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Rock Music - Rock Art
This is not really a blog, but three links to a trip to the Island of Lolui, in Lake Victoria, Uganda made by an art/music group.
Though I have'nt been to Africa the vibrancy of nature, music and people is something else, and the following two videos on Youtube captures the essence of a particular landscape. Part music, art, stones, sculpture, Neolithic rock art and modern rock art all can be found in both these short videos.
The sculptor Peter Randall Page, takes you through ochre rock paintings and musical rocks, Rocks that are almost the spitting images of Cornish Tors, his final sculptural work spiralling circles on two rocks is, of course, based on what we at the present moment in time think how some of our stone monuments might have been used, with the morning sun lighting up the patterns........
Part one; Eginja Eriyimba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzbQRip5Ms8&feature=related
Part two;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRAt0eccibY&feature=related
and the words to explain it all...
http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2761-Rock-Music-Rock-Art.html...
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Constructing the Past
There is to be another consultation about the 'display' of Stonehenge in time for the Olympics of 2012, at least that is how the government sees it. The archaeologists maybe see it from a different light, and so may the public and various bodies interested in what must happen so they gather together to discuss the possible options.
What is landscape? hills, mountains, downs, rivers and streams, what do we do with it? we farm it, build towns and roads in it, walk in it, take visual pleasure in its beauty.
What is a prehistoric landscape? now that of course is a difficult question, the land would not have been so manicured as it is today, its rough edges and bumps would be on show, trees would not follow a straight hedgeline or field boundary, they would be dotted around savannah type, the grass would not have that unnatural green colour we see today, but would be full of summer flowers, yellowing to that bleached looked wild grasses have.... stones would lie scattered around the surface and no metallic roads with their load of cars and lorries would be seen, only narrow brown trackways.
So Stonehenge has a long way to go before it even begins to vaguely look like a prehistoric landscape.
It is of course a vast necropolis with great barrow cemeteries stretching across its plains, the stones themselves the great altar to which the dead might have been brought, also the scene of ritual ceremonies that gathered round the natural cycles of the year.
Cursuses, ceremonial roads leading from the river, all part of the drama of a vibrant landscape, so how do we get from this scene to the one that faces us at Stonehenge at the moment..
Probably impossible, the focus is always on the lintelled stones, imprisoned in wire, with an artificial surface to traipse round, this is not the way to present such a monument, though footfall dictates otherwise of course. A 'temporary' reception area and the car park so closely juxtapositioned with the stones may be removed in the future, and modern day trappings removed.
Perhaps the answer lies in opening out the landscape, allowing the barrows to tell their own stories, small winding trackways, removal of straight lines, whether they be trees, fence lines or hedges, they just did'nt happen in prehistory. Such a lot is lost with the trunk road that drives it miserable way through the whole scene, that it seems an almost impossible task, but a modern tunnel would not have helped, perhaps the best that can be done for Stonehenge is to keep the stones intact and to allow future events to dictate its place in history.
Temporary measures could screen the road, but the greatest problem that Stonehenge faces is of course that it is a 'tourist honeypot' sold by one and all as the greatest treasure of prehistoric fame this country has. This is its downfall, the narrowed vision of ignorance and imagination that sells the stones without its place in a prehistoric landscape, it fails because of lack of education, that somehow thousands of years ago, a group of people very different to us once lived and occupied this land.
Perhaps in the end all we can do is reconstruct this landscape, make it visually aware to the modern eye that villages such as the one at Durrington Walls had houses, crafts, a living existence that related to the temple of Stonehenge, we have obscured this fact with the arrival of modern day pagan assemblies, coach parties, solstice parties, look at any reconstructed iron age house such as the one at Barbury, and we see today's artists replicating the past quite happily...
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/2617/barbury_castle.html
So instruction and education maybe - through the visual presence of the past, the same could of course also be said of Avebury.
Keiller re-erected some of the fallen stones in his day, much more lies hidden, the great fallen stone that lies near the entrance to the lane up to the Ridgeway would be a start, but that is another argument, but until we show the public what there real heritage is and was, interest in it will only be superficial, a day out amongst the fields of Avebury and Stonehenge will be a pleasure, adding the 'feel of place' so much more.
Links to this post
http://www.gallica.co.uk/butser/peter.htm - Dr. Peter Reynolds
http://www.gallica.co.uk/butser/
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Work on Silbury is finished
The following written a few days ago was my response to the final completion of work done to Silbury Mound by Skanska, who did a difficult job in rather dangerous conditions, and of course to English Heritage who over saw and financed the work done.
" bruised and battered and looking slightly the worse for wear Silbury is repaired" Those were my words a brief summary of what I saw from the following English Heritage link.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Silbury_Hill_web_update_32.pdf
Yet following the repair work of Silbury has been far from easy, the monthly photos of the tunnel that had collapsed, the steel girders used to shore up the tunnel, the rubbish that came out of the mound,.......... a long litany of abuse to a fabulous monument. My anger against Atkinson, who, all those years ago, excavated and dug into the mound. His arrogant attitude as he scarred the mound once more, leaving a visible sign in the form of a dated lintel in the style 'kilroy was here' that anger has never abated, he, as an archaeologist should have known better!
Sometimes we talk of knives in hearts, Silbury had a tunnel thrust through its heart, what has been revealed? not much is my answer, no golden pot, no burial, all I saw in those months of repair was a neolithic mound decimated by past antiquarians and an archaeologist who had put his own glory foremost neither of which had little to do with a respect for the past or even for the spiritual nature of the mound.
Public relations and media hype went terribly wrong for English Heritage, as the chalk slipped and slithered behind the shored up tunnel as the good, and the wise stood yellow-hatted amongst the dust, greater holes revealed themselves, the great pit at the top slumped further down. Silbury had turned in on itself, almost a death wish.
Well it is finished, its sides battle scarred, the top will be artifically smoother no doubt, the bare patches reseeded and people will come to gaze. The new pagans will hold their ceremonies, not quite sure what it is they are celebrating but willing to play the game of ritual and belief in a secular age that has gone horribly wrong....
And I shall remember the Silbury I saw all those years ago, quiet and forgotten sitting in a landscape devoid of the hustle and bustle of the inquisitive tourist, a crowning glory, a manmade hill shocking you into awareness of a prehistoric past that existed thousands of years ago.
So also I have learnt to defend it, as others have, with our words and our passion for a world long gone and neglected. My admiration goes out to those few who so bravely on Heritage Action learnt to defend what they believed in, they encountered abuse and criticism along the way, and occasionally retired somewhat shellshocked by vindictive onslaughts but they stayed the course, and I believe they made a small difference.
What did come from the Atkinson dig though was the revelation of all the indigenous wild plants that were found in the primary mound, an invaluable prehistoric record of the landscape at that time. These fragmentary remains of seeds were recorded in a report in A.Writtle's book "Sacred Mounds, Holy Rings".
Some archaeologists would argue that the Bronze age people revered the land so much that they would bring offerings of the earth around them to a place of sanctity, such as a barrow, or the foundations of a new settlement if this is so then perhaps this is the only 'treasure' that Silbury has to reveal.
I suspect that there is a huge sigh of relief felt by everyone that the work is finished, Silbury can rest in peace once more - the largest manmade monument in Europe - has been repaired and conserved for the future.
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/65185/images/silbury_hill.html
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