Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Mick Harper » 3:07 pm

Land/water caves are definitely Megalithic and follow the pattern of land/water tidal islands (and by the fact that we haven't fathomed their purposes yet). You might wish to look at the caves associated with, for instance, Worm's Head, Tintagel and Brecqhou (Sark).
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 11:00 pm

Caves and underground chambers seem to have had a special role as sacred birthing places, especially around the summer and winter solstices.

The same seems to have been true in Old Testament times in Egypt and Israel, along with stone circles, in the Enochian tradition (not the same as all Jewish traditions)
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby hvered » 9:27 am

Seems unlikely, unless by sacred you mean secret. Most women prefer to give birth in safety, childbirth being a risky business. However one can imagine women whose waters broke while working might prefer a cave to giving birth in the open. Most underground caves, particularly in Britain, appear to be cold and damp, not at all suitable for the job,

It was common practice of course to bury money, valuables, food (Pepys' cheese is well known, but only because he wrote about it) for secrecy/safety.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 9:36 pm

Unlikely? Yes.

Perhaps I should say sacred and secret, like the legends of Newgrange being used as a sacred place of death, birth and resurrection. It wouldn't be the likes of peasants like us that would be allowed in there, this really would be a case of high-caste priests and rituals (stop me if I start to sound like an ortho-archaeo)
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby hvered » 10:34 pm

Newgrange is too conspicuous to be secret. No reason to suppose it was a sacred site is there?

I like the idea of sacred being synonymous with secret. All that stuff going on behind the reredos screen.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 10:45 pm

Have you tried getting into Stonehenge recently? You can look (from afar) but you can't touch.

IIRC, our very own Jon portrayed this quite nicely in his book?
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 8:02 pm

Rocky wrote: ... the Lambton Worm, a well-known legend in the north-east. The baby Worm is put in a well by the Lambton son and heir (called Jack of course!) and in due course poisons the water. Meanwhile Jack goes off for a mystical seven-year period on crusade to the Holy Land where he gained enough know-how to kill the worm, by now a full-size dragon.


The Lambton Worm got a mention on tonight's Antique's Road Show (4th Oct 2015), in the North East. As a rival to the River Wear and the Lambton Worm, there's the River Tees which has the Saltburn Worm. On the show, a local museum keeper was proudly displaying the falchion sword supposedly used by Sir John Conyers to slay the worm. It is still used to welcome each new Bishop of Durham, the museum keepers says the new Bishop has to wade into the river to receive the sword.

Bishops of Durham seem to have a thing for worms, because they used to consecrated new Bishops at Sockburn on Tees, but:
It is said to have been inhabited by a dragon called the Sockburn Worm, which may have inspired Lewis Carroll to write Jabberwocky.

http://englandsnortheast.co.uk/PlaceNam ... sPtoS.html
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Mick Harper » 9:08 pm

It confirms TME's point about the longevity of local families that Lord Lambton was the local worthy and MP until he resigned in a drugs'n'sex scandal in 1973.
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 9:34 pm

Sockburn Hall is a curious place.

Because here, "aet Soccabyrig", in AD780, Higbald was consecrated as the Bishop of Lindisfarne. And here, at a monastery called "Sochasburg", in AD796 bishops Higbald, Ethelbert and Badulf met to consecrate Eanbald as the Archbishop of York. ...It has a spring - perhaps of holy water. And its prized possession is a tumbledown Saxon church, full of wondrous carvings by skilled stonemasons mixing Scandinavian mythology with Christian symbolism - perhaps working as a centre of excellence for the whole Northumbria region. ... For fact, we know that when Aldhun was Bishop of Chester-le-Street between AD990 and AD1018, a chap of Viking descent called Snaculf gave "Socceburg and Grisebi" to St Cuthbert's monks who were settling at Durham and building a cathedral.

About a century later, the monks gave the Sockburn estate to the Conyers family. Why? Of course, it was because Sir John Conyers had slain the dragon which, for seven long years, had laid waste to fields for seven miles around, its voracious appetite only satisfied by a bath in cows' milk or the blood of a pretty young maiden.


Was it a reward, or a pay-off? Now for sale, offers in excess of £500,000

http://www.jackson-stops.co.uk/cgi-bin/ ... opID=59671
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Re: Megalithic manufacturing in Britain

Postby Boreades » 10:07 pm

The monastery called Sochasburg is described as "a very early monastic community" - and the North East of England clung to its version of Christianity longer than many parts of Britain.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/director ... ect&id=716
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