Walkie Talkies

[hvered]

Anyone who has been out walking or read about someone who's been out walking and comes across signs of Megalithic activity is welcome to post their thoughts. If interesting enough, the walk will be added to the Megalithic Walks section. Routes don't have to be in the British Isles.

Some people seem convinced that the oldest megaliths are in Brittany, closely followed by the Channel Islands. Since stones can't be dated, such claims are presumably made in order to support a particular theory. There are several theories doing the rounds, I've read that the oldest megaliths are in north Africa but again I wonder how they know this.

I've also read claims that megaliths are mainly sited along coasts and rivers... though no-one knows how many there used to be; several megalithic sites have disappeared, judging by the descriptions of relatively modern antiquarians like Camden, Stukeley et al. Keep your eyes peeled if you go on a walk!

[Boreades]

There are lots of walks here, near Avebury!

Re the oldest megaliths:
I guess there's a kind of Megalithic League game amongst Traditional Archaelogists. "My" henge is older than "your" henge (yah boo, peer reviewed, etc). At one time the game was played by lifting up one or other megalithic stones, grubbing around for some organic material still under the stone, and radiocarbon dating whatever you could find. What spoilt that game was the realisation that Megalithic Engineers often moved the stones to improve/repair the original engineering, so you're never sure it really is The One True Original position or one that came later.

Another "confuser" is the anthropological "consensus theories" e.g. if we are all Out Of Africa, then so must everything else be. I've no problem with Africa as an origin, millions of years back, but I don't see it as a one-way street. Migration and trade flowed (and flows) in all kinds of directions.

It's very true several megalthic sites have disappeared. I'm not sure which is worse, the "Christian Fundamentalist" vicars in the 17th & 18th Centuries (encouraging their flock to destroy the Pagan Relics in their parish) or our own generations, bulldozing roads through them with not even any awareness of the history.

Even so, we can still find these relics and enjoy the thread that joins us to the original creators.

[hvered]

I was quite disappointed in the walking around Avebury, after leaving the beaten track i.e. the Ridgeway. ('course I immediately got disorientated and, as usual, there was no-one around)

Moving stones really messes things up! I've just watched a presenter explaining how the Swiss shifted an entire building a few feet away rather than demolish it when a station was being enlarged. It's "only" a factory, not particularly attractive or unusual one would think, but clearly it matters to the natives. (In contrast, on a spectacularly beautiful lake trip, the local lads preferred playing cards rather than admiring the scenery). This is presumably why megaliths have been mistreated -- but English Heritage may inadvertently be partly to blame, fencing off the really popular sites.

The roads that go through the middle of stone circles, cairns and so on, are they simply following the course of much older roads I wonder?

P.S. I also wonder how archaeologists can tell if wood henges are earlier or later than stone henges, just because an object hasn't survived doesn't necessarily mean it predates the remaining one.

[Boreades]

Ah, English Heritage. Please, no, not English Heritage .......

[hvered]

I imagine English Heritage to be a sort of oversized local council which slightly depresses me. Have you had dealings with EH or any other heritage outfit?

[hvered]

When I was looking into the history of Studland on the Isle of Purbeck I came across a reference to the Rt. Hon. Charles Rothschild who single-handedly it seems started the British Conservation Movement in 1912 and it took only three years to boot in contrast to local councils. He appears to have been interested in unusual animal species which reminded me that without quite knowing why the Rothschilds were portrayed as a Megalithic family in TME.

P.S. Unrelated but not entirely without interest is kybosh which I had to look up cos I wasn't sure of the spelling, only to find there are various accepted spellings (bless Wiki) and furthermore:

Etymology
Unknown. Possibilities include:
From the Irish caidhp bháis, meaning death cap (the hood put on someone before they were hanged to death, or the "Black cap" worn by English judges when pronouncing the death sentence).
From the Scots kye booties, meaning cow boots (the hobble put on cattle to prevent them from straying).
(Can we verify this etymology?) From the Hebrew כבש, (kbsh) meaning conquer or tread down.
(Can we verify this etymology?) From the Hebrew חבש, (khbsh) meaning to bind or to imprison.
(Can we verify this etymology?) Some connection with Turkish bosh meaning empty.

Do the Irish put 'booties' on their cows? I've heard of geese on their long market-bound journeys having booties and presumably horse-shoes could be called booties.

But, rambling onwards, cabeza in Spanish means 'head' and is supposed to derive from Latin capetia or something (as does 'cabbage'!) so the reference to 'death cap' prior to execution is intriguing. The mention of hobbling/ binding cattle and hoods in the same context is quintessentially Megalithic I'd 'a thought.

[Jacqui]

With humans binding heads and feet is or was practised, quite anciently too according to archaeologists' finds. Is Japan the only society to go in for foot binding?

In Ireland cows, milch cows especially, are prized possessions so it can be assumed they received plenty of TLC. Cows feature in Irish folklore and in connection with the 'Megalithic' colours of red-and-white e.g.

The colour combination most frequently mentioned in the sagas and hagiographies is that of the white cow with red ears. These beasts are always associated with Otherworldly events. Examples from mythology include those from the Táin Bó Cúalnge – the Cattle Raid of Cooley – when the Morrigan attacked Cú Chulainn in the guise of a white red-eared heifer, and from the Wooing of Étaín, when Midir, an Otherworld person, included fifty white red-eared cows in his stake during a game of chess. These mystical animals also appear in the Lives of the saints. Saint Brigid, as an infant, vomited all unclean food, but the problem was solved when her druid father provided milk from a white red-eared cow. In another story, a pious man’s calf was eaten by a wolf but Saint Finian ordered the wolf to fetch a calf to replace the one it had eaten. The wolf reappeared with a white red-eared calf.

The reference to "unclean food" has resonances of Semitic culture but presumably 'bad' food was a preoccupation of people everywhere.

[hvered]

Etymology
Unknown. Possibilities include:
From the Irish caidhp bháis, meaning death cap (the hood put on someone before they were hanged to death, or the "Black cap" worn by English judges when pronouncing the death sentence).
From the Scots kye booties, meaning cow boots (the hobble put on cattle to prevent them from straying).
(Can we verify this etymology?) From the Hebrew כבש, (kbsh) meaning conquer or tread down.
(Can we verify this etymology?) From the Hebrew חבש, (khbsh) meaning to bind or to imprison.
(Can we verify this etymology?) Some connection with Turkish bosh meaning empty.

Cow boots remind me of the rather strange legend of Hermes stealing his brother's cattle, when he avoided being tracked by disguising their hoofprints.

[hvered]

With humans binding heads and feet is or was practised, quite anciently too according to archaeologists' finds.

The presenter of the Dark Ages programme on TV says the Huns practised head binding. Their elongated skulls are highly unusual but very similar to misshapen Peruvian skulls found by archaeologists (some people are convinced the aliens were here).

As far as Europeans were concerned the Huns came from somewhere far away, probably from the east, as they couldn't have crossed from the west now could they? It may be that Huns were in contact with the Peruvians via the Phoenicians, who seem to have got everywhere including Central America. It seems odd that these two peoples, on opposite sides of the Pacific, nevertheless had the same striking custom.

[Boreades]

With humans binding heads and feet is or was practised, quite anciently too according to archaeologists' finds.

The presenter of the Dark Ages programme on TV says the Huns practised head binding. Their elongated skulls are highly unusual but very similar to misshapen Peruvian skulls found by archaeologists (some people are convinced the aliens were here).

As far as Europeans were concerned the Huns came from somewhere far away, probably from the east, as they couldn't have crossed from the west now could they? It may be that Huns were in contact with the Peruvians via the Phoenicians, who seem to have got everywhere including Central America. It seems odd that these two peoples, on opposite sides of the Pacific, nevertheless had the same striking custom.

Was this done in Egypt as well?