Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby Martin » 3:02 pm

hvered wrote:There are three tidal pools all at Margate and quite close, though one is now disused. They are opposite Nayland Rock, Fulsam Rock and Walpole Rocks, it may be they were formerly sites for a lighthouse or beacon.

The chalk hill of Cliftonwille at Margate has a cave complex, the shell grotto too may have been connected with a mining operation. The tidal pools could be accidental features, pits originally part of the mining operation that filled up with water after sea levels rose.

This seems to be true for Gotland which has several lakes. I have no idea what Gotland was producing/trading/manufacturing but it was important to a lot of people (pirates, Teutonic Knights, Hanseatic League) at various times. Faro island, separated from Gotland by a narrow strait, is known for its rauks or sea-stacs.
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby Boreades » 3:10 pm

Iona wrote:Sixths are easier to work with than sevenths, interestingly, toll houses were most commonly hexagonal. The assumption seems to be this was so all directions were visible though a round house would probably have been better suited for that purpose.

Nature may prefer sixths to sevenths. Aren't sea stacs often hexagonal.

The Cathedral Rocks, Great Blasket island -- the most westerly point of Ireland just off the mainland (blasket was also written brasket, seems to be connected with 'break-water')


Giant's Causeway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant%27s_Causeway
Fingle's Cave: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingal%27s_Cave
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby Donna » 3:23 pm

Martin wrote:This seems to be true for Gotland which has several lakes. I have no idea what Gotland was producing/trading/manufacturing but it was important to a lot of people (pirates, Teutonic Knights, Hanseatic League) at various times. Faro island, separated from Gotland by a narrow strait, is known for its rauks or sea-stacs.

Faro indicates lighthouse in French and Spanish anyway, and indeed the island does have a lighthouse, but according to Wiki it suggests 'sheep' to most Swedes

The name "Fårö" (in Gutnish "Faroy") is derived from the words "ö", meaning island, and "får-", which is a word associated with travel like in the Swedish word "färled" (fairway). The word Fårö probably means the island you have to travel to or the traveler's island. Mainland Swedes might misinterpret the name Fårö to be derived from får, the Swedish word for sheep, due to the many sheep on the island. However, the Gutnish word for sheep is "lamm" (similar to the Swedish word "lamm", meaning "lamb").

The port of Faro, the southernmost point of Portugal, looks over the Ria Formosa lagoon, notable for a system of "barrier reefs" or islets. The sandbanks protected Faro from the worst effects of the Lisbon earthquake. Not sure if these are/were sea-stacs.

Image
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby hvered » 3:51 pm

Iona wrote:The Cathedral Rocks, Great Blasket island -- the most westerly point of Ireland just off the mainland (blasket was also written brasket, seems to be connected with 'break-water')

Though uninhabited now the Blaskets have stone circles and other evidence of ancient settlement. A rock pool built at the island's narrowest end disturbed one of these sites according to a book I'm reading, Celtic Gold (about a man circumnavigating Ireland). He says you can see Skellig Michael from the Great Blasket, Irish mists permitting presumably.
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby hvered » 11:02 am

Iona wrote:Sixths are easier to work with than sevenths, interestingly, toll houses were most commonly hexagonal. The assumption seems to be this was so all directions were visible though a round house would probably have been better suited for that purpose.

Nature may prefer sixths to sevenths. Aren't sea stacs often hexagonal.

Has anyone come across the Saros Cycle, discussed on the Megalithic Portal? It appears to be a Chaldean 'invention' using the Babylonian numerical system based on 6. According to Wiki, the word "sar" refers to measurement rather than "ruler" or "star"The Sumerian/Babylonian word "šár" was one of the ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement and as a number appears to have had a value of 3600.

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php ... 4027#41720

The 18.6 year cycle corresponds with lunar cycles and Druidic training periods. Rather than predicting lunar eclipses, the suggestion is that tidal charts were a more practical concern. Observation platforms along the coast, preferably intervisible, would be very useful in this context. We've always obsessed about weather and shipping forecasts.
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby Malmaison » 6:28 pm

Malmaison wrote:Margate is on the Isle of Thanet though it's now part of the mainland, the north-east coast of Kent.

The name 'Thanet' is corruption of the Celtic teine-arth "high fire", suggesting that there may have been a lighthouse or beacon on the island.

I'm not sure where "high fire" comes from, teine-arth could just as easily refer to tin transport.

There is a lot of disagreement over the route of the so-called Pilgrims' Way but scholars appear to be slowly coming round to the idea that it crossed southern England from Cornwall to the Isle of Thanet. Tin from Cornwall would surely have been imported into south-east England from where it could be traded with northern France and the Continent.
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby Boreades » 8:16 pm

Malmaison wrote: Tin from Cornwall would surely have been imported into south-east England from where it could be traded with northern France and the Continent.


Maybe but the proportion and volume depended on the era. Pre-Roman, most trade was by sea, from Cornwall, Devon & Dorset. It was only after the Romans took control the trade shifted towards land routes across to places like Kent. After the Romans departed, trade shifted back towards sea routes.
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby hvered » 1:11 pm

Interesting about the Pilgrims' Way, which connects two famous sets of Megalithic hotspots, the Medway megaliths and Salisbury Plain.

There is an idea nagging away that the trackway possibly traces the line of ice (which suggests the megaliths may be erratics), making it an older route than even Hilaire Belloc and others have claimed.
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby Royston » 4:06 pm

The Pilgrims' Way is a relatively recent moniker, it designates the stretch between Winchester and Canterbury on the Harrow Way. The route started in Cornwall and led to Canterbury, both by land and sea.

Remember, Canterbury was a port, the River Stour opened onto the Wantsum Channel, a navigable sea lane.
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Re: Sea Stacs : what are they and why are they?

Postby Martin » 4:21 pm

Canterbury has choughs on its coat of arms which is interesting as they are always associated with Cornwall. One explanation for the anomaly is that 'beckit' means chough but there is no evidence for this.

Choughs are only found on the west coast; it may be that travellers from Cornwall bringing tin used choughs and some birds remained in Canterbury.
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