded by midget sheep!. I think that if it had been re-erected it would have been done by the Victorians..which it wasn't.

I am no scholar of ancient text but to say that a shape seen on one of the stones is slighty similar to the Sumarian 60 is pretty thin evidence is it not. We are not exactly talking complex rock art here are we?

The two stones I first pointed out near Tremar about six years ago it seems are modern. The new photos show drill marks which only started being used after 1800. The theory that the two stones might have been one and then cut in half I am not sure about. With all the other stones lying around, why cut one into two bits. I think it more likely that the stones have been placed there in the last 200 years.

My last thoughts....If the quoit is not a tomb and if it is a structure used for sun or moon alignments then which era are we looking at? We think of it as Neolithic because that is when the portal dolmens are said to have been used. Surely to work out alignments we need to know the date as things have changed? I don't know much about this topic but from research I have done on other alignments on Bodmin Moor I know that sun rises/settings have changed over the years

As I always say to people I talk to about any prehistoric site....I can only give them ideas about what the site was used for....they may have other ideas.....we will, i believe, never know the truth.


Hi Mr H, good to see you back again.
Nicholas Thomas (Guide to Prehistoric England) says that 'This tomb was originally enclosed by an oval mound measuring 130ft x 60ft but has now almost disappeared'. No mention of it being completely covered but other authors agree with you. I haven't got a clue!
I guess we'll never know the truth about the 'fallen' stone, but if, as you say, you believe it fell when the capstone was being pulled into place, then it couldn't really carry out its function as a tomb after that could it other than in a restricted way seeing that the chamber was restricted in size.
Now if the western closure stone was originally in place so that the capstone was higher, why was it then that the side stones on the northern flank are cut at the angle they are now? Do you think they were put in place afterwards? That would make sense to me, but not for the adjacent one to the back side stone as it is cut at virtually the same angle and looks out of place where it stands having a huge gap above it. I have absolutely no proof for this but it looks to me like it should be opposite the rear sloping stone where they would match up perfectly. Hmmm.
And i concur, the capstone hole doesn't look natural to me either.

Looking forward to meeting up with you in May


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Posted by Sanctuary
20th April 2011ce
23:04

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Re: Trevethy Quoit (Mr Hamhead)

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